FOSDEM is one of the largest gatherings of Free Software contributors in the world and happens each February in Brussels (Belgium, Europe). One of the tracks will be the Desktops DevRoom (formerly known as “CrossDesktop DevRoom”), which will host Desktop-related talks.

We are now inviting proposals for talks about Free/Libre/Open-source Software on the topics of Desktop development, Desktop applications and interoperability amongst Desktop Environments. This is a unique opportunity to show novel ideas and developments to a wide technical audience.

Topics accepted include, but are not limited to:

  • Open Desktops: Gnome, KDE, Unity, Enlightenment, XFCE, Razor, MATE, Cinnamon, ReactOS, etc
  • Closed desktops: Windows, Mac OS X, CDE, MorphOS, etc (when talking about a FLOSS topic)
  • Software development for the desktop
  • Development tools
  • Applications that enhance desktops
  • General desktop matters
  • Cross-platform software development
  • Web

Talks can be very specific, such as the advantages/disadvantages of development with Qt on Wayland over X11/Mir; or as general as predictions for the fusion of Desktop and web in 5 years time. Topics that are of interest to the users and developers of all desktop environments are especially welcome. The FOSDEM 2015 schedule might give you some inspiration.

Submissions

Please include the following information when submitting a proposal:

  • Your name
  • The title of your talk (please be descriptive, as titles will be listed with around 400 from other projects)
  • Short abstract of one or two paragraphs
  • Short bio (with photo)
  • Requested time: from 15 to 45 minutes. Normal duration is 30 minutes. Longer duration requests must be properly justified. You may be assigned LESS time than you request.

How to submit

All submissions are made in the Pentabarf event planning tool: https://penta.fosdem.org/submission/FOSDEM16

When submitting your talk, make sure to select the “Desktops” devroom as the “Track”. Otherwise your talk will not be even considered for any devroom.

If you already have a Pentabarf account from a previous year, even if your talk was not accepted, please reuse it. Create an account if, and only if, you don’t have one from a previous year. If you have any issues with Pentabarf, please contact pgquiles at elpauer dot org.

Deadline

The deadline for submissions is December 6th 2015. FOSDEM will be held on the weekend of January 30th and 31st 2015 and the Desktops DevRoom will take place on Sunday, January 31st 2015.

We will contact every submitter with a “yes” or “no” before December 18th 2015.

Recording permission

The talks in the Desktops devroom will be audio and video recorded, and possibly streamed live too.

By submitting a proposal you consent to be recorded and agree to license the content of your talk under a Creative Commons (CC-BY) license.

If you want us to stop the recording in the Q & A part (should you have one), please tell us. We can do that but only for the Q & A part.

More information

The official communication channel for the Desktops DevRoom is its mailing list desktops-devroom@lists.fosdem.org.

Use this page to manage your subscription: https://lists.fosdem.org/listinfo/desktops-devroom

Organization

The Desktops DevRoom 2016 is managed by a team representing the most notable open desktops:

  • Pau Garcia i Quiles, KDE
  • Christophe Fergeau, Gnome
  • Michael Zanetti, Unity
  • Philippe Caseiro, Enlightenment
  • Jérome Leclanche, Razor

If you want to join the team, please contact pgquiles at elpauer dot org

It is now official: KDE will be present again at FOSDEM in the 2016 edition, on the 30th and 31st of January, 2016.

Talks will take place at the Desktops DevRoom, on Sunday the 31st, but not exclusively: in past years, there were Qt and KDE-related talks at the mobile devroom, lightning talks, distributions, open document editors and more.

KDE will be sharing the room with other desktop environments, as usual: Gnome, Unity, Enlightenment, Razor, etc. Representatives from those communities will be helping me in managing and organizing the devroom: Christophe Fergeau, Michael Zanetti, Philippe Caseiro and Jérome Leclanche.

I would like to extend the invitation to any other free/open source desktop environment and/or related stuff. Check last year’s schedule for an example. Closed-source shops (Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, etc) are ALSO invited, provided that you will talk about something related to open source.

We will publish the Call for Talks for the Desktops DevRoom 2016 soon. Stay tuned.

In the meanwhile, you can subscribe to the Desktops DevRoom mailing list to be informed of important and useful information, and talk about FOSDEM and specific issues of the Desktops DevRoom.

We are less than 10 days away from the deadline for the Desktops DevRoom at FOSDEM 2015, the largest Free and Open Source event in Europe.

Do you think you can fill a room with 200+ people out of 6,000+ geeks? Prove it!

Check the Call for Talks for details on how to submit your talk proposal about anything related to the desktop:

  • Development
  • Deployment
  • Community
  • SCM
  • Software distribution / package managers
  • Why a particular default desktop on a prominent Linux distribution 😉
  • etc

http://www.elpauer.org/2014/10/fosdem-2015-desktops-devroom-call-for-talks/

FOSDEM is one of the largest gatherings of Free Software contributors in the world and happens each February in Brussels (Belgium). One of the tracks will be the Desktops DevRoom (formerly known as “CrossDesktop DevRoom”), which will host Desktop-related talks.

We are now inviting proposals for talks about Free/Libre/Open-source Software on the topics of Desktop development, Desktop applications and interoperability amongst Desktop Environments. This is a unique opportunity to show novel ideas and developments to a wide technical audience.

Topics accepted include, but are not limited to: Enlightenment, Gnome, KDE, Unity, XFCE, LXQt, Windows, Mac OS X, software development for the desktop, general desktop matters, applications that enhance desktops and web (when related to desktop).

Talks can be very specific, such as the advantages/disadvantages of development with Qt on Wayland over X11/Mir; or as general as predictions for the fusion of Desktop and web in 5 years time. Topics that are of interest to the users and developers of all desktop environments are especially welcome. The FOSDEM 2014 schedule might give you some inspiration.

Please include the following information when submitting a proposal:

  • Your name
  • The title of your talk (please be descriptive, as titles will be listed with around 250 from other projects)
  • Short abstract of one or two paragraphs
  • Short bio (with photo)
  • Requested time: from 15 to 45 minutes. Normal duration is 30 minutes. Longer duration requests must be properly justified. You may be assigned LESS time than you request.

The deadline for submissions is December 7th 2014. FOSDEM will be held on the weekend of January 31st-February 1st 2015 and the Desktops DevRoom will take place on Sunday, February 1st 2015. Please use the following website to submit your proposals: https://penta.fosdem.org/submission/FOSDEM15 (you do not need to create a new Pentabarf account if you already have one from past years).

You can also join the devroom’s mailing list, which is the official communication channel for the DevRoom: desktops-devroom@lists.fosdem.org (subscription page for the mailing list)

– The Desktops DevRoom 2015 Organization Team

Qt and KDE will be present at FOSDEM, the largest open-source event in Europe. One more year, we will be sharing the Desktops DevRoom with Gnome, Unity, Enlightenment, LXQt and Hawaii (a Qt Quick desktop environment). We recently published the schedule for the devroom, which will be also available in the printed booklet available at the front desk.

fosdem-logo

For the 2014 edition, the FOSDEM organization wants to achieve 100% recording of presentations. That means every presentation, in every room (devroom, lightning talk, main conference, etc) must be recorded. That’s hundreds of talks. While the FOSDEM and devrooms organization teams comprise a lot of people, we are far too busy already with the organizative stuff and cannot spend time doing the actual recordings.

Good thing is, you can help!

Do you want to join the FOSDEM Video Team and receive the t-shirt? We are now looking for volunteer cameramen (and camerawomen, of course 🙂 ).

FOSDEM will provide you with equipment and training, you only need to start recording, focus, make sure nobody gets between the camera and the speaker/stage, etc. You do NOT need to record the whole track, even one talk recording would help. More details on what will be required from you are available in this e-mail from Wouter.

Please contact me (pgquiles at elpauer dot org) if you are interested in recording one or more presentations from the Desktops DevRoom.

Once more, I’m going to FOSDEM 2014, the largest Free/Libre/Open Source Software event in Europe (5,000 attendants every year).

fosdem-logo

As usual, I will be in charge of the Desktops DevRoom, together with our friends from Gnome (Christophe Fergeau), Unity (Didier Roche), Enlightenment (Philippe Caseiro) and others.

See you in Brussels 1-2 February 2014!

BTW, have you already submitted your talk proposal for the Desktops DevRoom? The deadline (15th December) is very close! Do not wait any more!!! See the details here: FOSDEM 2014 Desktops DevRoom Call for Talks

FOSDEM is one of the largest gatherings of Free Software contributors in the world and happens each February in Brussels (Belgium). One of the tracks will be the Desktops DevRoom (formerly known as “CrossDesktop DevRoom”), which will host Desktop-related talks.

We are now inviting proposals for talks about Free/Libre/Open-source Software on the topics of Desktop development, Desktop applications and interoperability amongst Desktop Environments. This is a unique opportunity to show novel ideas and developments to a wide technical audience.

Topics accepted include, but are not limited to: Enlightenment, Gnome, KDE, Unity, XFCE/Razor, Windows, Mac OS X, general desktop matters, applications that enhance desktops and web (when related to desktop).

Talks can be very specific, such as developing mobile applications with Qt Quick; or as general as predictions for the fusion of Desktop and web in 5 years time. Topics that are of interest to the users and developers of all desktop environments are especially welcome. The FOSDEM 2013 schedule might give you some inspiration.

Please include the following information when submitting a proposal:

  • Your name
  • The title of your talk (please be descriptive, as titles will be listed with around 250 from other projects)
  • Short abstract of one or two paragraphs
  • Short bio (with photo)
  • Requested time: from 15 to 45 minutes. Normal duration is 30 minutes. Longer duration requests must be properly justified. You may be assigned LESS time than you request.

The deadline for submissions is December 14th 2013. FOSDEM will be held on the weekend of 1-2 February 2014. Please use the following website to submit your proposals: https://penta.fosdem.org/submission/FOSDEM14

You can also join the devroom’s mailing list, which is the official communication channel for the DevRoom: desktops-devroom@lists.fosdem.org (subscription page for the mailing list)

– The Desktops DevRoom 2014 Organization Team

Hace unos meses el Tribunal Supremo anuló la asignación de multiplex de Televisión Digital Terrestre que hizo en 2010 el Gobierno de Zapatero.

Todo el mundo dice estar sorprendido y el Gobierno de Rajoy dice que no queda más remedio que eliminar 9 canales de televisión.

Y yo digo que es mentira.

En realidad no se tiene porqué borrar ningún canal.

La sentencia del Tribunal Supremo declara nulo el reparto anterior, con lo cual, la lógica dice que hay que hacer un nuevo reparto. El quid de la cuestión es quién se llevaría los canales con ese nuevo reparto:

  • Los que hasta hoy son dueños de esos multiplex (Mediaset, Antena 3, NetTV, etc) querrán que el concurso se haga a su medida para que el nuevo reparto sea, oh casualidad, exactamente el mismo que el antiguo
  • Los que hasta hoy están alquilando canales a los dueños de los multiplex (Paramount, Disney, etc) querrán que el concurso se haga a su medida para que les den el canal y así ahorrarse el alquiler

Tema aparte es que el Estado ha cobrado a los operadores de Telecomunicaciones (Movistar, Vodafone, Orange, etc) un dinero por el espacio radioeléctrico que va a quedar libre (el “dividendo digital”) :

  • Ese dinero, de acuerdo con la normativa anterior (y la nueva) y la Directiva Europea en la mano, tiene que destinarse a ayudas para adaptar las antenas
  • Sin embargo, como el Estado no tiene un duro (bueno, lo tiene, pero se va en sobres, Olimpiadas, EREs, trajes, etc), quieren quedarse con el dinero y no darlo para adaptar antenas
  • Para poder quedarse con el dinero sin que al ciudadano de a pie le cueste dinero, lo que se les ha ocurrido es anular la adjudicación anterior y no hacer una nueva adjudicación. Al no haber nuevos multiplex, no hay canales en frecuencias nuevas, y por tanto, no tenemos que adaptar las antenas. Más propio de Austin Powers que de un Gobierno decente.

Explicado para niños:

  1. Pepito tiene una manzana, Pedrito una pera y Jaimito una naranja
  2. Pepito dice “Pedrito, si le das tu pera a Jaimito, yo te doy mi manzana” y “Jaimito, si me das tu naranja, Pedrito te dará una pera”
  3. Pedrito le da su pera a Jaimito, Jaimito le da su naranja a Pepito y Pepito NO le da su manzana a Pedrito
  4. Pedrito protesta y Pepito, para no aguantar quejas por incumplir su parte del trato, mata a Pedrito y esconde el cuerpo

Lo gracioso del asunto es que tanto Gobierno como propietarios de los multiple se declaran sorprendidos.

Sorprendidos, ¿de qué?

Todos conocían al dedillo la ley y presionaron para que los canales se asignaran por adjudicación directa en lugar de por concurso, sabiendo que violaban la ley. ¿Esperaban que quien no se llevó multiplex se quedara de brazos cruzados?

Recapitulando:

Una vez más: relee lo que escribí ayer

  • La sentencia anula el reparto anterior de canales, pero NO prohíbe hacer un nuevo reparto de esos canales. Es más, es justo al contrario: la sentencia dice que los canales hay que darlos, pero por concurso, no por adjudicación directa. Es el Gobierno Rajoy quien quiere hacernos creer que la sentencia obliga a eliminar canales
  • Efectivamente, el Gobierno Zapatero ingresó un dinero de las empresas de móviles y NO se lo gastó. Ese dinero era para darlo en la segunda mitad de 2012 y todo 2013 para adaptar antenas. Es el Gobierno Rajoy quien ha decidido quedarse con el dinero y no darlo para adaptar antenas.
  • Es más, lo de quedarse el dinero y NO darlo para adaptar antenas lo decidieron MUCHO antes de que se supiera nada de esa sentencia que anulaba el reparto anterior (puedes tirar de hemeroteca y cualquier antenista del foro te lo puede confirmar)
  • En definitiva: otro engaño más de Rajoy. Y van…

Si yo fuera Movistar, Vodafone, Orange o Yoigo, estaría muy pendiente de lo que ocurre ahora. Si el Gobierno NO convoca un concurso para dar los multiplex, inmediatamente reclamaría la devolución de mi parte de los 1800 millones de euros que el Estado ingresó en concepto de ayuda a la reantenización. Al fin y al cabo, si no hay nuevos multiplex, no hace falta reantenizar, y por tanto, no las operadoras móviles no tienen porqué pagar.

De hecho, la solución más sensata para este problema después de la sentencia sería:

  1. Convocar concurso público con plazo límite 30 de junio
  2. A 15 de agosto se publica la resolución (quién obtiene multiplex y quién no). Sí, mucha gente se va a quedar sin vacaciones. Una pena.
  3. Hasta el 15 de septiembre para alegaciones
  4. El 30 de septiembre, alegaciones resueltas
  5. El 15 de diciembre cesan las emisiones por parte de los antiguos dueños de los multiplex. Esto da 75 días a los antiguos y a los nuevos dueños para negociar alquiler de canales, en caso de que entre algún nuevo jugador y salga uno de los antiguos, sin necesidad de que haya corte en las emisiones.
  6. ¿Por qué el 15 de diciembre y no el 31, que sería lo más lógico? Porque está Navidad, que es una época de gran audiencia, y además algún canal puede querer retransmitir las campanadas y no vas a hacer que justo cuando suena la última campanada, se apague 

Pero claro, hace falta voluntad, y el Gobierno actual lo que quiere es eliminar los canales y quedarse con 1800 millones de euros por la cara. Unos sinvergüenzas.

(Actualizado con mi propuesta de plan de transición no traumático)

 

Mark Shuttleworth recently critized Jonathan Riddell for proposing Xubuntu and others join the Kubuntu community. I thought I could make a few amendments to Mark’s writing:

Jonathan Mark says that Canonical Kubuntu is not taking care of the Ubuntu community.

Consider for a minute, Jonathan Mark, the difference between our actions.

Canonical Kubuntu, as one stakeholder in the Ubuntu community, is spending a large amount of energy to evaluate how its actions might impact on all the other stakeholders, and offering to do chunks of work in support of those other stakeholder needs.

You, as one stakeholder in the Ubuntu community, are inviting people to contribute less to the broader project [all the X and Wayland -based desktops], and more to one stakeholder [Unity and Mir].

Hmm. Just because you may not get what you want is no basis for divisive leadership.

Yes, you should figure out what’s important to Kubuntu Ubuntu Unity and Mir, and yes, you should motivate folks to help you achieve those goals. But it’s simply wrong to suggest that Canonical Kubuntu isn’t hugely accommodating to the needs of others, or that it’s not possible to contribute or participate in the parts of Ubuntu which Canonical Kubuntu has a particularly strong interest in. Witness the fantastic work being done on both the system and the apps to bring Ubuntu Plasma to the phone and tablet. That may not be your cup of tea, but it’s tremendously motivating and exciting and energetic.

See Mark? I only needed to do a little search and replace on your words and suddenly, meaning is completely reversed!

Canonical started looking only after its own a couple of years ago and totally dumped the community. Many people have noticed this and written about this in the past two years.

How dare you say Jonathan or anyone from Kubuntu is proposing contributing less to the broader community? The broader community uses X and/or Wayland.

Canonical recently came with Mir, a replacement for X and Wayland, out of thin air. Incompatible with X and Wayland.

No mention of it at all to anyone from X or Wayland.

No mention of it at FOSDEM one month ago, even though I, as the organizer of the Cross Desktop DevRoom, had been stalking your guy for months because we wanted diversity (and we got it: Gnome, KDE, Razor, XFCE, Enlightenment, etc, we even invided OpenBox, FVWM, CDE and others!). I even wrote a mail to you personally warning you Unity was going to lose its opportunity to be on the stand at FOSDEM. You never answered, of course.

Don’t you think Mir, a whole new replacement for X and Wayland, which has been in development for 8 months, deserved a mention at the largest open source event in Europe?

Come on, man.

It is perfectly fine to say “yes, Canonical is not so interested in the community. It’s our way or the highway”.

But do not pretend it’s anything else or someone else is a bad guy.

In fact, is there any bad guy in this story at all!? I think there is not, it’s just people with different visions and chosen paths to achieve them.

Maybe Mir and Unity are great ideas, much better than X and Wayland. But that’s not what we are talking about. We are talking about community, and Canonical has been steadily destroying it for a long time already. If you cannot or do not want to see that, you’ve got a huge problem going on.