[LAU] Happy birthday, LAC! 20 years, and..going? Strong?

Hi all, not posting to any of LA* mailing lists often in the last years, but today I thought I should make an exception to point out that it's now exactly 20 years ago that the first Linux Audio Conference or "LAC" for short (then still called "Linux Audio Developer's Meeting") took place at the ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany. https://lists.linuxaudio.org/hyperkitty/list/linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaud… Wow, 20 years come and gone so quickly! It's great to see a couple of "early adopters" are still around today here, and many new names have entered the scene in the meantime and left/leave a lasting footprint in it. As a quick "trip down memory lane", here's a short list of things that happened back then: - Takashi Iwai dove into the innards of an ALSA driver - Fernando Lopez-Lezcano introduced the PlanetCCRMA distribution, based on Fedora - Steve Harris explained the concept of a Bode frequency shifter as a LADSPA plugin - Paul Davis held the keynote, AND spoke about JACK, AND shared his experience of writing a DAW that is at the forefront of free, open-source and cross-platform DAWs today. - Dave Philipps looked at the historic development of Linux audio, from OSS to ALSA and beyond - Jörn Nettingsmeier managed to get the audio part of the presentations both recorded AND live-streamed at a time when "streaming" was still a term unknown to most of us. - The term "Linux Sound Night" already existed, but was..perhaps not as musical yet as you might have expected :-). - And, we also learned that schedules are not easy to keep - I believe after the first day we ran some >2 hours late, and people begin to STARVE. - Posing in front of the ZKM "Kubus": https://linuxaudio.de/LAC2003_Posse.jpg For some more memories, see also http://lac.linuxaudio.org/2003/zkm/ Of course, on the downside it has to be noted that Corona has impacted us too - after an almost perfect track record of conferences or mini-conferences every year, 2021 and 2022 didn't see any event happening. There is a certain risk now that it won't recover, but that's in our hands to change (sidenote: I have talked to my contacts at ZKM here in Karlsruhe in January, but they are unable to finance and/or organize an event of this size at the moment - certainly somewhat influenced by current economics, but I am hearing ZKM has actually reduced their headcount quite a bit, and after the recent passing of its artistic-scientific chairman, Peter Weibel, it will have to be seen how his successor, Alistair Hudson, will steer it into the future). Whatever LAC's future will be, free and open-source audio software is certainly flourishing, and will continue to do so. It just would be soo nice to enjoy the results together with real, tangible people :-\. If anyone sees an option for hosting a future LAC, lac-team(a)lists.linuxaudio.org is willing to listen to proposals you might have (or just discuss it right here). Well, the heck - there is no steering committee or anything in place, so I guess the first one brave enough to say "I think we can do it" will get the job :-). I am forever grateful to all the folks who have enriched and continue to enrich our open-source audio life by writing or presenting software, creating documentation and tutorials, hosting (AND attending) conferences like the LAC, and whatever else helps to keep the penguin dancing! Greetings, Frank