FOSDEM impressions
Earlier this month I got to FOSDEM in Brussels for the first time. Below is how I remember it. Overall it has been great.
I quickly learned to look for a different room when there was a queue at the door. But this once I decided to wait in queue, hoping somebody would get out so I can enter. I and the person in front of me got close to the door, but unfortunately we did not get in. Luckily the next speaker and his colleague were also waiting, so we got a 1-1 (or more accurately 2 on 2) on quantum computing. That was quite cool.
I was hoping to talk more with the GNOME devs, about Pitivi and things. At the GNOME stand it might have been possible, but it was not ideal. The stand table was between two others and it was pretty crowded. I think with some small space between the stands people would be able to get in front of them, to talk with the interested people, which would be nicer. These discussions over-the-table are not very inspiring.
It was much better for KDE who had their stand at the end of the row, and also space between their table and the neighbor table to fit a person demoing stuff. Speaking of which, I stumbled upon the Kdenlive demo, seems the team also cares about stability, like we do.
At the GSoC stand I got to talk with Stephanie about applying. BTW, we just found out we’re accepted, so yay! We were actually in quite a good position, since in case we were not accepted, we had a second chance by taking part under GNOME’s umbrella. If your project is using GNOME technologies, make sure to talk with the GNOME GSoC admins about taking part in GSoC under them!
Saturday evening I went first to the GSoC meetup where I was hoping to talk with many people, but I only got to talk with 4. Always great to discuss about what people are hacking on! The following days I got an email with the attendees list and I noticed two other GNOME people, but unfortunately I did not get to meet them.
The GNOME beers event later was the best, since I got to meet real contributors.. That is, after I drank a long beer with some GNOME fans, which is cool, but just not what I planned for, as I was expecting to meet only some sort of developers there. Then after many lovely cats stories (or was it a single one?) I called it a Caturday!
Sunday was a bit more relaxed.
I don’t think I’ll go to FOSDEM again very soon, it’s very inefficient as I see it. Still, very cool to attend one. Looking forward to attend the much smaller and focused GUADEC.
