Here's this year's crossdesktop group picture of FOSDEM, featuring all your favourite developers that attended FOSDEM (and me)! \o/

(and yes I now also see that I focussed on the building instead of the people, but it's hardly noticeble ;))

Less than a week to go for FOSDEM 2011 next weekend! Just so that you don't forget: this year we have 2 days of (Cross)Desktop-related talks in their own devroom, but be sure to also look at the entire schedule since there's a lot of interesting stuff in the other tracks as well (including some KDE-related ones). Hope to catch a glimpse of you then :) Especially for the group picture on Saturday afternoon

As always, I took some pictures at FOSDEM 2010. Disappointingly I took less than last year: only 55 instead of 132 (and even that is cheating, because that includes a picture *of* me taken by xvello). Still, better than nothing, I guess... In any case, as always at FOSDEM, I had lots of fun, and that's what counts! :)

As always, we had the KDE Group Picture taken at FOSDEM. It went pretty smooth this year, apart from not immediately hearing when the autotimer of the camera clicked :)

[Edit: Hmmm why does this not show up in the feeds?]

It's been a while, but I'd just like to bring the following 2 upcoming events in to your attention:

• FOSDEM. As always, the yearly free/open source software is being organized in Brussels again. I think there's something interesting for most of you, so be sure to have a look at the schedule (even though it is not finalized yet) :) Of course, for all the KDE people among us: don't forget the KDE Group Picture! As for people wanting to know which talks I'll probably attend, I put a tentative list on my website.
• Vlaamse Programmeerwedstrijd (Flemish Programming Contest). This is a programming contest, open to almost everybody: senior high school students, 'hogeschool'/university students (bachelor, master and PhD), and other people that have graduated from one of those options. This year, it's being organized at Ghent University, which happens to be where I'm working. That means I'm obviously attending it (using Haskell and/or C++). So if you ever wanted to make fun of me or humiliate me (and my teammate, of course) in a kinda-official setting: this is your chance ;)

Wow, so yet another FOSDEM lies behind us. As always, it was quite fantastic; those who decided not to come were clearly mistaken ;)

So, other than the obligatory KDE Group Picture, here are some impressions from this year. Let's start with the biggest surprise of all: Boudewijn Rempt was able to make it to FOSDEM!

Here we have Thomas Zander, who was answering a Qt-related question during Jos' talk on KDE4.2:

Apparently, Linus was at FOSDEM too ;)

Some people had printed Wade's KDE 'promotional' pictures on postcards. Fine by me. But seeing the scary dolls 'strongly suggesting to use KDE' (complete with 'KDE is watching' above it) when you need to go to the men's room is quite unsettling :o.

But, all in all, I think everyone had a lot of fun at FOSDEM:

(Yes, I'm quite mean ;))

The rest of my FOSDEM 2009 pictures can be found in their usual place. As usual, if you don't like a picture of yourself (or very much do like a picture of yourself), feel free to contact me about it.

Things to remember when going to a next FOSDEM/conference:

• Remember to change whitebalance settings when inside
• Learn how to use a flash. I bought a new one, but using it felt like using black magic, in that I was unable to reliably predict how the end result of a particular set of settings would affect the outcome (usually, this was not good :P).

So, of course there's a lot of interesting things going on at FOSDEM here. Just like last year, we had a nice group picture on the grass field next to the KDE devroom. Thanks to all people who could make it. If you look verrry closely, you can even spot the GNOME person in it ;)

As usual, KDE will have a presence at this year's FOSDEM. If you're coming, be sure to check out our KDE devroom schedule for Saturday, and the CrossDesktop devroom schedule for Sunday. I expect that within a few days the whole schedule will be available, instead of only a few devrooms (importantly, there will be a KDE-related talk in the Debian room). If you're around on Saturday, don't forget to come to the group picture!

I'm pretty sure there will be something of interest for everyone, if not in the KDE room, then perhaps in another room. And let's hope that for your range of interests, the scheduling overlaps arent't as painful as for me (the 3-way split between Ext4, Paul Adams, and Gallium is particularly sad to me :()

For those few of you interested (is there anyone?): I've started a new blog. If this one is any measure, it will be a pretty dead one, but I think it's the thought that counts =)

As many of you will know, I'm not really keen on travelling. This has much to do with the dislike of leaving my zone of comfort, my fear of flying, etc. However, when I do have to travel, I try to inform myself of issues that might arise from travelling to the specific country I'm supposed to go to. For instance, like a lot of Europeans, I do not look forward to the idea of travelling to the US because of the issues with immigration (like privacy). Issues like these (luckily) still generate some press coverage so that most people know vaguely what to expect. Similarly, it's probably pretty well-known that you better don't start waving around Swastika's when you're visiting Germany.

However, people intending to travel to the first KDE Americas event (which will apparently be in Jamaica next January) might not be aware that Jamaica doesn't sound to be a nice place to go to if you're LGBT (Lesbian/Bi/Gay/Transgender). See for instance the Wikipedia article on Jamaican LGBT rights, Human Rights Watch or this Time article.

Now since I won't go anyway (like I said, I don't like travelling) this doesn't influence me into not going there. Yet I think it's only fair to bring it to the attention of people intending to go, so that they don't have unpleasant surprises when they find out about it after confirming to go...