History
BeGeistert originally started as a BeOS conference, playing an important part in its community. For example, developers and representatives of Be Europe and other important contributors attended the conference in the late 1990s. This history is reflected in the conference name, as the use of capitalization in the German word "begeistert" (meaning: "excited") alludes to Be Inc., the developer of the BeOS.
After the bankruptcy of Be Inc. caused the BeOS to be discontinued in the early 2000s, the conference was attended by representatives of the two projects deriving from the BeOS: ZETA, a closed source commercial initiative by yellowTAB based on the source code of an unreleased version of the BeOS, and the Haiku project, an initiative to create an open source operating system that is inspired by and compatible with the latest official release of the BeOS. After yellowTAB's insolvency in 2006, the conference's focus shifted entirely to Haiku. In 2007, feathers similar to those in the Haiku logo were added to the BeGeistert logo to reflect this shift.
The conference is organized and partially funded by the Haiku Support Association e.V., formerly BeFAN e.V., [2] and also supported by Haiku, Inc. Between 2004 and 2006, Haiku, Inc. also organized an official annual Haiku conference in various places in the United States under the name "WalterCon", which was discontinued due to a "lack of community interest" for the 2007 conference. [3]
Editions
In 1998, BeGeistert started as a one-day event, but became a two-day conference since BeGeistert 004, [4] mostly taking place in April and October. As of 2013, the conference is held annually.
Between 2000 and 2008, some conference weekends included coding challenges, [5] which among others resulted in the first localizable version of OpenTracker. Since 2003, it is being organized in the City Youth Hostel in Düsseldorf's Oberkassel neighborhood, except during the youth hostel's reconstruction in 2006. Since 2008, nearly every edition of the conference was either preceded or followed by a coding event, later becoming the Haiku CodeSprint, lasting up to a week. [2]
Each edition of BeGeistert is identified by a three-digit number and a motto that often refers to the current events in the BeOS/Haiku world, such as moving on after the bankruptcy of Be, Inc., or the unveiling of a new (alpha) release of Haiku.
| Edition | Motto | Date | Location | Comments |
|---|
| BeGeistert 001 | – | December 12, 1998 | Düsseldorf | - |
| BeGeistert 002 | – | April 25, 1999 | - |
| BeGeistert 003 | "BeOS on Your Doorstep" | October 9, 1999 | Frankfurt | Collocated with the BeDC [6] |
| BeGeistert 004 | "Do It Yourself" | April 15–16, 2000 [4] | Düsseldorf-Eller | – |
| BeGeistert 005 | "Arena" | October 7–8, 2000 [5] | – |
| BeGeistert 006 | "Ghost in the Machine" | April 21–22, 2001 [4] | – |
| BeGeistert 007 | "License to Code" | October 19–21, 2001 | – |
| BeGeistert 008 | "The Road Ahead" | April 5–7, 2002 | – |
| BeGeistert 009 | "Step By Step" | October 19–20, 2002 | – |
| BeGeistert 010 | "Brave New World" | April 26–27, 2003 | Düsseldorf | – |
| BeGeistert 011 | "NeXTSteps" | October 18–19, 2003 | – |
| BeGeistert 012 | "Dirty Dozen" | April 17–18, 2004 | – |
| BeGeistert 013 | "(Un)Lucky numbers" | October 16–17, 2004 | – |
| BeGeistert 014 | "Dinner for one" | April 2–3, 2005 | – |
| BeGeistert 015 | "The 15th Commandment" | October 8–9, 2005 | – |
| BeGeistert 016 | "Ich bin ein Berliner" | May 20–21, 2006 | Berlin-Wannsee | – |
| BeGeistert 017 | "Marco Polo" | December 9–10, 2006 | Milan | – |
| BeGeistert 018 | "Phoenix" | January 12–13, 2008 | Düsseldorf | Coding event prior |
| BeGeistert 019 | "Alphaville" | October 11-12, 2008 | Coding event |
| BeGeistert 020 | "Twenty Things to Do Before…" | April 4–5, 2009 | Coding event afterwards |
| BeGeistert 021 | "21st Century OS" | October 17–18, 2009 | Coding event afterwards |
| BeGeistert 022 | "Return of the Cola-Coder" | April 10–11, 2010 | Coding event & tutorial day afterwards |
| BeGeistert 023 | "Prime Time" | October 23–24, 2010 | Coding event prior |
| BeGeistert 024 | "Black Bird" | October 29–30, 2011 | Coding event |
| BeGeistert 025 | "Silver" | March 30 – April 1, 2012 | No coding event |
| BeGeistert 026 | "Marathon" | November 3–4, 2012 | Coding event |
| BeGeistert 027 | "TBC (To Be Continued)" | September 14–15, 2013 | Coding event afterwards |
| BeGeistert 028 | "Full Metal Package" | October 25–26, 2014 |
| BeGeistert 029 | "To Be Announced..." | November 7–8, 2015 |
| BeGeistert 030 | – | October 29–30, 2016 |
| BeGeistert 031 | "The Dirty One" | November 1–4, 2018 | Hamburg | – |
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