Yesterday an agreement was signed by the Basque Regional Government, ESLE (Vasque Software Libre companies association) and ASOLIF (Spanish National Federation of soft. libre companies) in order to take steps forward toward software libre migration in Basque Public Administrations. To accomplish this obtective, an Advisor Commitee and a Technical Office will be created with representatives from the three actors involved.
Among other goals, one of the most relevant is to ensure that future public contracts related with software development and hardware puchaisings will be plattform independent so software libre solutions are able to compite under the same conditions than any other software with non libre licenses.
The Technical Office will be in charge of studying and recommending software libre solutions that can be deployed in the Basque Regional Government and other Public Administration from this region.
This is the first time in Spain that a Public Administration sign an agreement with the spanish software libre SME sector, which gives an idea of the maturity that these associations/federation are getting in Spain. Other Regional Governments are also interested in such agreements.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
KDE- Edu wants to know your opinion
I have complained many times about bugs or missing features in many applications I use.. What about you?
I like this initiative from KDE-Edu because they are openly asking your opinion about relevant points related with the great applications they develope and support. So if you use any KDE Edu applications please take a few minutes for helping them to improve KHangman, KGeography, KmPlot, Kig, Kalzium, Kstars, etc.
Click here to fill the survey.
I like this initiative from KDE-Edu because they are openly asking your opinion about relevant points related with the great applications they develope and support. So if you use any KDE Edu applications please take a few minutes for helping them to improve KHangman, KGeography, KmPlot, Kig, Kalzium, Kstars, etc.
Click here to fill the survey.
Would you like to have a spanish student doing practices in your company?
IES El Ricón is a High School / Technical School from Gran Canaria, Canary Island, Spain, really involved in software libre. They were part of the local team in the GCDS: GUADEC + Akademy 2009. They are involved in a program (ERASMUS) for sending students to foreign countries finish their education working in IT companies during few weeks/monthes.
If you think it could be a good idea to incorporate a young enthusiast student, please contact Miguel Peña ( miguelpl /dot/ inf / at/ gmail / dot/ com ), the teacher in charge of this program, or contact me directly.
If you think it could be a good idea to incorporate a young enthusiast student, please contact Miguel Peña ( miguelpl /dot/ inf / at/ gmail / dot/ com ), the teacher in charge of this program, or contact me directly.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
October on the road
Now...
I left home in Málaga on October 1st. I arrived 29th late in the afternoon. I'm tired but happy about all the things I've done, people I've met, places I've been... I've been visiting several cities all over Spain presenting ASOLIF, where I work, and the things we do, to a lot of people. Madrid, Zaragoza, Vitoria, Canary Islands and Sevilla has been the ones visited this trip.
I've been talking to several ICT managers from several regional and local public administrations, Central Gov., big companies, Universities, etc. I've met people from software libre SME I didn't know before. It is amazing how many cool stuff some SME are doing without much support. I've also attended to events and talk to old friend or people related with ASOLIF (or any of the Spanish regional software libre SME associations).
But my major target has been...
ASOLIF is organizing an internal event so software libre companies belonging to our regional associations can meet each other, know what they are doing, etc. We also have opened a call for projects and mature 10 ideas has been presented. Companies will collaborate on developing those ideas to turn them into projects so ASOLIF can help them to looking for funds. Like any other project ASOLIF promotes, it has to be licensed with GLP or similar licenses and developed openly, like free software communities do. It's going to be hard to put in practice, but if it works...
Although ASOLIF companies use, promote and develop with free software, not all of them make their work libre or are related with communities. For some of them, this event is an opportunity to learn from other companies that do, by working together in something they all are interested in, a project they want to achieve.
For software libre companies, interacting with communities is something that is becoming more common. It is not easy at all to build up your own community based on a product developed by a SME, so ASOLIF is trying to put together companies with experience with other ones interested in becoming more open. The goal is to raise the percentage of ASOLIF companies that has business models related with making the code libre.
To do so, since we do not have the strength multinational companies have, we have to promote collaboration in a different way. Building up ASOLIF was the first step. This event is a second one.
If we want to have a chance to succeed, we need to be close to free software communities and establish a strong relation with big companies that support soft. libre technologies. But this relation has to be based in different principles than in the past. In Spain, like in many other countries, we have been software consumers. We now have the chance to produce software and do it well.
Some of the companies attending to ASOLIF event are quiet popular among some communities: Igalia, eBox, Grupo CPD, Emergya, Warp, Grupo Ikusnet, Yerbabuena ... up to 160 aprox. We are working to have 75 companies there (50 would be a nice number anyway).
This event, that will be celebrated each 6 months, is proposed to take place in several places around Spain. We have to break with the idea that business always take place only in big cities.
The following edition (the third one in fact since in 2008 we celebrated the first one), that will take place in spring 2010, will have activities not just for our companies, for for visitors too, with special focus on soft. libre developers.
Let's see how it works...
I don't want to finish without thanking all of you who has support me to become part of KDE e.V. I'm really happy and I hope I can help.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
What is that software you have on your laptop?
The last couple of months I've been doing many presentations about different things related with my job. Since I have KDE on my laptop and I usually use slides even in personal conversations (I usually send them to the people I talk to so they remember the basic ideas I explained to them) they see my desktop. For most of them, it is the first time they take a look at KDE. Some of them have never seen a desktop libre before.
So sometimes I feel a little like moving back in time and showing to somebody from other age something common for us (that stupid scene when a cowboy showed a mirror to an indian). It's hard to handle the reaction once in a while. I also feel like having some responsability, so I am becomming worried about the look and feel of my desktop and that everything works (or it looks like) perfectly. Few things that didn't matter to me in the past now...can become an issue. Being able to configure the network (specially the wifi) fast, not having crashing messeges during the booting processs, X configuration when using a projector, speeding up the booting proccess, my laptop should not slow down due to RAM comsumption when opening apps, plasmoid that do not look nice without internet connection... Some of these things have nothing to do with the desktop itself but most of the people don't know it. They will blame it on that "frikie thing you have on your laptop".
I use .pdf presentations made with LaTeX beamer and showed with Okular. It is a nice combination for content oriented talks but not for good looking ones based on images. I have to improve this point. Somehow I want to give the messege that software libre is also about creativity. I'm thinking about creating a new user on my laptop just for these occasions so I can use a cool theme and adding all kind of stuff that looks really cool eventhough sometimes they aren't too useful for me. Do you have any recommendation? I have now Kubuntu 9.04 + KDE 4.3.1.
I believe that it is easier for somebody to make the step forward and try something new in his/her computer if when showing it, your desktop works perfectly and looks nice. This is obvious. The point is that we are the main sellers of what we do and we sell our job everytime we show it. So little errors, misconfigurations or procedures that are ok to us, may not be acceptable for common users without explanation (or even with it). I'm trying to have that in mind lately and I confess that stress me a little sometimes, specially when I have a presentation after updating my laptop.
So sometimes I feel a little like moving back in time and showing to somebody from other age something common for us (that stupid scene when a cowboy showed a mirror to an indian). It's hard to handle the reaction once in a while. I also feel like having some responsability, so I am becomming worried about the look and feel of my desktop and that everything works (or it looks like) perfectly. Few things that didn't matter to me in the past now...can become an issue. Being able to configure the network (specially the wifi) fast, not having crashing messeges during the booting processs, X configuration when using a projector, speeding up the booting proccess, my laptop should not slow down due to RAM comsumption when opening apps, plasmoid that do not look nice without internet connection... Some of these things have nothing to do with the desktop itself but most of the people don't know it. They will blame it on that "frikie thing you have on your laptop".
I use .pdf presentations made with LaTeX beamer and showed with Okular. It is a nice combination for content oriented talks but not for good looking ones based on images. I have to improve this point. Somehow I want to give the messege that software libre is also about creativity. I'm thinking about creating a new user on my laptop just for these occasions so I can use a cool theme and adding all kind of stuff that looks really cool eventhough sometimes they aren't too useful for me. Do you have any recommendation? I have now Kubuntu 9.04 + KDE 4.3.1.
I believe that it is easier for somebody to make the step forward and try something new in his/her computer if when showing it, your desktop works perfectly and looks nice. This is obvious. The point is that we are the main sellers of what we do and we sell our job everytime we show it. So little errors, misconfigurations or procedures that are ok to us, may not be acceptable for common users without explanation (or even with it). I'm trying to have that in mind lately and I confess that stress me a little sometimes, specially when I have a presentation after updating my laptop.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Social media cuts both ways
This is a post written after reading this post, from FreshNetworks, related with the impact of social media in a company's branding.
Social Media cuts both ways.
1.- Writters has to be aware of the impact of the information they publish.
Most of the regular social media users has no previous experience in marketing or regular media, obviously, so they have no real sense on how powerful published information (so these tools) can be and the harm they can make to a person or a company without even noticing it. We are seeing this in young kids at school. It is so easy to upload a unproper picture, to publish an unfair comment about somebody, destroy a company's reputation ...
Social media tools are used by everybody but not everybody know how to use them. Reacting against wrong behaviours related with their use is not just the Govs responsability. It is also ours.
2.- Companies have to take social networks as a really powerful marketing and feedback tool.
Social media are not just a new channel to make money out of. They also are a good tool for users to show your services weak points, you fealures, etc. So prepare your company (and yourself) to react to users opinions as they deserve. And also take in consideration that they have the ability now to harm you with a little cost you if you ignore them..or even if you don't.
3.- We need to adapt the law to this new reality
Social media are a new way of communicating so countries need to adapt the law to this new reality (without cutting down our rights). And since social media know very little about boundaries, Govs should make an effort to unify as much as possible its criteria related to the the protection of our rights.
Some questions come to my mind:
More and more companies are getting concerned about the impact of social media for their reputation. Many of them may become afraid to use them if they are not "more controlled", so they will try to.
And we know well that fear is freedom's major enemy.
Social Media cuts both ways.
1.- Writters has to be aware of the impact of the information they publish.
Most of the regular social media users has no previous experience in marketing or regular media, obviously, so they have no real sense on how powerful published information (so these tools) can be and the harm they can make to a person or a company without even noticing it. We are seeing this in young kids at school. It is so easy to upload a unproper picture, to publish an unfair comment about somebody, destroy a company's reputation ...
Social media tools are used by everybody but not everybody know how to use them. Reacting against wrong behaviours related with their use is not just the Govs responsability. It is also ours.
2.- Companies have to take social networks as a really powerful marketing and feedback tool.
Social media are not just a new channel to make money out of. They also are a good tool for users to show your services weak points, you fealures, etc. So prepare your company (and yourself) to react to users opinions as they deserve. And also take in consideration that they have the ability now to harm you with a little cost you if you ignore them..or even if you don't.
3.- We need to adapt the law to this new reality
Social media are a new way of communicating so countries need to adapt the law to this new reality (without cutting down our rights). And since social media know very little about boundaries, Govs should make an effort to unify as much as possible its criteria related to the the protection of our rights.
Some questions come to my mind:
- How do we convince a company that risks related with the use of social media do not cancel all the great opportunities related to them?
- Do we have to?
- What should a company ( a person or a community) do when its reputation is in danger through twitter, facebook, etc.?
- How to react when somebody's opinion is unffair?
- And what about when you agree on somebody's complains, you want to repair the error but the complains published in a social network has already a huge impact, so the cost of that misbehavior is insignificant compared to the harm done by the customer/blogger/user?
- What if the social media user is not even your customer and have no real idea about your service?
More and more companies are getting concerned about the impact of social media for their reputation. Many of them may become afraid to use them if they are not "more controlled", so they will try to.
And we know well that fear is freedom's major enemy.
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Social networks... a new challenge and a new risk for software libre projects
More and more people is now using KDE 4, and specially non technical people. Since KDE4 is improving fast but do not have yet all the features and apps that KDE 3.5 did, it is easy to think that old KDE users will have many requests or questions the following monthes. Since the usability of KDE4 is new in many ways, there will be many users also asking for help.
I have a feeling that lately more and more people is complaining/making questions in identi.ca/twitter about features or non key points that they miss, don't like or, simply don't work as they expected.
The commitment of every KDE developer to answer as many questions or comments as they can is out of doubt, but this question-answer approach do not scale, since these tools do not work as chats, forums or mailing lists (the major tools we have used in the past for support purposes). They do not have a single entrance from where to route them to the right information or person. They need a new language, different procedures, different interfaces, different tools (social desktops ;) )....
I'm not sure the policies we had in the past for supporting users are going to be as efficient as they were. Probably a different strategy to handle all these requests and complains is needed for these social tools. From my point of view is becomming something to be worry about since the impact of so many people making requests or complaining about different issues are becomming significant and it can turn into relevant.
Software libre projects have a nice chance to change the way they interact with users. Social networks force people to become concise. We can use that. But they are also great tools for expressing feelings worldwide... and that is a huge risk if they get frustrated with our software.
How do we route requests and complains through social network tools? How do we track and proccess what they want, what they need? How do we make ourselves visible so they know where/who to ask? How are we going to coordinate efforts through these tools? How do we adapt other tools we use (wiki, bug tracker, mailing lists, chat) to this new scenario? How do we include social network tools into our support and maintenance strategy? Or their impact will be so big that those classic strategies won't work anymore?
Maybe we have to assume some risks and, once more, innovate....maybe this is nothing to worry about...
I have a feeling that lately more and more people is complaining/making questions in identi.ca/twitter about features or non key points that they miss, don't like or, simply don't work as they expected.
The commitment of every KDE developer to answer as many questions or comments as they can is out of doubt, but this question-answer approach do not scale, since these tools do not work as chats, forums or mailing lists (the major tools we have used in the past for support purposes). They do not have a single entrance from where to route them to the right information or person. They need a new language, different procedures, different interfaces, different tools (social desktops ;) )....
I'm not sure the policies we had in the past for supporting users are going to be as efficient as they were. Probably a different strategy to handle all these requests and complains is needed for these social tools. From my point of view is becomming something to be worry about since the impact of so many people making requests or complaining about different issues are becomming significant and it can turn into relevant.
Software libre projects have a nice chance to change the way they interact with users. Social networks force people to become concise. We can use that. But they are also great tools for expressing feelings worldwide... and that is a huge risk if they get frustrated with our software.
How do we route requests and complains through social network tools? How do we track and proccess what they want, what they need? How do we make ourselves visible so they know where/who to ask? How are we going to coordinate efforts through these tools? How do we adapt other tools we use (wiki, bug tracker, mailing lists, chat) to this new scenario? How do we include social network tools into our support and maintenance strategy? Or their impact will be so big that those classic strategies won't work anymore?
Maybe we have to assume some risks and, once more, innovate....maybe this is nothing to worry about...
Sunday, August 30, 2009
GCDS Conclusions II.
What has been the impact of the event worldwide?
This question has different answers. I'm going to concentrate today on the GCDS website.
We presented the project to the Call for Host on a public wiki. Usually both boards recieved a .pdf archive. Since the decision to go for one particular location was made by both communities, we though it was really important that most of them has as many information as possible. We added to that wiki information about hotels, the location and many other stuff we worked on during a couple of months to present the best project we could. It was a good decision, I guess. It also reflects clearly what was our compromise then and what we accomplished so everybody can analice it. Some things we said were were going to do weren't done. I'll talk about then in future posts.
Once the project was running, a key thing happened, in my opinion. Both boards agreed on a cool name, Desktop Summit (easy but reflects what was going to happen during those days) and added Gran Canaria in front of it. GNOME and KDE supported our job by letting their brands in a secondary level. Tough decision that had a nice impact locally and openned some doors to the local team. We used it many times to take advantage locally to the support that KDE and GNOME were giving us.
By doing this, we ensured a big impact for Gran Canaria in internet. This island live out of tourism that comes from european countries. Internet is the new channel for this bussiness and this event has a worldwide impact. Most of the free software devs are young people that might want to came back again. This event was a long one and people blog about it a lot, so it is a perfect product to put money on for a touristic place like the Canary Islands.
Of course for the free soft. companies behind the organization this wasn't the objetive but it was a major one for some local public administrations. Adding Gran Canaria to the event's name was a major task because it ensured that the impact in internet the event was going to have was linked to the island. That was our thought then. The result of this strategy is clear. Just look for Gran Canaria in Google in english. The event made the first page (two entries: 4 and 8 right after the event. Now it remains one of them).
This success works both ways. In the following years this should be use by other local teams to get local public administrations involved in the event. How much money do they pay in promotion campaings? Hitting the first page in Google for any localization has a big cost... and we did it.
The election of the tool for the web generated a big disscussion internally. Most of the companies involved in the organization are ruby experts. GNOME didn't have a mature solution and KDE had a registration module made with drupal that they did use in two previous events. This solution didn't have a feature for the event program and speakers. There was a Rails program that did. Finally, with the agreement of Banot (a local company part of the organization) and the Free Software Office of La Laguna University (OSL of ULL), we end up going for the Drupal solution. Both, Banot and the OSL of the ULL did a great job with the web. They updated the previous job done from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6 (that was sometimes difficult) and added some new features to the registration module to adapt it to some new requirements for this unusual event.
The website team also integrated the new registration module with Mediawiki, so we could overpass a drupal limitation. It didn't have a wiki that feed our requirements. There are some points that need more improvements but, if other local teams use the job done maybe in a couple of yeras KDE and GNOME can have a well adapted solution. Anyway, ea
ch year a nice look to other solutions has to be done, since there are lots of nice projects out there.
<= July hits
The web design was made by GNOME community members and implemented on the website by the local team. All the job done is available for future events through a git.
Defining and publishing the program and the speakers information, done by GNOME, KDE and some local members, was hard. Tons of subevents and talks took place so we had some coordination problems, solved finally. Thanks to every people that helped, specially, Cristo, from Fotón SI, Grupo CPD, for coordinating a great team. The website team also had a key role during the event. I will talk about it in future posts.
<= June 2009
So all this job and a lot more I haven't talk about (getting sponsors on the web, making the sponsorship brochure, etc) made the following numbers possible. Of course the most important part is the community people from GNOME and KDE that visited the web and gave us tons of suggestions. Thanks all.
The web has 5.182 million hits. In July it registered 1.8 millionn hits. What has surprised me the most is the 0.324 million hits from august, due to blogging probably.
August =>The analysis of the countries wehere the hits come from give us an idea of how spread GNOME and KDE are worldwide. June, the month before the event, is the reference one. August is a singular one and July, the month of the event, is probably determined by the visits done by the atendees and the local press coverage, which was really good. Probably many of the foreign hit comes from blogging right after the event.
July
To evaluate the impact, you have to have this in mind:
There are tons of things that could be done to increase this number. This is something to disscuss for following events. These numbers give a lot of credit to the idea of co-hosting the event that both boards had, I think. Next time it'll take place a joint event the mark will probably be broken by far. It will be a good sign.
All numbers and graphs has been taken from the official Gran Canaria Desktop Sunnit: GUADEC + Akademy 2009 website. Webalizer was the tool chosen.
This question has different answers. I'm going to concentrate today on the GCDS website.
We presented the project to the Call for Host on a public wiki. Usually both boards recieved a .pdf archive. Since the decision to go for one particular location was made by both communities, we though it was really important that most of them has as many information as possible. We added to that wiki information about hotels, the location and many other stuff we worked on during a couple of months to present the best project we could. It was a good decision, I guess. It also reflects clearly what was our compromise then and what we accomplished so everybody can analice it. Some things we said were were going to do weren't done. I'll talk about then in future posts.
Once the project was running, a key thing happened, in my opinion. Both boards agreed on a cool name, Desktop Summit (easy but reflects what was going to happen during those days) and added Gran Canaria in front of it. GNOME and KDE supported our job by letting their brands in a secondary level. Tough decision that had a nice impact locally and openned some doors to the local team. We used it many times to take advantage locally to the support that KDE and GNOME were giving us.
By doing this, we ensured a big impact for Gran Canaria in internet. This island live out of tourism that comes from european countries. Internet is the new channel for this bussiness and this event has a worldwide impact. Most of the free software devs are young people that might want to came back again. This event was a long one and people blog about it a lot, so it is a perfect product to put money on for a touristic place like the Canary Islands.
Of course for the free soft. companies behind the organization this wasn't the objetive but it was a major one for some local public administrations. Adding Gran Canaria to the event's name was a major task because it ensured that the impact in internet the event was going to have was linked to the island. That was our thought then. The result of this strategy is clear. Just look for Gran Canaria in Google in english. The event made the first page (two entries: 4 and 8 right after the event. Now it remains one of them).
This success works both ways. In the following years this should be use by other local teams to get local public administrations involved in the event. How much money do they pay in promotion campaings? Hitting the first page in Google for any localization has a big cost... and we did it.
The election of the tool for the web generated a big disscussion internally. Most of the companies involved in the organization are ruby experts. GNOME didn't have a mature solution and KDE had a registration module made with drupal that they did use in two previous events. This solution didn't have a feature for the event program and speakers. There was a Rails program that did. Finally, with the agreement of Banot (a local company part of the organization) and the Free Software Office of La Laguna University (OSL of ULL), we end up going for the Drupal solution. Both, Banot and the OSL of the ULL did a great job with the web. They updated the previous job done from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6 (that was sometimes difficult) and added some new features to the registration module to adapt it to some new requirements for this unusual event.
The website team also integrated the new registration module with Mediawiki, so we could overpass a drupal limitation. It didn't have a wiki that feed our requirements. There are some points that need more improvements but, if other local teams use the job done maybe in a couple of yeras KDE and GNOME can have a well adapted solution. Anyway, ea
ch year a nice look to other solutions has to be done, since there are lots of nice projects out there.<= July hits
The web design was made by GNOME community members and implemented on the website by the local team. All the job done is available for future events through a git.
Defining and publishing the program and the speakers information, done by GNOME, KDE and some local members, was hard. Tons of subevents and talks took place so we had some coordination problems, solved finally. Thanks to every people that helped, specially, Cristo, from Fotón SI, Grupo CPD, for coordinating a great team. The website team also had a key role during the event. I will talk about it in future posts.
<= June 2009
So all this job and a lot more I haven't talk about (getting sponsors on the web, making the sponsorship brochure, etc) made the following numbers possible. Of course the most important part is the community people from GNOME and KDE that visited the web and gave us tons of suggestions. Thanks all.
The web has 5.182 million hits. In July it registered 1.8 millionn hits. What has surprised me the most is the 0.324 million hits from august, due to blogging probably.
August =>
July
To evaluate the impact, you have to have this in mind:
- KDE had information about the event in his own Akademy web, not much but those hits should be counted. GNOME also put on his wiki the BoF's sessions information during the event.
- The impact on media that the event has haven't been measured. For example, in the major local newspaper, a press note about the event on december 2008 was the third most read news that day.
- Pictures related with the event were placed in free services all over internet, not in the official website. There are thousands of pictures.
- Due to banthwith and space restrictions, it happened the same with videos and slices related with the events. These two contents means lots of hits, as pictures.
- Mediawiki hits are not counted. That would add several thousands in June/July.
- The Cabildo of Gran Canaria (the island Gov.) webpage experimented a growth on the hits registered the days before and during the event.
- Many local organizers added to their webs info about the event, along with many other companies and atendees, and got many hits, specially both Canary Islands colleges.
- Both GNOME and KDE (and other projects like MAEMO, Freedesktop, GNOME Hispano ) planets has registered many hits related with GCDS posts.
- Sponsors webpages hits comming from the GCDS webpage haven't been measured. This would be really cool to evaluate the commercial return for them.
There are tons of things that could be done to increase this number. This is something to disscuss for following events. These numbers give a lot of credit to the idea of co-hosting the event that both boards had, I think. Next time it'll take place a joint event the mark will probably be broken by far. It will be a good sign.
All numbers and graphs has been taken from the official Gran Canaria Desktop Sunnit: GUADEC + Akademy 2009 website. Webalizer was the tool chosen.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
GCDS Conclusions I
I've taken some time to write down about the event. This is the first post of a serie about the event I pretend to write. It is a personal view, although I know many of these ideas are shared by other local team members, since we have disscussed them before.
I would like to begin thanking GNOME and KDE communities for the recognition done to the local team during the GNOME assembly and the Akademy closure. It was something unexpected and appreciated by all of us. You made us feel really proud and it gave us a lot of good energy to keep pushing the rest of the event. You have gained a whole bunch of new fans in the Canary Islands.
I'm goping to focus now in some aspects not known by most attendees.
One of the key points of our Call fo Host project was the Local Program in spanish. It was divided in two parts: talks and workshops. The topics were not related with free desktops but with general aspects of free software and other tools. Although it was important it wasn't a critical activity for the event initially. I have to say though that both boards gave it a lot of relevance to it throught he organization process and we always felt really supported by them in this particular aspect. This is something we didn't expected either.
At some point a few weeks before the event we had to face an unexpected change of location. We had to redo the task list and many of them had to get lower relevance. The local program was one of them. We had to face other critical problems first.
Despite of this, nine workshops took place (3-4 hours each) and close to 80 people attended (117 in total but some went to more than one). The workshops where announced several days before the event but you couldn't register on any until the registration day (the very first day). We did this to avoid people that weren't involved in the event from attending.
The talks were also a great success. Some of them reached 50 attendees. The average was between 20 and 30. We had about 20 talks so the total number is a good one. Most of the people interested in the local program were students that are getting into free software but we had also some technicians from local private companies and from public administrations. Most of the talks were given by spanish companies or well recognized free software developers from the Canary Islands.
Rodrigo Trujillo, the Director of the Free Software Office of La Laguna University (Tenerife college) was the Local Program coordinator. He did a great job.
But the local impact goes further. The local team made turns so local people could attend to some of the activities during the event. It was really popular among us the several conversations that took place in the press room the first weekend among key participants, the crossdesktop track and, of course, the keynotes, as expected.
Some of the local team members are experienced technicians, but for half of them (or even more), it was the very first time they participated in a community event. Geting involved with GNOME and KDE volunteers was also appreciated. Many of us have learnt many things from them, they helped us a lot and we got along really well. The general atmosphere in the local team was really good during the event, despite the normal pressure.
Four presidents of Spanish regional free software companies associations attended to the event. One of them is the President of the Spanish national federation of free software companies association, ASOLIF. About 8 local free software companies were involved and several more participated in the local program or other activities. This can give you an idea of the relevance of the event for the spanish free software companies. Igalia, an ASOLIF member, was one of the main sponsors and some representatives from spanish public administrations also attended.
The asociation of Canary Islands free soft companies, ESLIC, ASOLIF and La Laguna University, signed a long term collaboration contract during the event, to make projects together. This is the first time this happens at a national level in Spain, and it took place during the event. In Spain, one of the weak points of the education system is that colleges do not collaborate much with private companies, since they get most of theis funds from other public administrations. We want to open a door to change this by using free software and involving development communities. Let's see how the experience goes.
ASOLIF gave a press conference that had a big impact in national press during the event. Another nice press conference took place with both Canary Island colleges, GNOME Hispano and KDE España Presidents. Local media also covereged it. It was the first time the Presidents from both spanish communities did such a thing together. And both Canary Islands colleges were there not just as witnesses but as real actors, one as free software promoter (La Laguna University) and the other one as main organizer (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria University).
I feel the event has been really important for GULIC, the Canary Islands LUG (one of the oldest in Spain). Many of its members lived again during those days the spirit involved in its foundation (aaaahhh... the old days). It was really cool to see "old guys" working together with local young kids. They celebrated an assembly during the event and they voted a new board with the total support of the group. Nice news for the free soft. movement in the Canary Islands.
In the Canary Islands, as in many other places in the world, there is a big rivalry between Tenerife and Gran Canaria, the two main islands. They claim to be the first on everything. Having both colleges from both islands active collaborating is something we've never imagine it would happened when we designed the event. It came to a point where technicians from both colleges were working together to set the network and the computer labs. The Software Libre Office from La Laguna University sent all the technicians they have (six) to help the technicians from the Free software Office and the system administrators from the ULPGC college.
The Cabildo of Lanzarote, another Canary Island, payed the trip and expenses (thanks Kuko Armas, from Canarytek - Grupo CPD for managing this) of five students in computer science to help us during the event. Along with the rest of the local team, we were capable to have everything ready in ULPGC college in just one week. They were definetly inspired by the event spirit. The messege was clear, if GNOME and KDE can do it, why don't we? So we did and is one of those thing we will be able to tell our grandsons.
José Miguel Santos, the IT chief of ULPGC (Gran Canaria University), has been a key person in general and in this point in particular. I hope this marks the beginning of something that break rules in the Canary Islands. It is also a strong messege to other colleges in Spain. They are meant to collaborate with each other much more than they do now.
But above all these results and some more I will tell in following posts, young local developers got new messeges they sometimes hear but never before experienced. They know now that developing software can be exciting, that they are capable to do it, GNOME and KDE are willing to accept them and real innovation is not a dream for them anymore. It is a reachable goal if you work hard, not because we tell them but because they have seen it, and lived it.
Above 60 people formed the local team during the event (plus GNOME and KDE volunteers, college workers, auditorium and music palace workers, etc). It has been an unforgetable experience for all of us.
Somebody asked me during the event:
It is the general feeling of the local team.
A community event like the Gran Canaria Desktop Summit is the most powerful marketing tool the free software movement have, even more than the product coded itself. I think we still have to learn how to use it more efficiently but it is something that can make a difference if it is done in a compatible way with the traditional goals.
Nothing to attract good customers like showing the kitchen and the chef cooking.
Bringing young developers, even if they are not contributors yet, college students, small free software companies and public administrations representatives to GUADEC and Akademy can feed GNOME and KDE like no other single action. Both communities are mature enough to make steps forward in this direction without losing the esence of what these events are. We have tried to prove it is possible. Of course this was nothing more than a small experiment, but a succesful one, in my opinion, despite all the difficulties we have faced.
Do you agree?
I would like to begin thanking GNOME and KDE communities for the recognition done to the local team during the GNOME assembly and the Akademy closure. It was something unexpected and appreciated by all of us. You made us feel really proud and it gave us a lot of good energy to keep pushing the rest of the event. You have gained a whole bunch of new fans in the Canary Islands.
I'm goping to focus now in some aspects not known by most attendees.
One of the key points of our Call fo Host project was the Local Program in spanish. It was divided in two parts: talks and workshops. The topics were not related with free desktops but with general aspects of free software and other tools. Although it was important it wasn't a critical activity for the event initially. I have to say though that both boards gave it a lot of relevance to it throught he organization process and we always felt really supported by them in this particular aspect. This is something we didn't expected either.
At some point a few weeks before the event we had to face an unexpected change of location. We had to redo the task list and many of them had to get lower relevance. The local program was one of them. We had to face other critical problems first.
Despite of this, nine workshops took place (3-4 hours each) and close to 80 people attended (117 in total but some went to more than one). The workshops where announced several days before the event but you couldn't register on any until the registration day (the very first day). We did this to avoid people that weren't involved in the event from attending.
The talks were also a great success. Some of them reached 50 attendees. The average was between 20 and 30. We had about 20 talks so the total number is a good one. Most of the people interested in the local program were students that are getting into free software but we had also some technicians from local private companies and from public administrations. Most of the talks were given by spanish companies or well recognized free software developers from the Canary Islands.
Rodrigo Trujillo, the Director of the Free Software Office of La Laguna University (Tenerife college) was the Local Program coordinator. He did a great job.
But the local impact goes further. The local team made turns so local people could attend to some of the activities during the event. It was really popular among us the several conversations that took place in the press room the first weekend among key participants, the crossdesktop track and, of course, the keynotes, as expected.
Some of the local team members are experienced technicians, but for half of them (or even more), it was the very first time they participated in a community event. Geting involved with GNOME and KDE volunteers was also appreciated. Many of us have learnt many things from them, they helped us a lot and we got along really well. The general atmosphere in the local team was really good during the event, despite the normal pressure.
Four presidents of Spanish regional free software companies associations attended to the event. One of them is the President of the Spanish national federation of free software companies association, ASOLIF. About 8 local free software companies were involved and several more participated in the local program or other activities. This can give you an idea of the relevance of the event for the spanish free software companies. Igalia, an ASOLIF member, was one of the main sponsors and some representatives from spanish public administrations also attended.
The asociation of Canary Islands free soft companies, ESLIC, ASOLIF and La Laguna University, signed a long term collaboration contract during the event, to make projects together. This is the first time this happens at a national level in Spain, and it took place during the event. In Spain, one of the weak points of the education system is that colleges do not collaborate much with private companies, since they get most of theis funds from other public administrations. We want to open a door to change this by using free software and involving development communities. Let's see how the experience goes.
ASOLIF gave a press conference that had a big impact in national press during the event. Another nice press conference took place with both Canary Island colleges, GNOME Hispano and KDE España Presidents. Local media also covereged it. It was the first time the Presidents from both spanish communities did such a thing together. And both Canary Islands colleges were there not just as witnesses but as real actors, one as free software promoter (La Laguna University) and the other one as main organizer (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria University).
I feel the event has been really important for GULIC, the Canary Islands LUG (one of the oldest in Spain). Many of its members lived again during those days the spirit involved in its foundation (aaaahhh... the old days). It was really cool to see "old guys" working together with local young kids. They celebrated an assembly during the event and they voted a new board with the total support of the group. Nice news for the free soft. movement in the Canary Islands.
In the Canary Islands, as in many other places in the world, there is a big rivalry between Tenerife and Gran Canaria, the two main islands. They claim to be the first on everything. Having both colleges from both islands active collaborating is something we've never imagine it would happened when we designed the event. It came to a point where technicians from both colleges were working together to set the network and the computer labs. The Software Libre Office from La Laguna University sent all the technicians they have (six) to help the technicians from the Free software Office and the system administrators from the ULPGC college.
The Cabildo of Lanzarote, another Canary Island, payed the trip and expenses (thanks Kuko Armas, from Canarytek - Grupo CPD for managing this) of five students in computer science to help us during the event. Along with the rest of the local team, we were capable to have everything ready in ULPGC college in just one week. They were definetly inspired by the event spirit. The messege was clear, if GNOME and KDE can do it, why don't we? So we did and is one of those thing we will be able to tell our grandsons.
José Miguel Santos, the IT chief of ULPGC (Gran Canaria University), has been a key person in general and in this point in particular. I hope this marks the beginning of something that break rules in the Canary Islands. It is also a strong messege to other colleges in Spain. They are meant to collaborate with each other much more than they do now.
But above all these results and some more I will tell in following posts, young local developers got new messeges they sometimes hear but never before experienced. They know now that developing software can be exciting, that they are capable to do it, GNOME and KDE are willing to accept them and real innovation is not a dream for them anymore. It is a reachable goal if you work hard, not because we tell them but because they have seen it, and lived it.
Above 60 people formed the local team during the event (plus GNOME and KDE volunteers, college workers, auditorium and music palace workers, etc). It has been an unforgetable experience for all of us.
Somebody asked me during the event:
- If you could go back, would you do it again? Absolutely.
It is the general feeling of the local team.
A community event like the Gran Canaria Desktop Summit is the most powerful marketing tool the free software movement have, even more than the product coded itself. I think we still have to learn how to use it more efficiently but it is something that can make a difference if it is done in a compatible way with the traditional goals.
Nothing to attract good customers like showing the kitchen and the chef cooking.
Bringing young developers, even if they are not contributors yet, college students, small free software companies and public administrations representatives to GUADEC and Akademy can feed GNOME and KDE like no other single action. Both communities are mature enough to make steps forward in this direction without losing the esence of what these events are. We have tried to prove it is possible. Of course this was nothing more than a small experiment, but a succesful one, in my opinion, despite all the difficulties we have faced.
Do you agree?
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Nothing in particular...
I'm sitting in the backyard of my grandfather house, in a little village, by the mountains, in Segovia, Spain. It is called Matabuena. Here it is usually cold except in July and August. Just a few families live here in winter but the place gets alive during summertime, like many little towns all over the world.
There are cows and horses all over the place, kids with bicycles, old people taking long walks and a bar, where old men play cards during the afternoons. It is a totally different place from the Canary Islands or Malaga. I used to come here when I was a kid and it was really cool. It is only 90 minutes away from Madrid, so I guess I will visit this place more often if I finally move to Madrid next year.
I spent a month in Gran Canaria, three weeks to prepare the GCDS and the week of the event, of course. A couple of days after the closure, I went to Tenerife, spent a couple of days with my parents and then I went to La Palma, a little paradise I strongly recommend. La Palma is the place I call home. After a week there, I went back to Tenerife invited to an event. A day after I went to Málaga, spent a week there and began a long trip around Spain.
Madrid, Matabuena, Madrid again, Segovia, Valladolid, Vitoria, Bilbao, Matabuena, Madrid and finally Málaga (tomorrow). A little more than 2500 kms done by car.
Despite the hardworking, I've had some time to do cool things, meeting new and old friends, living some new experiences and spending some time with my family.
It looks like the rest of August I will have time to slow down and finishing some undone tasks, plus preparing the rest of the year's agenda. There are tons of things going on around ASOLIF this year but also we have to focus on closing some open tasks. I guess this one of the hardest thing to do when a new project involving a lot of people begins. You have to make sure some basic taks get done. There is a strong inertia of keep moving, continuosly starting new things, moving forward without closing previous work.
Meanwhile I have updated my laptop from XFCE/KDE 3.5 to KDE 4.2. As expected, some issues has arised, but in general, most of the everyday actions works quiet well. I still haven't had time to push the desktop further. Hopefully these following weeks I will. I'll write a post with my conclusions. Another thing I will do is installing GNOME and use it for specific tasks. I haven't use it for almost a year and I want to experience the improvements.
Another regional free software companies association has been created in Spain with our help. It's called CyLESoL, from Castilla y León. We are working to create one or two more before the end of this year. The plan is to reach 200 free software companies associated to the Federation ASOLIF by the end of the year, that means doubling the number we had by the end of 2008.
Spain is well known because of free software projects related with education. Almost every region in Spain is already deploying, developing or planning to put linux in schools. But lately two different areas are becomming really popular here: 3D and SIG. There is a lot of good energy and bussiness perspectives around these areas.
ASOLIF President is flying this week to Mexico and another member of our board will fly to Republica Dominicana soon. It is the second time that representatives from ASOLIF go to South America. Both of them have been invited to promote companies associations in Latin America and to do some networking.
Latin Amrica have awesome free software projects and developers. We have to figure out how to mix that potencial with our Federation by builing a simbiotic relation, treating each other as equals. We go there with a speech that is far away from usual. We are really excited about the idea of building up trasparent bridges across the Atlantic Sea between small free software companies from both sides. We have a lot to learn from each other. Of course this will take some time, but we are on it.
ASOLIF will celebrate an internal event on Novermer where companies will join to define and write down projects that we will try to acomplish during 2010. It is the first time we do such a thing but people is excited about the idea of meeting each other and seatting around a table to work on free software projects. I hope one or two of them deals with desktops and mobile technologies. I've been working on the event's methodology and it will be finished by the first week of september. It can be a nice experience to export. Let's see. It will be my major task for the following weeks.
Enough for today, right?
There are cows and horses all over the place, kids with bicycles, old people taking long walks and a bar, where old men play cards during the afternoons. It is a totally different place from the Canary Islands or Malaga. I used to come here when I was a kid and it was really cool. It is only 90 minutes away from Madrid, so I guess I will visit this place more often if I finally move to Madrid next year.
I spent a month in Gran Canaria, three weeks to prepare the GCDS and the week of the event, of course. A couple of days after the closure, I went to Tenerife, spent a couple of days with my parents and then I went to La Palma, a little paradise I strongly recommend. La Palma is the place I call home. After a week there, I went back to Tenerife invited to an event. A day after I went to Málaga, spent a week there and began a long trip around Spain.
Madrid, Matabuena, Madrid again, Segovia, Valladolid, Vitoria, Bilbao, Matabuena, Madrid and finally Málaga (tomorrow). A little more than 2500 kms done by car.
Despite the hardworking, I've had some time to do cool things, meeting new and old friends, living some new experiences and spending some time with my family.
It looks like the rest of August I will have time to slow down and finishing some undone tasks, plus preparing the rest of the year's agenda. There are tons of things going on around ASOLIF this year but also we have to focus on closing some open tasks. I guess this one of the hardest thing to do when a new project involving a lot of people begins. You have to make sure some basic taks get done. There is a strong inertia of keep moving, continuosly starting new things, moving forward without closing previous work.
Meanwhile I have updated my laptop from XFCE/KDE 3.5 to KDE 4.2. As expected, some issues has arised, but in general, most of the everyday actions works quiet well. I still haven't had time to push the desktop further. Hopefully these following weeks I will. I'll write a post with my conclusions. Another thing I will do is installing GNOME and use it for specific tasks. I haven't use it for almost a year and I want to experience the improvements.
Another regional free software companies association has been created in Spain with our help. It's called CyLESoL, from Castilla y León. We are working to create one or two more before the end of this year. The plan is to reach 200 free software companies associated to the Federation ASOLIF by the end of the year, that means doubling the number we had by the end of 2008.
Spain is well known because of free software projects related with education. Almost every region in Spain is already deploying, developing or planning to put linux in schools. But lately two different areas are becomming really popular here: 3D and SIG. There is a lot of good energy and bussiness perspectives around these areas.
ASOLIF President is flying this week to Mexico and another member of our board will fly to Republica Dominicana soon. It is the second time that representatives from ASOLIF go to South America. Both of them have been invited to promote companies associations in Latin America and to do some networking.
Latin Amrica have awesome free software projects and developers. We have to figure out how to mix that potencial with our Federation by builing a simbiotic relation, treating each other as equals. We go there with a speech that is far away from usual. We are really excited about the idea of building up trasparent bridges across the Atlantic Sea between small free software companies from both sides. We have a lot to learn from each other. Of course this will take some time, but we are on it.
ASOLIF will celebrate an internal event on Novermer where companies will join to define and write down projects that we will try to acomplish during 2010. It is the first time we do such a thing but people is excited about the idea of meeting each other and seatting around a table to work on free software projects. I hope one or two of them deals with desktops and mobile technologies. I've been working on the event's methodology and it will be finished by the first week of september. It can be a nice experience to export. Let's see. It will be my major task for the following weeks.
Enough for today, right?
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