MINIXCon 2016 Announcement

MINIX has been around now for about 30 years so it is (finally) time for the MINIXers to have a conference to get together, just as Linuxers and BSDers have been doing for a long time. The idea is to exchange ideas and experiences among MINIX 3 developers and users as well as discussing possible paths forward now that the ERC funding is over. Future developments will now be done like in any other volunteer-based open-source project. Increasing community involvement is a key issue here.

Date, Time, and Location

Monday, 1 February 2016 from 09:00 to 18:00 in the Auditorium (not the Aula) of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam (about 4 km southwest of Central Station). When you enter the main (15-story) building through the revolving doors, go up the stairs. Turn left, walk 20m, and go up the short flight of stairs. Turn left again and walk about 20m. The Auditorium is on your left.

Giving a Talk

The call for presentations is closed. Here is the conference program.

Registration

To attend the conference, you need to register here. The early registration fee is 50 euro (30 euro for students) for registrations before

1 Jan. 2016. This includes morning and afternoon coffee breaks, and lunch. The (typical Dutch) lunch of "broodjes" (rolls with some filling) will include food for vegetarians.

Transportation

You can fly to Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport from 225 destinations in Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. However, if you are coming from somewhere in Europe within 400 km of Amsterdam, the train is probably faster and more convenient. The university is within walking distance of the Amsterdam Zuid train station. From Central Station, you can take either Metro #51 or tram #5.

If you are planning to attend FOSDEM 2016 in Brussels on 30-31 January 2016, we strongly suggest that you take the train from Brussels. There are many trains each day, some of which require advance reservations. The trip takes about 2-3 hours, depending on the train. So you can attend FOSDEM, take the train to Amsterdam Sunday evening, and be here Monday morning.

Hotels

Amsterdam has over 1000 hotels in every price category. Tripadvisor.com has ratings of nearly all of them. Traffic is Amsterdam is notorious and there is no free parking anywhere near the VU, so it is not recommended driving to the campus. The campus is served by Metro #51, tram #5, and bus #62, so you should look for a hotel close to the route of one of these.

The hotel that is physically closest to the campus (about an 18-minute walk or 2 stops on the #5 or #51) is the Holiday Inn Express. However, the Holiday Inn is not centrally located. Another hotel that is 3 stops from the campus on the #5 tram is the CitizenM, but this is not in the center of the city either. If you plan to stay on after the conference for some sightseeing, a hotel near the Museumplein might be better. The #5 tram leaves the Museumplein every 10 minutes and takes 10 minutes to get to the VU. Be sure to go towards Amstelveen Westwijk, not towards Centraal Station.

Amsterdam Tourism

While MINIXCon 2016 is undoubtedly the biggest attraction in town, Amsterdam has hundreds of things to do and places to see if you stay on for a few days after the conference. Tripadvisor.com has a list of 399 of them, from world-class museums to boat trips on the canals. Another good tourism site is iamsterdam.com. The weather is often chilly in February, so indoor activities might be high on your list, but if bundled up, just walking around the canal area can be very interesting. If you especially want to visit some museum and don't want to wait on line for a ticket, some museums sell tickets online that allow you to skip the line and go straight in. If you want to venture out to the famous red light district, Tripadvisor.com has over 7000 reviews of it. It is perfectly safe as long as you don't take any photos.

Questions

If you have questions about anything, please mail them to conference@minix3.org

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