Happy 20 Years, KDE

Just got this email as a KDE e.V. supporter, from Lydia Pintscher, e.V. President, and thought I would share:

We are celebrating 20 years of KDE. The actual anniversary is on 14th of October but we are starting the celebrations now already at QtCon. We have put together several things that might be of interest to you:

* A book: "20 Years of KDE: Past, Present and Future" is a collection of short essays by present and past contributors to KDE including KDE's founder Matthias Ettrich. They give insights into the history of KDE and the motivation of its contributors. A paperback version is available for ordering and a PDF can be downloaded for free. You can find out more about it at https://20years.kde.org/book.

* A timeline: This timeline gives an overview of the past 20 years of KDE and highlights the most important events in the history of KDE. You can find it at http://timeline.kde.org.

* Anniversary celebrations: We are doing dinners and parties in several parts of the world. Signup and planning is happening at https://community.kde.org/Promo/Events/Parties/KDE_20_Anniversary. (Seattle party-planning is underway) 

You can find coverage from QtCon at https://dot.kde.org and we are collecting pictures from the conference at https://community.kde.org/Akademy/2016/Photos Thank you for your support over the years that made so much possible. I hope you'll be with us for the next 20.

Kubuntu Alive and Thriving at KDE Akademy

Having come a quarter away around the world in part to meet up with my Kubuntu colleagues, it was surprising to hear that some people thought (at a KDE meeting?) that Kubuntu is dead.

Not a chance. We're having elections right now for some Kubuntu Council positions that end this year. We have four candidates for three positions, which seems very healthy to me. By the way, if you are a Kubuntu Member and have not gotten your ballot, please contact Aaron Honeycutt, since the vote closes on the 12th of September.

We ended up meeting for more than 4 hours plus lunch yesterday, the first day of BoF meetings. Then Phil had to leave, which still seems sad, as we all miss his gentle, kind wisdom and humor.

During the meeting, we accomplished a great deal, mostly cleaning out the Trello. We now have
one and only one board, which has been mostly evaluated card by card, commented, and tagged. We hope that this will make it much easier to find a task to work on when you have a bit of spare time. If you have a login to Trello, but need inviting to the board, please check with someone in #kubuntu-devel Freenode IRC. Feel free to create cards when needed, and assign yourself and someone else to it. Many of the items on our Wishlist contain things we really do want, but do not have the time or skills to do. So pitch in as you can.

One of the wonderful parts of Akademy is not just that teams get to meet up face to face, but that *many* teams are in the same place. So when we had a question for Harald or Jon, we could pop next door and ask it. When Jon or Devaja got a Dot story mostly ready, I could just bring it up on my travel laptop for a last look for typos etc. and publish. And when I remembered a problem that was in one of our Kubuntu Trello cards that said "contact X about this" when I saw X in the crowd, I could introduce him to our devel who could work with him on getting the newest Kolab packaged and out to our users more quickly. Things like this can happen only at meetings like Akademy.

For those who don't know, Akademy is usually two days of talks, followed by some days of "BoF" sessions. BoF stands for Birds of a Feather and means short meetings and even sprints for each team that schedules one (or more). And alongside Akademy the members of the e.V. gather for their annual  meeting (AGM), which this year was on Thursday.

This year was different because we co-located Akademy with Qtcon, hosted by KDAB, Qt, VideoLAN and the FSFE. While a lot larger and thus more intense, I found it exciting. The service at the bcc at first seemed very posh, but by the end of the three days of meeting felt *essential*. There was coffee, tea and juices along with food or snacks all day. I tried to sit down to lunch with someone I didn't know every day, which was a great experience! Some of the folks had no experience with free software previously; merely using Qt as part of their job. One fellow even asked me, How is all of this organized? My reply: Organized? It is barely controlled chaos! There was a general laugh around the table, because it is so true. I love it!

Thanks again to the Ubuntu Community for sending me here to Berlin to attend this wonderful set of meetings. Kubuntu survives and thrives.


   

Weeeeee! Akademy and Qtcon approaching fast

Thanks to the Ubuntu Community Fund, I'm able to fly to Berlin and attend, and volunteer too. Thanks so much, Ubuntu community for backing me, and to the KDE e.V. and KDE community for creating and running Akademy.

This year, Akademy is part of Qtcon, which should be exciting. Lots of our friends will be there, from KDAB, VLC, Qt and FSFE. And of course Kubuntu will do our annual face-to-face meeting, with as many of us as can get to Berlin. It should be hot, exhausting, exciting, fun, and hard work, all rolled together in one of the world's great cities.

Today we got the news that Canonical has become a KDE e.V. Patron. This is most welcome news, as the better the cooperation between distributions and KDE, the better software we all have. This comes soon after SuSE's continuing support was affirmed on the growing list of Patrons.

Freedom and generosity is what it's all about!

Upon returning home from Akademy: thoughts

Akademy is long over, you say? Yes, but I've been traveling almost constantly since flying home, since my husband is on the home leg of his long hike of the Pacific Crest Trail, which he is chronicling at http://bobofwashington.blogspot.com. While driving about the state to meet him, I've not been online much, therefore unable to create blogposts from my thoughts and impressions written during and right after Akademy. Fortunately, I did scrawl some thoughts which I'll post over the next week or so.

Please visit https://akademy.kde.org/2015 for more information about Akademy. Click the photo for a larger version and add names if someone is left unlabeled.

First: A Coruña where Akademy 2015 met, is beautiful! Galicia, the region of Spain is not only beautiful, but serves delicious food, especially if you love fresh seafood.

The local team, working in conjunction with the e.V. Board and the amazing Kenny Duffus and Kenny Coyle created a wonderful atmosphere in which to absorb, think, and work. One of the best bits this year was the Rialta, where most of us lived during Akademy. Scarlett and I flew in early, to get over our jetlag, and have a day to see the city.

The journey from Seattle began very early Monday morning, and Scarlett set out even earlier the previous day via Amtrack train to Seattle. Our connections and flights were very long, but uneventful. We caught the airport bus and then the city bus 24 and walked to the Rialta, arriving about dinner-time Tuesday. Although we tried to avoid sleeping early, it was impossible.

Waking the next morning at 4am with no-one about, and no coffee available was a bit painful! Breakfast was not served until 8am, and we were *not* late! Rialta breakfasts are adequate; the coffee less so. I found that adding a bit of cocoa made it more drinkable, but some days bought cafe con leche from the bar instead. That small bar was also the source of cervesa (beer) and a few whiskys as well.

One of the beautiful things about the Rialta was their free buses for residents. Some were called Touristic, and followed a long loop throughout the city. You could get off at any of the stops and get back on later after sight-seeing, eating or shopping. So we rode it a loop to figure out what we wanted to see, which was part of the sea-side and the old town. Scarlett and I both took lots of photos of the beautiful bay and some of the port. After visiting Picasso's art college, we headed into the old city. On the way in, we saw a archaelogical dig of a Roman site, I guess one of many. This one was behind the Military Museum. As we walked further into the city, we heard music from Game of Thrones, and a giant round tent covered in medieval scenes. As we walked around the square trying to figure out what was happening, we saw lancers on large horses, dancing about waiting to enter the ring!

Some of the Akademy attendees were inside the tent watching the jousts, we later found out. I stopped in to the tourist info office to find out why the tent was there, and found out there was a week-long celebration all through the old city. It was delightful to turn the corner and see a herd of geese, or medieval handicrafts, or.... beer! A small cold beer from a beer barrel with a medieval monk serving us was most welcome as we wandered close to Domus. The Rialta bus was a great way "home."

A day of play left us ready to work as the rest of the attendees began to arrive.
Oh by the way: give big! Randa Meetings will soon be happening, and we need your help!

I'm loving Akademy!

And it hasn't even started. Scarlett and I flew to A Coruña arriving Tuesday, and spent yesterday seeing the town. Today is all about preparing for the e.V. AGM and the Akademy talks and BoFs following. 

Wish you were here!

Institutions in KDE?

The Randa Meetings are becoming an institution in KDE. Really? And is that a good thing, or not. When I complimented Mario Fux on the excellent on-going work he is doing on the Randa Meetings, he was surprised and maybe offended that I called it an institution.

I've been thinking about this since reading The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution by Francis Fukuyama. The basis of my comment is that in some ways, our KDE community is like a state.

Modern political order ...consists of ...[first] a modern state, with competent and honest officials, not prone to nepotism, corruption, and clientelism. Second is the rule of law, or binding constraints upon the rulers as well as the ruled. Third is accountability, usually via elections but also via a sense of responsibility towards the people, a sense of ruling for the common good.

 - from http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1261, a review of the book.

What supports and keeps a state alive are institutions. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia, social institutions are ... sets of rules and norms that organise human activities within a society. These rules and norms aren't just written law, such as our Code of Conduct and Manifesto, but also the unwritten "way we do things here." We have our habit of collaboration, our e.V., Akademy, our infrastructure, our coding style, APIs, documentation, and so forth.

And what is cool is to see that we continue to adapt to a changing world. I see the Frameworks effort as leap forward in our ability to adapt. The Plasma 5 work has flexibility written into it from the beginning, especially important as new form factors come onto the market. And we seem to be doing this within our community as well as in our code.

Fukuyama spoke not only about the development of the major institutions: the state, the rule of law, and accountability, but also of political decay, which happens when institutions grow rigid, and don't change with the times. I see the opposite with KDE.

Randa Meetings are a beautiful example of how one great idea has grown into something people look forward to, plan for, and support in many ways. We've had sprints for a long time, but now the year's calendar feels empty if there is no Randa meeting planned. The teams there not only do a sprint as usual, but also feed on the energy of the other teams around them, and collaborate on the fly. The Randa Meetings, like Akademy, have become indispensable; a norm. And that's a good thing.

The Community Working Group needs you?

Hi folks,

Our Community Working Group has dwindled a bit, and some of our members have work that keeps them away from doing CWG work. So it is time to put out another call for volunteers.

The KDE community is growing, which is wonderful. In spite of that growth, we have less "police" type work to do these days. This leaves us more time to make positive efforts to keep the community healthy, and foster dialog and creativity within our teams.

One thing I've noticed is that listowners, IRC channel operators and forum moderators are doing an excellent job of keeping our communication channels friendly, welcoming and all-around helpful. Each of these leadership roles is crucial to keeping the community healthy.

Also, the effort to create the KDE Manifesto has adjusted KDE infrastructure to be directly and consciously supporting community values. The commitments section is particularly helpful.

Please write us at Community-wg@kde.org if you would like to become a part of our community gardening work.

Holidays are coming - give big!

Most of us don't need more 'stuff'. In fact, we often have too much!

The same can't be said for most charities and non-profits. The world-wide economic downturn has hurt them, along with many public services. The same is true for our beloved KDE e.V., which is why we've had separate fund-raisers for specific events such as the Randa Meetings the past couple of years.

This year, we are trying to get a bit of breathing room before the spring sprint season hits, and already have over 12000€ and 400 donors! So the word is getting out.

If you use and love the KDE community and our software, please give. If not, please pass along the appeal to those who may not have heard about our end-of-year fundraiser.

https://www.kde.org/fundraisers/yearend2014/

Thank you.

Overcoming fear

In the last few posts, I've been exploring ideas expressed by Ed Catmull in Creativity, Inc. Everyone likes good ideas! But putting them into practice can be both difficult, and frightening. Change is work, and creating something which has never existed before, is creating the future. The unknown is daunting.

In meetings with the Braintrust, where new film ideas are viewed and judged, Catmull says,

It is natural for people to fear that such an inherently critical environment will feel threatening and unpleasant, like a trip to the dentist. The key is to look at the viewpoints being offered, in any successful feedback group, as additive, not competitive. A competitive approach measures other ideas against your own, turning the discussion into a debate to be won or lost. An additive approach, on the other hand, starts with the understanding that each participant contributes something (even if it's only an idea that fuels the discussion--and ultimately doesn't work). The Braintrust is valuable because it broadens your perspective, allowing you to peer--at least briefly--through other eyes.[101]

Catmull presents an example where the Braintrust found a problem in The Incredibles film. In this case, they knew something was wrong, but failed to correctly diagnose it. Even so, the director was able, with the help of his peers, to ultimately fix the scene. The problem turned out not to be the voices, but the physical scale of the characters on the screen!

This could happen because the director and the team let go of fear and defensiveness, and trust that everyone is working for the greater good. I often see us doing this in KDE, but in the Community Working Group cases which come before us, I see this breaking down sometimes. It is human nature to be defensive. It takes healthy community to build trust so we can overcome that fear.

Candor and trust

Catmull uses the term candor in his book Creativity, Inc., because honesty is overloaded with moral overtones. It means forthrightness, frankness, and also indicates a lack of reserve. Of course reserve is sometimes needed, but we want to create a space where complete candor is invited, even if it means scrapping difficult work and starting over. [p. 86] Catmull discusses measures he put into place to institutionalize candor, by explicitly asking for it in some processes. He goes on to discuss the Braintrust which Pixar relies on to push us towards excellence and to root out mediocrity....[It] is our primary delivery system for straight talk.... Put smart, passionate people in a room together, charge them with identifying and solving problems, and encourage them to be candid with one another. [86-7] Does this sound at all familiar?

Naturally the focus is on constructive feedback. The members of such a group must not only trust one another, but see each other as peers. Catmull observes that it is difficult to be candid if you are thinking about not looking like an idiot! [89] He also says that this is crucial in Pixar because, in the beginning, all of our movies suck. [90] I'm not sure this is true with KDE software, but maybe it is. Not until the code is exposed to others, to testing, to accessibility teams, HIG, designers--can it begin to not suck.

I think that we do some of this process in our sprints, on the lists, maybe in IRC and on Reviewboard, but perhaps we can be even more explicit in our calls for review and testing. The key of course is to criticize the product or the process, not the person writing the code or documentation. And on the other side, it can be very difficult to accept criticism of your work even when you trust and admire those giving you that criticism. It is something we must continually learn, in my experience.

Catmull says,

People who take on complicated creative projects become lost at some point in the process....How do you get a director to address a problem he or she cannot see? ...The process of coming to clarity takes patience and candor. [91] We try to create an environment where people want to hear one another's notes [feedback] even where those notes are challenging, and where everyone has a vested interest in one another's success.[92]

Let me repeat that, because to me, that is the key of a working, creative community: "where everyone has a vested interest in one another's success." I think we in KDE feel that but perhaps do not always live it. So let us ask one another for feedback, criticism, and strive to pay attention to it, and evaluate criticism dispassionately. I think we have missed this bit some times in the past in KDE, and it has come back to bite us. We need to get better.

Catmull makes the point that the Braintrust has no authority, and says this is crucial:

the director does not have to follow any of the specific suggestions given. .... It is up to him or her to figure out how to address the feedback....While problems in a movie are fairly easy to identify, the sources of these problems are often extraordinarily difficult to assess.[93]

He continues,

We do not want the Braintrust to solve a director's problem because we believe that...our solution won't be as good....We believe that ideas....only become great when they are challenged and tested.[93]

 More than once, he discusses instances where big problems led to Pixar's greatest successes, because grappling with these problems brought out their greatest creativity. While problems ... are fairly easy to identify, the sources of these problems are often extraordinarily difficult to assess.[93] How familiar does this sound to us working in software!? So, at Pixar,

the Braintrust's notes ...are intended to bring the true causes of the problems to the surface--not to demand a specific remedy. 

Moreover, we don't want the Braintrust to solve a director's problem because we believe that, in all likelihood, our solution won't be as good as the one the director and his or her creative team comes up with. We believe that ideas--and thus films--only become great when they are challenged and tested.[93]

I've seen that often this last bit is a sticking point. People are willing to criticize a piece of code, or even the design, but want their own solution instead. Naturally, this way of working encounters pushback.

Frank talk, spirited debate, laughter, and love [99] is how Catmull sums up Braintrust meetings. Sound familiar? I've just come from Akademy, which I can sum up the same way. Let's keep doing this in all our meetings, whether they take place in IRC, on the lists, or face to face. Let's remember to not hold back; when we see a problem, have the courage to raise the issue. We can handle problems, and facing them is the only way to solve them, and get better.

Fixing mistakes and growing stronger

In Creativity, Inc., Catmull explores an example of where their structure had created some problems, and how they identified and fixed that, improving their over-all culture. I know this is a wall of text, but Catmull asks excellent questions. I felt it was worthwhile to copy for you. He says,

Improvements didn't happen overnight. But by the time we finished A Bug's Life, the production managers were no longer seen as impediments to creative process, but as peers--as first-class citizens. We had become better. 

This was success in itself, but it came with an added and unexpected benefit: The act of thinking about the problem and responding to it was invigorating and rewarding. We realized that our purpose was not merely to build a studio that made hit films but to foster a creative culture that would continually ask questions. Questions like: If we had done some things right to achieve success how could we ensure that we understood what those things were? Could we replicate them on our next projects? Perhaps as important, was replication of success even the right thing to do? How many serious, potentially disastrous problems were lurking just out of sight and threatening to undo us? What, if anything, could we do to bring the to light? How much of our success was luck? What would happen to our egos if we continued to succeed? Would they grow so large they could hurt us, and if so, what could we do to address that overconfidence? What dynamics would arise now that we were bringing new people into a successful enterprise as opposed to a struggling startup?

What had drawn me to science, all those years ago, was the search for understanding. Human interaction is far more complex than relativity or string theory, of course, but that only made it more interesting and important; it constantly challenged my presumptions.... Figuring out how to build a sustainable creative culture--one that didn't just pay lip service to the importance of things like honesty, excellence, communication, originality, and self-assessment but really *committed* to them, no matter how uncomfortable that became--wasn't a singular assignment....

As I saw it, our mandate was to foster a culture that would seek to keep our sightlines clear, even as we accepted that we were often trying to engage with and fix what we could not see. My hope was to make this culture so vigorous that it would survive when Pixar's founding members were long gone. [p. 64-5]

Again, I see an almost perfect match between their task and ours, where ours=KDE e.V.. In the Community Working Group (CWG) in particular, I see my task as essentially gardening. This includes improving the soil, weeding, but never removing valuable little shoots which can grow into exciting new directions for the community. Of course I can't carry the metaphor too far, since others do the planting. But we can keep the conditions for growth optimal with our work.

In the documentation workshop yesterday, we explored the current state of the KDE documentation, how we can improve access, and grow the documentation team again. We also found some large choke points, which includes KDE.org. We really need a web team! KDE.org is valuable real estate on the web, which has been neglected for too long. More about that later.....

For now, looking forward to another day of hard work and fun in Brno!

Late posting: Heading to Brno for Akademy!

So excited to be in the air over Seattle, heading toward Vienna and Brno, and Akademy! Beside me is Scarlett Clark, who will be attending her first Akademy, and first Kubuntu meeting. We've both been sponsored by Ubuntu for the costs of travel; thank you! Scarlett was telling me, as we waited to board our first flight, how long she looked for a place to contribute to a Linux community. She said she tried for years, in many distributions, on mail lists and in IRC. What she was told was "do something." How does a first-time contributor know what is needed, where to ask, and how to make that crucial first step?

I was glad to hear that once she found the KDE-doc-english mail list, that she was encouraged to stick around, get onto IRC, and guided every step of the way. I was also happy to hear that Yuri, Sune and Jonathan Riddell all made her feel welcome, and showed her where to find the information she needed to make her contributions high quality. When Scarlett showed up in #kubuntu-devel offering to learn to package, I was over the moon with happiness. I really love to see more women involved in free and open source, and especially in KDE and Kubuntu, my Linux home.

I was a bit sad that the Debian community was not welcoming to her, with Sune the one bright spot. Yeah SUNE! (By the way, hire him!) I think she will find a nice home there as well, however, if our plans to do some common packaging between Kubuntu and Debian works out in the future. It was interesting to see the blog by the developers of systemd discussing the same issue we've been considering; the waste of time packaging the same applications and other stuff over and over again. So much wasted work, when we could really be using our time more productively. Rather than working harder, let's work smarter! Check out their blog for their take on the issue: http://0pointer.net/blog/revisiting-how-we-put-together-linux-systems.html

Welcome to Scarlett, who is planning to get her blog up and running again, and on the planets. She'll be saying more about these subjects in the future. Scarlett, and all you other first-time Akademy attendees, a hearty hug of greeting. Have a wonderful time! See me in person for a real hug!

PS: I couldn't post this until now, Sunday morning. The Debian folks here, especially Pinotree have been great! I look forward to our meeting with them on Thursday morning.

Counting the days until Akademy!

It seems so soon after returning home from Randa and Geneva, but already the day of departure to Vienna and then Brno looms. So excited! For starters, both Scarlett and I got funding from Ubuntu so the e.V. is spared the cost of our travel! I've often felt guilty about how much airfare from Seattle is, for previous meetings. We're having a Kubuntu gathering on Thursday the 11th of September. Ping us if you have an issue you want discussed or worked on.

Also, Scarlett and I will be traveling together, which will be fun. And we're meeting Stefan Derkits in Vienna, to see some of his favorite places. Oh, a whole day in Vienna seems like heaven. We have a hostel booked; I hope it's nice. Now I need to figure out the bus or train from Vienna <> Brno.

Get your own banner at https://community.kde.org/Akademy/2014/badges

Then there is the e.V. annual meeting, which I enjoy since I was admitted to membership. It is great to hear the reports personally, and meet people I usually only hear from in email or IRC.

Finally, there is Akademy, which is always a blur of excitement, learning, socializing, and interacting with the amazing speakers. My favorite part is always hearing from the GSoC students about their projects, and their experience in the KDE community. After Akademy proper, there are days of BOFs, and our Kubuntu meeting. This part is often the most energizing, as each meeting is like a small-scale sprint.

Of course we do take some time to walk through the city, and eat out, and party a bit. Face-to-face meetings are the BEST! Sometimes we return home exhausted and jetlagged, but it is always worth it. KDE is a community, and our annual gathering is one important way for us to nurture that community. This energizes the entire next year of creating amazing software.

An extra-special part of Akademy this year is that we are planning to release our new KDE Frameworks 5 Cookbook at Akademy. Get some while they're hot!

Exciting! Writing another KDE book: Frameworks in Randa

Returning to Randa is always tremendous, no matter what the work is. The house in Randa, Switzerland is so welcoming, so solid, yet modern and comfortable too.

KDE is in the building mode this year. If you think of the software like a house, Frameworks is the foundation and framing. Of course it isn't like a house, since the dwelling we are constructing is made from familiar materials, but remade in a interactive, modular fashion. I'd better stop with the house metaphor before I take it too far, because the rooms (applications) will be familiar, yet updated. And we can't call the Plasma Next "paint", yet the face KDE will be showing the world in our software will be familiar yet completely updated as well.

However, this year will see the foundation for KDE's newest surge ahead in software, from the foundation to the roof, to use the house metaphor one more time. I really cannot wait to get there and start work on our next book, the Framework Recipe book (working title). Of course, travel is expensive, and most of us will come from all over the world. So once again, we're raising funds for the Randa Meetings, which will be the largest so far. The e.V. is a major sponsor, but this is one big gathering. We need community support. Please give generously here:

www.kde.org/fundraisers/randameetings2014/index.php

Generosity, Family

After trying to connect to Mohammed Nafees, our GCi student winner from India, I finally was able to talk with him this afternoon. I was asking about his experience with KDE, and if he had gotten the help and support he needed. The enthusiasm of his reply was a bit surprising. He said he had chosen KDE because it is more than a community. When he couldn't think of the word he wanted to use to finish his sentence, I said that to me, KDE is family. He said, "YES! KDE is family."

Hours later, I'm still smiling about that. What a wonderful way to end the official Akademy program.

Right now, I'm typing this on my little netbook, surrounded by enthusiastic hackers. Even after working all day, most are hacking still at midnight! With occasional breaks for table tennis and pool, of course. The power cords snaking over the floor are hilarious!

Some of us paid our own way to this wonderful conference, but many of us are sponsored in whole or in part by the KDE e.V. Such generosity is what family is all about. However, as my mother used to say, money doesn't grow on trees! If you have not yet "Joined the Game", please think about signing up. Our e.V. needs a reliable funding stream to continue to support those who create the wonderful KDE ecosystem. http://jointhegame.kde.org/

I'm really here.....

Weeeeeee, Akademy!

This year for the second time I’ll be able to attend Akademy, the annual world meeting of the KDE community. We'll be in Bilbao, in the Basque country of Spain from 13th to 19th of July.



Check the full program here, and if you plan to come, register here. My endless thanks to the e.V. for sponsoring my travel. I hope to be able to pay for part myself this year, to spare the expense.

So much happens; I hope to see you there!

BoFs at Akademy

So excited to see all the BoF meetings shaping up for Akademy. Perhaps most exciting is the KDE Authors meetup. For background, see Supreet's great post at http://supreetpal.blogspot.com/2012/06/kde-authors-promoting-book-writing-in.html. For the BoF info, see http://community.kde.org/Akademy/2012/Wednesday. As plans now stand, we'll be in room 226 on Wednesday, July 4th at 14:00 UT. I assume we'll be in IRC (freenode) #kde-docs, or announce there a special channel.

If you want to write for or about KDE, be there!

Other exciting BoFs (These are exciting to me. There are lots of others.):

Monday: http://community.kde.org/Akademy/2012/Monday

Quality Team, 15:00 in room 226.

OwnCloud/KDE, 10:30 in room 419. ( http://dragotin.wordpress.com/2012/06/17/owncloud-bof-at-akademy-2012/ )

Tuesday: no sessions formally scheduled during the KDE e.V. Annual General Meeting. This will be my first e.V. AGM, so this is very exciting.

Wednesday: http://community.kde.org/Akademy/2012/Wednesday

Besides our Authors BoF, it will be great to attend  the Women's Outreach, at 9:30. The women's session at the Desktop Summit was outstanding, and I'm expecting great things from this session as well!

Thursday, I hope to attend Liquid democracy. Pirate politics – Free Software relationship in room 419 at 10:30. Others may find the more technical BoFs to their taste on Thursday: http://community.kde.org/Akademy/2012/Thursday

The final day of Akademy is Friday. So far the day's schedule is blank! I hope it fills as people talk about projects with others.

Taxes, and Supporting Free Software

Elections bring issues out in the open, and expose ideas to the public. My country is preparing for a national election, so naturally taxes are being discussed. When I got my first paycheck, I was shocked and disappointed to see how much of MY money was going to taxes! I was very young then, and didn't know how much my pittance helped ME to become part of the adult world, by doing my part, paying my fair share, supporting my government and even my future self. The act of paying didn't engage my emotions, or make me feel part of my community then.

Back when I used Windows, I paid my fair share both by buying the software I used, but also by contributing to my favorite shareware applications. However, just as when I first paid taxes, I didn't feel part of the community, because all I gave was money.

As I became an adult, I began to contribute in some organizations where I felt that my work really did help to change the world, improve my culture, and my country.

Then I started using free software, and eventually learned that there are communities creating this software, and even more astonishing, that I could help. And not just with my money, although that is sometimes important. For instance, KDE welcomes all kinds of contribution; code, bug reporting, bug triage, and bug fixing. Writing documentation, press releases, news stories, interviews, blog posts, even tweet/dents. Art, graphics, design, videos, baked goods! Party planning, setting up meetings, sprints, summits, conferences, leadership, management, moving chairs, taking minutes--and giving money.

The foundation supporting KDE, the KDE e.V., needs supporting members, corporate sponsors, and even occasional small donations. All of that money is needed to support the office, fund sprints, and do large meeting start-up.

I'd like to urge you to become a Supporting Member if you use KDE software. Doing so will move your heart from feeling like a user, to feeling like a contributor to the community. If you can't afford Join the Game, please contribute as you can! The more you contribute, the more your KDE community becomes your family. Do it now. You'll be glad you did.

Thinking Together for Success

Tonight I heard an excellent interview on Fresh Air called How Birth Control And Abortion Became Politicized. Don't worry, I'm not going to write about politics, history, or medical procedures! I was struck by how positions on this subject have changed over the years. And yet many Americans now line up on one side or the other, and little dialogue is taking place between the two sides. As a consequence, my country is making little progress in resolving this issue. We have a shocking number of unwanted pregnancies here, with little discussion about improving the situation.

I just finished an interesting book about religion and politics by Francis Shaeffer (Sex, Mom and God), where he makes an eloquent lament about the same issue, and he's been on all sides of it, including creating the Religious Right in the US with his father and some others. When people stop listening to one another, they stop thinking together, which is the process we need to solve the really tough problems.

I'm reading again the excellent Dialogue: The Art of Thinking Together. The author illustrates many tough problems which have been successfully solved in dialogue, and some cases where dialogue broke down, and why. Unfortunately, the most often used attempts we are making to solve problems and make decisions aren't as effective as they could be. I see this in Western culture, and in Free and Open Source Software. I see a lot of conversations which turn into an airing of long-held positions, arguments, and debates, instead of creativity, fresh thinking, and problem solving.

There is another way, and I thank those in Linux who are fostering team-building, sprints, and larger in-person meetings such as Canonical's UDS, the KDE e.V.'s sprints, Akademy, Desktop Summits, and the GNOME Foundation's Guadecs and Desktop Summits. So much great dialogue can happen in those gatherings! There are other excellent groups sponsoring other opportunities for people to dialogue, but these are the ones I've experienced. I'd like to see us carry out dialogue on our mailing lists, blogs, forums and on IRC as well as our face-to-face meetings.

To the extent that people can begin to listen to one another as much as talk about their own knowledge and ideas, we'll begin to think together more and more, and craft more amazing solutions to our common problems. Until we learn how to do this better, we'll be a minority movement. We have to offer not just better software than the closed, unfree stuff, but also an attractive community, where we model mutual respect and helpful partnership.

This week I've read some really discouraging blog comments, IRC discussions, and mail list threads. We can do better! And we must do better, if we want to be ultimately successful. This isn't about enforcing codes of conduct, but about listening, and engaging in thinking, together. As Mahatma Gandhi said, Be the change you want to see in the world.

Help KDE e.V. secure funding for a sprint with just a few clicks

Some weeks ago Lydia blogged about a German bank giving away 1000 euros for each 1000 associations who can get the most votes. Well, until four days ago we were at postion 320, now we are at 735 and falling. Please, read Lydia's post about how to vote and help KDE e.V., it is just a few clicks. I'll include the directions here for speed. Remember, you'll be sent an email with a link, which you must click, and click a button on that page too. AND you can do this three times! I've done my three votes, have you?

A German bank is giving away 1000 Euro each to the 1000 associations who can get the most votes. Everyone has 3 votes. Please do vote with all 3 for KDE. With just a few clicks you can make a difference!
Here’s what you have to do:
1) go to https://verein.ing-diba.de/sonstiges/10115/kde-ev and click “Stimme abgeben”
2) enter your email and the captcha it asks for and then click“absenden”
3) you’ll get an email to confirm your vote – click the link in the email
4) you’ll get to a website – click “Stimme abgeben”

You can do this 3 times in a row. If KDE is among the top 1000 associations we’ll get 1000 Euro.