[dot] KDE at Le Droit D'auteur et Vous

[Dot Stories]

URL: http://dot.kde.org/1120512448/

From: Anne-Marie Mahfouf <>
Dept: c'est-francais
Date: Monday 04/Jul/2005, @16:27

KDE at Le Droit D'auteur et Vous
================================

   Last weekend KDE exhibited at Le Droit D'auteur et Vous (Copyrights
and You) a one day event in Montréal.  KDE developers were there showing
off KDE 3.4.1, the latest development version and handing out Kubuntu
CDs.  There were lots of questions for the exhibitors and lots of praise
for KDE too.  Read Annma's full report below.
  Kimon and Annma
     The day started with a small expo with booths. Following the
article on the Dot [http://dot.kde.org/1119478882/] a few days ago, an
amazing KDE user joined me to man the booth, Kimon. He speaks fluent
French and English and has in depth knowledge of KDE applications. A
former KDE French KDE developer joined as well sporting a KDE shirt. We
gave Kubuntu CDs away (special thanks to Jonathan who shipped those CDs
from Scotland at such short notice). Some of the questions included KDE
X.org interaction (such as 3D window managers), modules management
(people would like to install more easily one package without the whole
module which is what some distributions package currently) and the new
Qt and KDE 4 release. KDE artwork was highly praised and several users
mentioned that KOffice and the way KDE applications are all integrated
make the difference for them versus other desktops.

     Then Richard Stallman gave a talk about copyright, starting with
the four freedoms mentionned in the GPL and explaining his views on the
copyright problem. I know that not all people share his ideas but what
he proposes is a different social ideology. There are several laws in
different countries that threaten to tie our freedoms, laws about
copyright and patents that we should fight if we care about freedom. You
are free to try his ideas or not to so I will not debate about that.

     The main thing I realised during the whole day was about education.
Everyone has the right to have access to education and educational
material should be free. One of the main success of the last three years
is Wikipedia showing that it is possible to achieve this.

     I met other people in different areas, people working in building a
free WiFi network in Montreal for example. Stallman's talk was in French
and will be freely available soon.

     We finished around a good beer in a cool café, listening to a Jazz
band playing as part of the Monréal Jazz Festival.
 [http://www.montrealjazzfest.com/]
     Photos on edu.kde.org.
 [http://edu.kde.org/announcements/3July/images.html]