Re: Free Desktop Communities come together at the Gran Canaria Desktop Summit

[Quim Gil <quimgil gmail com>]

So I guess there is no way back.

Speaking clearly, I wonder what weight in people's opinions (in the
polls and the board meembers) had the Qt branding in badge, towel,
roll-up ad in the main entrance, etc. Many GNOME people said they
didn't felt 'at home' in such context. But that is something easy to
solve in future editions.

For the rest, I was personally moderately happy. Yes, lots of room for
improvement but we know this is something expected in any first
release.

Actually many GNOME people that was not enthusiastic about a second
joint summit mentioned that one of the problems was that the agenda
didn't help meeting peers with similar interests from the other side.
Something that could be achieved with a better organization of the
agenda, based on this year's experience.

The board knows well what GNOME and GNOME 3 need in the next GUADEC.
Still, two things keep me worrying beyond any plans of organizing
specialized hackfests:

- So where is the right place to meet people and discuss topics
relating to freedesktop.org in a wide sense, beyond the limited scope
and participation of a hackfest? The Desktop Summit was a promising
venue,  now it's gone. Linux Plumbers is (logically) too close to the
Kernel alone. Desktop Architects Meetings are as limited as hackfests.

- And what is the relevance that "the desktop" alone (that is, purely
what GNOME and KDE cover) is going to have in the next years as
opposed to full operating systems / distros or the Linux Kernel and
neighborhood. Sure, the current GNOME members feel attracted by the
idea of going to the next GUADEC. But what about growing the interest
of new developers, from the media, from sponsors and event organizers?
It is hard already for a full co-located Desktop Summit and I believe
it will be harder for separate GUADEC / aKademy.

And then the practical details of organizing a conference. Organizing
1 event for both communities takes less efforts and less risks than
organizing 2 separate events. Another way to put it: organizing a
successful GUADEC takes the same effort or more than co-organizing a
successful Summit.

In this sense, one important opinion would be that from the potential
organizers of a following edition next year. Did they show up? Did
they have any preference for a co-located Summit or GUADEC or aKademy?

-- 
Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com