My first computer was running OS/2; I was probably the last one in my class to get one. So as you may already guess I have never used any version of Windows as my regular OS.
My first contact with Linux was buying SuSE 5.1(?). I did not intend to use it; I just wanted to have a look at it because I had heard about it again and again. From an OS/2 perspective that was a "seen, laughed, deleted" experience. Not very attractive to someone who doesn't know what a mount point is (and has noone for asking). I kept on laughing about the Linux desktops for quite a while but because jealous of the process killing capabilities. Then IBM's PowerPC disaster killed OS/2's perspective (maybe just accelerated the inevitable). I switched to Linux at SuSE 7.x and used KDE (SuSE's default desktop.
Later I somehow got in touch with the Berlin Linux User Group (BeLUG) and helped organize the Berlinux 2005, a small Linux fair at the Berlin Institute of Technology (where I was studying management and computer science). Then I lost contact to BeLUG for several years. At that time I started becoming familiar with cryptography (the usage part not the math). For a few years I was very active in a political party and tried to get this party "more interested" in Linux and crypto. Not very successfully as you may have guessed.
Then fate kicked in: I got in contact with someone at BeLUG via Facebook(!)... In autumn 2012 I started giving regular crypto courses at BeLUG. In theory for the general public but IIRC we never had participants from the outside. I created offline mainkeys for my participants. Manually in the console. What a pain (though it didn't really feel like it at that time).
By the end of 2012 I created http://www.openpgp-schulungen.de/ - the first of now several crypto-related web sites by me. This web site should help others to give similar courses (on a high technical level).
Then fate really kicked in: Edward Snowden happened. It took even me several days to recognize the impact of this event. Cryptoparty existed at this point but was a tiny event hardly anyone cared about. Because the Berlin Cryptoparty people did not allow the TV people to shoot at their events, the TV people all came to me... Until then I did not call my courses "Cryptoparty" because I don't like several aspects of the Cryptoparty attitude. In July 2013 BeLUG introduced a weekly crypto course (for OpenPGP and XMPP-OTR) which lasted about a year and has been reduced to an about monthly event afterwards.
I March 2014 I started participating in the regular meetings of Berlin's computer science teachers (twice a year). At the four events in 2014 and 2015 I gave crypto courses there. In November 2014 I started a project (together with the former head of this teacher association) for getting regular crypto courses at schools. Although there were several interested teachers and we met a couple of times this was a complete failure. I consider this very unfortunate because it should be quite easy and very effective to have such (voluntary) courses at schools.
In spring or summer 2013 I created http://www.crypto-fuer-alle.de/. Until today this web site is (to my knowledge) the biggest collection of organizational and technical suggestions for spreading (and improving) crypto. Most of it is in German, though.
In April 2014 I started giving regular crypto courses at Berlin's Free University, mainly for computer science students. With the exception of the first event in a semester (which was part of the introduction events for the new students) we never had a lot of participants. After about a year this activity has heen reduced to one or two events per year.
2014, 2015, and 2016 I was elected to the board of BeLUG. Until 2014 Berlin had Germany's biggest Linux event (LinuxTag) in which BeLUG has been participating more or less from the beginning (in Berlin). After the LinuxTag 2014 several people at BeLUG were of the opinion that this event was not well suited for getting new Linux users. This was not criticism: I am not even sure whether the LinuxTag ever considered this as an important target group. Thus we thought about what kind of event we would like to have as an addition to the LinuxTag. The (probably) first public appearance of this idea was in October 2014 after the LinuxTag had been cancelled for 2015. This was a bit embarrassing for Berlin which made the start of the revolution easier.
On BeLUG's Christmas party 2014 we talked about this with people from Berlin's other big LUG. And on BeLUG's next general meeting (in January 2015) we officially decided to give this a try. At that time not even the name was fixed. This became "Linux Presentation Day" soon after; not very German but we did not want to solve a German problem but a (as we thought) worldwide problem and didn't consider it helpful to use a name which had to be translated.
The basic idea (explained in more detail on the international web site) is
to have lots of quite small (and thus easily and cheaply organized) events so that more or less every group (does not even have to be a registered association) is capable of acting as host
to make so many cities participate in this regular (twice per year) event that we get coverage in the nationwide non-IT media.
There are some nice side effects like we help potential organizers get the necessary resources (people, room, computers) and support them with digital and (free) printed material. Similarly we hel people found new Linux user groups.
This concept really had an impact. We started in May 2015 with 8 locations (limited to Berlin). In November 2015 we had (after many cancellations!) 79 locations in 72 cities in three countries (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, of course). The next event, on April, 30th 2016, will probably have about 100 cities in Germany alone and at least 8 involved European countries (among them the five biggest). Thus I really expect this to become the Linux revolution. We guess that between 1% and 10% of the Windows users is interested in having a look at Linux and can imagine switing to Linux (if it turns out usable). Being mentioned twice per year in nationwide media many more people will hear about Linux and consider having a look at it. I consider it possible that from 2017 or 2018 we may get about 1% of the computer users per year to Linux. 1% does not sound like much and I guess that at least the 1% of Windows users who are most easy for us to get already hate Windows... But 1% means about 500,000 people per year in Germany. I guess BeLUG (with its current resources and organization) can easily help about 100 people per year to install Linux. Compare that to 20,000 per year in Berlin. Thus the expected success may be difficult to handle. Fortunately the adult education centers are very interested in the Linux Presentation Day (and lots of future customers).
Currently I am the only real organizer for the Linux Presentation Day for Berlin (i.e. beyond one location), Germany and Europe. So you can say that this is my own revolution... :-) BTW: We have to wait for the real results but a few hours ago terdon became active (after I pointed out the LPD to him in UL chat) which probably just made Greece the next LPD country.
