GUADEC.

[Miguel de Icaza <miguel helixcode com>]

Hello,

    The first GNOME conference has finished.  I enjoyed this
conference a lot, many of the GNOME contributors got to meet in person
for the first time.  I do not have numbers for the number of people
that attended the show, but it looked like a lot.  The conference
rooms were full pretty much constantly, and in the mornings, there was
a lot of activity in the hacking sessions.

   I would like to thank specially Mathieu for all the effort he put
into making GUADEC happen and to all of the organizers that helped him
make it happen.  Everyone was extremely satisfied with the
conference. 

   I hope the various attendants will have a chance to post their own
impressions of the conference, and can tell us more about what they
did.  

   All in all, it seemed like everyone had a great time.  As a side
effect, I heard more than one expressing his desire to move to Paris
(and that does not count me nor Nat;  We keep the right of being the
first ones to come up with the idea).

   It was great to meet you all guys!   I myself found it great to
meet you and find out that all of you were amazing.  Lets just wait
for GUADEC II (which Mathieu has suggested can be done in Hawai). 

   Andy demoed for the first time Nautilus (the GNOME 2.0 shell), and
got the crowd excited about making GNOME the best platform for end
users, and various people were very interested in hacking various
plug-ins for Nautilus to make free software the best choice for end
users.  Now, if we could just get a good Pango-based word processor, I
would reach computational nirvana.

   Nat managed to get a large percentage of the attendance to dance in
the boat party by throwing large quantities of Champagne at them.
Hopefully we will see those pictures soon.  And I learned that taking
french expresso coffee at 2am was *not* a good idea.  Not good.  Do
not do it. Just go for the tea.

Best wishes and see you next time!  Loved you all!
Miguel.