Akademy Bound...

First, before I saw anything else, I would like to say a big thank you to the KDE e.V. for sponsoring my trip to Akademy on such short notices, and more specifically to Sebas for getting it down. I think you guys just made my summer.

So anyway, things are shaping up for the trip, and while I am arriving a day late (and missing some of the good talks), I'm sure that Danny will do a good job covering a lot of those subject. I'll be there by the evening of the 30th, notwithstanding any problems with my flight. I get to share a room with Benjamin Otte, a gnomie famous for his work on swfdec (or so I'm told) which will be good for me. I don't get a chance to learn about what's happening in the gnome world too often, and so I'll be able to pick his brain for some news :) This sort of exchange between the two projects keeps us on very friendly terms, in spite of the few users that would rather see us duke it out in some sort of battle royale. We might need to stage some mock photos for our respective planets...

I've got several goals for my trip, which I'll outline briefly here so that I can go back later and see how well I accomplished them...

  1. Meet people!: I've been involved with the KDE community through various means for almost 8 years now, and almost all of my interactions are via irc or email... I've never met a KDE developer in person.
  2. Gather materials for press kit: Since all the KDE people are all in one spot, I will attempt to bother the e.V. board as well as members of the various working groups for a three paragraph bio (using Adriaan de Groot's as a sort of template). Additionally, there will hopefully be some representative from our sponsors present that I can bother from some short testimonial information, and quotes that can go in the press pack about KDE and the KDE community. If Mr. Shuttleworth doesn't fly off in the ten minutes after his keynote, he'll be targeted for a quote or two for sure, being one of our "Patrons"...
  3. Write about KDE: I'm hoping to get a good number of short articles about KDE technologies published via Ars Technica, the dot, or this blog, or some combination thereof :)
  4. Attack Aseigo: Since he is concerned about KDE's strategy on other platforms, I want to talk to him about that and understand his perspective so that I can actually do something about it while he spends his valuable time coding.

Oh, and have fun. Lets see how much fun I can have :)

(btw: I'm still working on my Krita article - can't be certain it'll be done before Akademy unfortunately, but I'll see what I can do in two nights work...)