October in Germany is filled with a lot of local Free Software events and KDE
is present at them. Join us first at Berlinux 2005 on Fri October 21 and Sat 22. Then we are off to Dresden for Linux-Info-Tag Dresden 2005 on Sat October 29. Read on for how we'll be helping the users to explore the full range of wonders in KDE.
For KDE users and contributors who aren't Jabber addicts yet, a new public Jabber server is available at kdetalk.net.
For those which don't know Jabber yet, it's an open Instant Messaging protocol. It has some advantage such as being decentralized, more secure, extensible, and last but not least in our free software world, open and developed by an open community.
With over 700 attendees and a speaking track packed full of goodies, the one-day Ohio Linux Fest held this past Saturday in the city of Columbus was an unqualified success. KDE had a booth at the event which was kept exceedingly busy the entire day. Most of the people who visited the booth mentioned that they use KDE and several asked that we pass on their appreciation to the entire KDE team for all the work that they have put into it over the years.
KDE's legal body KDE e.V. held its Annual General Meeting at aKademy 2005 last month. Notes from the meeting are now available. A new board was chosen voting in Cornelius Schumacher and Aaron Seigo, and continuing Mirko Böhm and Eva Brucherseifer. Our thanks to the retiring board members Matthias Kalle Dalheimer and Harri Porten.
The upcoming Open Source Desktop Workshop in San Deigo is fast approaching. Slides are being prepared, tutorials developed and registration is filling up fast. OSNews points to an interview with Aaron Seigo by Wade Olsen about expectations for the upcoming inaugural event.
KDE will be present at the Ohio LinuxFest 2005. Aaron Seigo, KDE developer, will be talking at the conference and KDE will have an exhibit in the .org section of the expo area. The Ohio LinuxFest 2005 is a free conference and event for free software enthusiasts in Columbus, Ohio on October 1, 2005.
The 2005 KDE conference aKademy in Malaga, Spain, ends on Sunday 4th of September. Up to now the conference has been hugely successful with more than 250 visitors. The Users and Administrators Conference and the Developers and Contributors Conference have both concluded, the Coding Marathon is continuing for two more days. A press conference was held this morning and the press release sums up the event so far.
The aKademy 2005 KDE Developers Conference finished yesterday with a second day of talks to prepare for KDE 4. Topics of the day included integration with other programming platforms, marketing KDE and accessibility. In their keynote, David Carson and Deepika Chauhan from Nokia described the challenges involved with porting KHTML to the series 60 platform. Another highlight was Novells desktop migration study.
This year's aKademy saw a whole new innovation: The KDE Appreciation Awards, also known as the "aKademy Awards". Their purpose is to recognize outstanding contribution to the KDE community. The awards are for best application, best contribution to KDE and the Jury's Choice Award. The jury consisted of the well-known KDE hackers Aaron Seigo, Brad Hards, David Faure and Matthias Ettrich. If you want to know who the winners are, read on!