Community and Events

Two years have passed since the reality of the first Latin American meeting of KDE contributors in 2012 in Porto Alegre, capital of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Now we are proud to announce that the second LaKademy will be held August 27th to 30th in São Paulo, Brazil, at one of the most important and prestigious universities in the world—the University of São Paulo.

The Akademy Program Committee is excited to announce the Akademy 2014 Program. It is worth the wait! We waded through many high quality proposals and found that it would take more than a week to include all the ones we like. However we managed to bring together a concise and (still packed) schedule.

Sascha Meinrath - photo by Faith Swords

Akademy 2014 will kick off on September 6 in Brno, Czech Republic; our keynote speakers will be opening the first two days. Continuing a tradition, the first keynote speaker is from outside the KDE community, while the second is somebody you all know. On Saturday, Sascha Meinrath will speak about the dangerous waters he sees our society sailing into, and what is being done to help us steer clear of the cliffs. Outgoing KDE e.V. Board President, Cornelius Schumacher, will open Sunday's sessions with a talk about what it is to be KDE and why it matters.

The ninth edition of Akademy-es was held last month in Málaga at the Telecommunications School of University of Málaga. Akademy-es had never been held in the city before but it is where the idea of Akademy-es began, during Akademy 2005, resulting in the first Akademy-es in 2006 in Barcelona. KDE old timer Antonio Larrosa is the link between both editions, being the local organizer of Akademy-es 2014 and Akademy 2005.

It's the time of the year again when the Randa Meetings plan starts to get quite concrete. After a break last year, the 5th edition of the Randa Meetings will happen in the middle of the Swiss Alps in August 2014. So once again more then 50 KDE contributors will meet in Randa to hack, discuss, decide and work for a full week.

From May 16th to 18th, Málaga is hosting Akademy-es 2014 in Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieria de Telecomunicación of Universidad de Málaga. This event is organized by KDE España, Linux Málaga and Bitvalley, and represents the return of a KDE event to Málaga 9 years after it hosted Akademy 2005.

Akademy-es 2013 group photo (click for larger)

We continue the tradition of having the PIM sprint in a place that starts with a "B". The last 3 PIM sprints were in Berlin (twice) and Brno. The Spring edition of this year took place in Barcelona, continuing the tradition. Add to this the name of the company hosting us which conveniently starts with a "B" as well (BlueSystems).

Akademy is the KDE Community conference. It is where we meet, discuss plans for the future, get inspired, learn and get work done. If you are working on topics relevant to KDE, this is your chance to present your work and ideas at the Conference from September 6-12 in Brno, Czech Republic. The main days for talks are Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th of September. The rest of the week will be BoFs, unconference sessions and workshops.

Akademy 2013 attendees (click for larger) by Knut Yrvin

In April 2014, we had a sprint for KDE Telepathy, KDE's foremost instant messaging client. The sprint consisted of both past and new contributors from around the world.

The team in action

From March 31 to April 4, Free Software desktop hackers from many of the largest desktop projects (including GNOME, KDE, Unity and LXDE-Qt) met to collaborate on specifications and tools to improve application interoperability between the desktops. Clarified standards are expected not only to improve the experience of running applications designed for one desktop inside of another, but also to provide a clearer picture of what is required from third party application developers approaching the Free Software desktop for the first time.

This was the second time the annual event occurred. Both times, it was sponsored and hosted by SUSE at their offices in Nuremberg.