Linux turned 35 in 2026, and Open Source Summit Europe in Prague made sure nobody forgot it. Between the sovereignty keynotes and the AI sessions, the Linux Foundation ran a thread of celebration through all three days. This is the lighter side of my week as a media partner, and a reminder of why the community part of these events matters.
Tux opens the show
The first keynote morning in the Congress Hall started with a birthday Tux on the big screen.
The Linux Foundation’s schedule announcement put the scale in one line: Linux is more than 40 million lines of code, and this was its 35th year. Jim Zemlin’s line from the same announcement was the theme of the week: “The world’s most important technology is built in the open.”
The Congress Hall seats a lot of people, and it was full for the opening keynotes.
The Tux group photo
On Wednesday afternoon a crowd gathered in front of the Linux 35 wall for a group photo. It is the kind of moment that does not show up in any session recording, and it is the reason people fly to Prague instead of watching on YouTube.
Casino night at Žofín Palace
The attendee reception on Wednesday evening was held at Žofín Palace, the 19th-century palace on Slovanský Island in the Vltava. The Linux Foundation’s invitation promised a casino theme to celebrate 35 years of Linux, with casino games, a scavenger hunt, Czech food and signature drinks, “whether you’re dressed to the nines or repping your favorite Linux t-shirt”. I went with the t-shirt.
The ballroom, with its chandeliers and painted ceiling, is a long way from a server room. The casino chips were custom: Tux in a party hat on every chip, under the words “35 years of Linux”.
A toast with Marcin Czupryniak, the camera behind Udienza in Prague, under the Žofín chandeliers.
There were roulette tables, a long Czech buffet with roast ham, and, at the entrance, a classic blue Jaguar E-Type that half the attendees used as a photo backdrop.
I spent most of the evening doing what receptions are for: following up on conversations from the show floor, meeting people I had only known from mailing lists, and planning the next two days of Udienza interviews. A lot of the people I met in Prague were first met here, with a plate of ham in one hand.
Linus Torvalds in conversation with Dirk Hohndel
The anniversary was officially closed on Friday morning with the keynote everyone had marked in their calendar: Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux and Git, in conversation with Dirk Hohndel, Head of Ericsson Software Technology. They have done this fireside format at Open Source Summits for years, and it is always one of the most anticipated slots of the week. The published session description promised a conversation about vendor-neutral collaboration, developer knowledge sharing and the technology driving the open source ecosystem.
I had asked the Linux Foundation for ten minutes with Linus for Udienza. The answer was polite and realistic: Linus receives countless interview requests, especially when he is onsite, and chooses for himself which ones to accept. Maybe for the 40th.
Why the celebration matters
It is easy to be cynical about conference parties. But 35 years of Linux is a story about people who decided to share the core and compete on top. The Open Source at a Crossroads keynote made exactly that point about governments and sovereignty. The State of Open Source in Europe report showed that Europe writes about 44% of the kernel’s code. A room full of those people, celebrating together, is the community working as designed.
For the full conference picture, start with my Open Source Summit Europe 2026 recap.
