Category: PlanetKubuntu

Woah – Desktop Summit is close!

Only one week left until the Desktop Summit. Man, I’m so excited. Unfortunately not everyone will be able to be with us in Berlin in person. If you’re one of them, here’s what you need to stay up-to-date on things happening at the Desktop Summit:

Most of these have RSS feeds you can subscribe to – use them 🙂

If otoh you’re going to be in Berlin it’d be awesome if you would help people who can’t be there. Let’s get as much information to them as possible and make them feel like they’re there. Here’s how to spread what’s happening:
  • join the !desktopsummit group and post about what you’re doing (you can’t post without joining first – it can also be posted to with !ds2011)
  • identi.ca and twitter: poke Kenny, Claudia or me to have useful stuff posted to @desktopsummit
  • identi.ca and twitter: tag your messages with #ds2011
  • flickr: upload your fotos and videos and tag them with #ds2011
  • write blog posts and have them aggregated on Planet KDE or GNOME
  • ping jefferai to have an etherpad set up for your workshops/BoF if your team doesn’t have one already – this way people can follow the notes remotely
See you in Berlin next week! 🙂

ESA Summer of Code in Space – apply now!

The European Space Agency is running their own Summer of Code-like program this year as a trial. It’s called ESA Summer of Code in Space. Wohooo for ESA! ESA selected KStars and Marble as two of 20 projects taking part this year. So if you want to hack on Marble or KStars and become famous here’s your chance. For more details check out Torsten’s blog post.

Oh and hurry: Application deadline for students is on July 27th, 11:00 AM (UTC). Don’t miss your chance to show us how much you rock!

It’s party time!

Another 6 months passed pretty quickly if you ask me. It’s time again to get together and celebrate a release together with fellow KDE contributors and users.

Ingo was so kind to prepare a wiki page for the 4.7 parties at http://community.kde.org/Promo/Events/Release_Parties/4.7. Organizing a get-together? Add it quickly. The release is planned for 27th of this month.

If you have no idea what this is all about:

  • KDE people will meet all around the world for nice chats and a fun time for everyone to celebrate the 4.7 release.
  • Everyone can organize a party. Just add it to the wiki and let people sign up.
  • What happens at the party is up to you! Everything from meeting in a bar for a drink to a full event with talks and stuff is allowed. Be creative!
  • Everyone is welcome – contributors, soon-to-be contributors, users and close FOSS friends alike.

If you have questions email me or kde-promo at kde org.

The last release party here in Karlsruhe was great fun and got KDE a new awesome maintainer for Step.

And now go and reserve a table at a local restaurant 🙂 (There really isn’t more to do than that, a blog entry and maybe emailing a few locals. Oh and you should of course show up for your party :D)

Desktop Summit: Registration and Call for Workshops/BoFs

I have two announcements for the Desktop Summit participants:

  1. Please register for the event asap if you have not done so already. We need a good estimate of how many people will attend for a lot of things very soon. Please help by registering for the event. Registration is free but mandatory to attend.
  2. Propose your BoFs and workshops. You have time for this until July 3rd. There will also be opportunities for scheduling BoFs and workshops at the conference.

See you all in Berlin 🙂

Desktop Summit 2011 reminder – accommodation and child care

This is a friendly reminder that if you are coming to the Desktop Summit (and I hope you are!) then you should book your accommodation pretty soon. We have some special rates but they are only valid for a limited time and run out soon. We also expect the time of the Desktop Summit to be rather busy in Berlin. So go and book your accommodation now, please. DesktopSummit.org has some suggestions.

We’d also like to offer a child care option for the attending parents at the summit. To see if this is feasible we’d like to know who would be interested in such an option. Depending on the demand and a few other factors this might not be gratis. We’d have professional staff on site for the kids. We have to make a decision on this soon. If you’re interested please send an email to ds-team at desktopsummit org soon to let the team know.

Oh and see, the conference can begin now. Thanks to Damien we have a shiny button. What more do you need? 😀

I'm going to the Desktop Summit 2011

Not accepted into GSoC? Here’s what to do…

GSoC acceptance/rejection emails have been sent out not long ago. Congratulations to everyone who was accepted. Now if you are among those who received a rejection email this blog has a few things for you. None of these are GSoC or directly affiliated with it. Each of them however is pretty damn cool 😉

So first of all: Pretty much any GSoC org will accept you outside of GSoC if you are dedicated and they have someone who can help you a bit. Ask them! A few orgs have dedicated programs though:

  • Haiku with Haiku Code Drive (not confirmed yet for this year)
  • illumos with illumos Students – You get mentoring to work on a cutting-edge operating system at your own pace and get a t-shirt, recommendation and other prizes, possibly even internships.
  • KDE with Season of KDE – You get to work on cool stuff all over KDE and get a t-shirt and certificate if you are successful.
  • Umit with Umit Summer of Code – Your chance to work on networking tools and get a t-shirt, certificate and recommendation letter.
  • X.Org with X.Org Endless Vacation of Code – You can get paid to work on X.Org and you can do it at a time that suits you and your mentor.

All of these programs allow you to work on really cool software with a mentor over a longer period and create something you can be proud of. So ask your org and see what you can do outside of GSoC with them. It’s in your hands. And if they don’t have enough mentors for example, there are a lot more projects out there waiting for you. Don’t be shy and ask.

If you know of more GSoC orgs running similar programs this year please mention them in the comments.

announcing Season of KDE 2011

I’m super happy that KDE could accept 51 student for GSoC this year. It’s an impressive number and they’ll make a difference in KDE this year. But this number also means that we had to say no to many students. A lot of tough choices had to be made. Now I can’t magically make more GSoC slot appear unfortunately. But I can do something else.  I can run another Season of KDE together with an awesome team of mentors and co-admins. And that is exactly what I am going to do. So here’s the details for this year’s Season of KDE:

  • What is Season of KDE? It is a program for people we could not accept into Google Summer of Code for various reasons.
  • Who can take part? Everyone but preference is given to those who have applied for GSoC.
  • What do I get out of this? A great summer working on a really cool KDE project and gaining valuable experience, a t-shirt, a certificate and maybe a few other goodies.
  • How do I apply? If you are serious about it fill out this short survey and I’ll try to get back to you asap.
  • What is the timeline? The timeline is up to you and your mentor. We ask you to stay close to the GSoC timeline if possible.
  • Do I need to have a mentor before applying? It is preferred. If you don’t have one yet we will try to find one.
  • Do I need to have a project idea before applying? It is preferred. If you don’t have one yet we will try to find one. You should at least have an idea however which part of KDE you want to work in. KDE is huge.
  • Do I need to write a proposal like in GSoC? No but we’d like to see a project plan describing what you’ll be working on.
  • Is it only for coders like GSoC? Depending on the project we’re willing to consider non-coding projects as well. Get in touch to figure out details.
  • I applied for a project in GSoC and another student got selected for it. Can I still work on it? Likely not. But we will try to find something related for you if you want, or something completely different. Let us know what you want.
  • Is this GSoC or connected to Google? No.

If you have further questions please come to our IRC channel #kde-soc or send an email to the admin team at kde-soc-mentor-owner@kde.org.

In previous years we had 1, 4 and 8 successful Season of KDE students. My personal goal for this year is 16. Are you going to be one of them? You should be!