Community and Events

Joining the Game at the Desktop Summit

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Jonathan Kolberg

Desktop Summit 2011 continues. On Tuesday, GNOME and KDE had their annual meetings, with KDE e.V. managing to finish in time for lunch. However, many members came back after lunch to continue discussion about challenges and opportunities for KDE in a BoF. Over the past few days, the university has been kept busy with four tracks of BoFs, workshops and meetings - enough to keep most attendees checking their schedules and the building maps.

One particular highlight of the past few days was the Intel AppUp workshop, in which conference attendees who had preregistered for the workshop were able to learn about the AppUp program.

Discussing both, we caught up with Jonathan Kolberg, one of our Individual Supporting Members. We asked him why he decided to Join the Game, what he made of the KDE e.V. meeting and the Desktop Summit as a whole and how he is enjoying playing with the Intel developer tablet.


Toasters and Pants at Day Three of Desktop Summit 2011

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Keynote: How to make a toaster

The third and final 'traditional' conference day began with Mirko Boehm, Claudia Rauch, Stormy Peters, Karen Sandler and Cornelius Schumacher meeting with members of the Berlin City authorities. The city officials wanted to get acquainted with the free and open source leaders involved in the Desktop Summit, because open technology is important to the local government (more below).

Perhaps as a result of the beach party the night before, attendance was slightly reduced at the first round of talks, but picked up quickly. However, there was plenty of interest in the track that included social capabilities in free desktops. And of course, many participants are eagerly awaiting the rest of the week which is filled with meetings, workshops and BoFs.


Keynotes and Sandals - Day Two at Desktop Summit 2011

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Boudewijn Rempt shows off Krita

For the second full day at the Desktop Summit, the organizers played a little trick on us by starting talks at 9:00 a.m. Those who were awake enough after the dinners and chat of the previous night were treated to talks on Calligra (the KDE creativity and productivity suite), suggestions about blending the web and the desktop, color management and the build process for GNOME. Those who were still in bed will have to wait for the videos and slides to be posted online in the next few days.

The hallways and courtyard were again busy with small, lively discussions. As the morning went on the attendance at talks increased noticeably. Sunday was also the day of the press conference, where key figures from GNOME, KDE and the cross-community organizing team met with the press to answer their questions about the event and the future of free software.


KDE Having Fun at Desktop Summit 2011

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Copyright assignment panel

Friday, 10:00, August 5, 2011. A big group of people was standing a bit lost in the cloakroom of the Humboldt University at Unter den Linden, Berlin. They were the volunteers for the Desktop Summit 2011 - but without guidance and leadership, they were just nervously looking around and talking to each other.

But at 11:00, Mirko Boehm came in, gathered everyone together and told them what to do! Tables got moved, tape stuck to floors, posters hung up. From then, things really took off.


Desktop Summit Panel on Copyright Assignment

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Should free and open source projects and companies require developers to sign community agreements in order to contribute, possibly signing over their copyrights? Some do, some don't, others have mixed policy. Canonical is leading an effort, called "Harmony", to create standardized community agreement documents, an effort they compare with the license standardization work of Creative Commons.


Schedule for Workshops and BoFs at the Desktop Summit

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The Desktop Summit is only 2 weeks away. Excitement builds!

The program consists of 3 days of talks, followed by 4 days of workshops and BoFs. In these sessions, Free Desktop contributors and enthusiasts gather face-to-face to discuss and work on current topics.


Social Events at the Desktop Summit

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We are pleased to announce the Desktop Summit social events, bringing even more excitement and fun to the Conference program. The social events vary from sports to parties, and will take place throughout the week in different locations in Berlin. They will provide opportunities for attendees to get together informally while enjoying foods and drinks provided by our sponsors—Intel, Collabora, SUSE, Igalia and corporate partner, c-base.


Intel, Collabora and SUSE to be main sponsors of the Desktop Summit

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We are pleased to announce that the Desktop Summit 2011 in Berlin will be supported by Intel as the Platinum sponsor. The event organizers also welcome Collabora and SUSE as Gold partners, and are delighted with the community spirit of these generous corporate partners. Mirko Boehm, lead organizer of the Desktop Summit, said: "Their support is essential for the Desktop Summit's efforts to bring together Free Software developers from all around the world to work in a collaborative spirit on the next generation desktop technology."


Intel AppUp Workshop at Desktop Summit

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The DesktopSummit 2011 team is pleased to announce the Intel AppUpSM Application Lab: MeeGo Series. The session will take place at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany as part of the Desktop Summit. Intel® is the Platinum Sponsor of the Desktop Summit.

Scheduled from 15:00-18:00 on August 10th, this free, hands-on training aims to show application developers how to distribute and monetize their applications through the Intel AppUp Developer Program and its community.


4.7 Release Celebrations - Think Global, Party Local

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Toulouse, 4.6 Release

Once again, it will soon be time to get together and celebrate KDE's latest Major Releases. Developers, testers and bug chasers have been busy putting the final touches on the latest versions of our software. Soon it will be time to relax and appreciate the results!

There is a wiki page for the 4.7 parties. If you want to organize something, please add it there soon and start getting the word out. The release is planned for Wednesday, July 27th. This is a great cause for celebration.