older gentlemen

It is quite normal, in Free Software initiatives, for people to come in, help out, become proficient, maybe even moderately famous, then eventually move on or drop out. Often life gets in the way, parenting, post entry level jobs and growing responsibilities reduce the available time something fierce and once one is no longer really familiar with the code base, it becomes hard to make an effective contribution in those short time and motivation windows that open up. Somewhat ironically, since a large part of my job revolves around KDEPIM, this is very true for me as well. Over the last two years or so, apart from lunch discussions over architectural issues with my colleagues, I've been able to do little more than ensure things build and work on OSX, my current main platform. Much to my delight, this has recently changed. After many years, our efforts to build and transition to the Akonadi platform are coming together lately. Although we've decided to delay by a month, relative to the normal KDE 4.5 release schedule, with KDEPIM, we are nearing production quality of all of the components of Kontact now. KDEPIM from 4.5 branch is fully based on Akonadi and usable for my normal business and personal email, calendaring (Kolab, of course) and contacts management. In this current phase, there are a myriad smaller things to notice, analyze and fix (or give someone else enough information with which to fix). Many rough edges need to be filed away and regressions in the functionality and usability identified. Especially for the later it's really useful to have been working with Kontact for many years and to know the history behind why certain things work the way they do or whether those reasons still make sense. I find this to be very satisfying work, as it allows me to throw in my experience and my odd hour of hacking time and make a meaningful difference. This got me thinking that it would be awesome if we could re-activate some of the other old KDE hands to help make our next generation PIM infrastructure and apps all that they can be. So this is a call to arms for the KDE veterans, whether they've worked on PIM in the past or not. You all know KMail and friends very well, you know deep down you really wanna be coding again, at least a bit, and you all want KDEPIM to rock the world again. The platform and tools are excellent to work with, these days, and the code base is pretty clean and modular. The community is large and friendly, it's an enthusiastic and highly motivated group that is a joy to be around. So saddle up, you weary warriors, and ride with us once again ;).