[dot] aKademy 2007: The Keynotes

[Dot Stories]

URL: http://dot.kde.org/1183385741/

From: Jos Poortvliet and Danny Allen <>
Dept: keynotes
Date: Monday 02/Jul/2007, @07:15

aKademy 2007: The Keynotes
==========================

   aKademy 2007 [http://conference2007.kde.org/] has kicked off! The
first weekend hosted our user conference, which brought many talks about
various topics, ranging from very technical to more practically
oriented, which were spread over two tracks. The tracks were interweaved
with keynote talks. Read on for the report of the aKademy 2007 keynotes.


  I. TROLLTECH

     Saturday opened with Lars Knoll, talking about KDE from the
perspective of a troll [http://trolltech.com/]. Trolltech employs over
50 full-time developers on Qt itself, accompanied by an assortment of
testers and support personnel. Following the ideas behind 'extreme
programming', Qt employs extensive code reviews and an incremental
design. Focusing strongly on the API's while letting the developers work
in loosely defined projects or even fully releasing them on 'creative
friday' - it all fits very well with Open Source ideals and methods of
development. This way of working is bearing fruit, and Qt 4.4 will bring
us work on multimedia, hardware integration, with Trolltech even working
with Apple on integrating Webkit as a new, distinct module in Qt.
Research is going on in the areas of resolution-independent interfaces,
multi-threading and extensive IPC.


 [http://static.kdenews.org/dannya/akademy_trolltech.jpg]
     Yet, Trolltech also has another strong focus: the community. The
Trolls realize they need to cooperate more, and thus are trying to
pursue the common interests. By introducing developer blogs, releasing
early snapshots and having a community manager, they hope to increase
communication with the community and encourage contributions. Until now,
KDE developers often worked around limitations in Qt, but in the future
they could send patches.

     This work is bearing fruit, with co-operation with Pango and
OpenOffice.org developers on a common textlayout engine, contributed by
Trolltech. Of course, Trolltech is higly committed to KDE, showing this
by sponsoring developers, events and code. They want more feedback from,
co-operation with and contributions to the community - and these can
only bring good things to the Free Software ecosystem.



 II. 13 LESSONS FOR THE FREE DESKTOP

     Mark Shuttleworth of Canonical (and Ubuntu) fame gave a keynote
about his vision for Free Software. He presented the Top 13 challenges
the Free Desktop faces from his perspective.

 Pretty is a Feature Consistent Packaging Simplified Licencing Pervasive
Presence Pervasive Support Govaritye pa Russki Great Gadgets Sensory
Immersion Real-time Collaboration More Organised Community The Extra
Dimension Granny's New Camera Keeping it Free
     Consistent Packaging
 Talking about Packaging, he urged developers to re-think their
procedures and priorities. There are many areas where we create
different and incompatible systems, like RPM and DEB. Long ago, in a
time of great flux and fundamental innovation, these differences where
meaningful and useful. Nowadays, they are just barriers to broader
adoption of the Free Desktop, and lead to a lot of duplication and
useless work.

     Great Gadgets
 Another challenge lies in the rise of new gadgets. A new generation of
mobile phones, powerful enough for traditional desktop software are
emerging. Interoperability with the latest digital cameras and
multimedia devices is becoming more and more important, and Mark feels
we should do more to bring the two spheres of Asian hardware engineers
and European and American software developers on board. Asia is where
the digital innovation is going on, and we should be there.

     Sensory Immersion
 Also interesting is the merger between the digital and the real world.
They become more and more connected, and Free Software can play a role
here. Sound, according to Mark, is crucial here. He gives an example of
the bush: if you really want to experience one, you should stand in one,
and close your eyes - the environment will 'talk to you'. Not the
smartest move in the Darwinian sense, but definitely the way to a cool
sensory experience. The sounds of everything trying to not be eaten, and
eating other things can be overwhelming yet.

     Other challenges Mark mentions are real-time co-operation, the
'extra dimension' brought by the latest 3D technology on the desktop,
and finally, the challenge of keeping Free Software really 'Free'. Mark
says that he is highly committed to this freedom, both in the 'gratis'
and 'libre' sense, and we should be, too.


 [http://static.kdenews.org/dannya/akademy_shuttleworth_crowd.jpg]
     An interesting talk which became even more so when Mark suggested
that KDE move to a more predictable (preferably 6 monthly) schedule.
Mark mentioned that if KDE, GNOME and OpenOffice.org could agree to a
common, regular release period, the rhythm and beat of publicity would
be a frightening prospect for proprietary competition. This certainly
prompted heated discussion, which is still going on. When KDE 4 is
released later this year, who knows what the exciting future will bring.


 [http://static.kdenews.org/dannya/akademy_aaronvsmark.jpg]


III. BEAUTIFUL FEATURES

     Aaron Seigo held an energising talk named 'Beautiful Features'.
Starting by mentioning the negative (yet undeserved) reputation KDE has
in the area of the so-called 'bloat' and associated bad usability, he
pointed to the many unexperienced users working with KDE without issue.

     However, having a basically usable, complete desktop isn't enough.
First, you need to make a great First Impression. And the current KDE
would have given a good impression 5 years ago, but not now. We need to
start bringing good eyecandy to the desktop, while at the same time
increasing its usability. A good example are toolbars. Having many
toolbar buttons doesn't just look bad, it also makes using the
application less efficient. Developers are used to complexity, but most
users aren't - they are just not 'wired' that way. Using images and
ideas from Joga, Aaron told us with what mindset we must develop
software.

     Showing a picture of Charles Darwin, he started to talk about the
connection between real-life and what happens on a computer. Using
subtle animation, a computer can feel a lot more natural. Qt 4.3 offers
great features in this area, and we should make use of it. Effective
use, of course. One second animations make the interface feel slow,
whilst short, 0.25 second animations become functional. Aaron's grand
vision of the future, a KDE out-innovating all competitive desktops,
brought with a lot of humor, inspired many questions, and even led to
some quotes we won't mention here.



 IV. DESKTOP LINUX - THE NEXT PHASE

     Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation starts by
mentioning the Linux Desktop Architects meeting at Google's
headquarters. Nobody from KDE was there, so it was a rather limited
meeting - something clearly went wrong in the communication area. We ask
him why KDE didn't get any invitations - after all, we represent the
majority of the Linux Desktop and are working on its future. Jim told us
there was a serious screwup, and apologizes - next time, they promise to
get it right. We discover later on that there were a few invitations
sent, but only to individual developers. Jim is offered the address of
the KDE e.V., our legal organization, which will ensure the message will
get through next time.

     Then Jim starts to talk about our proprietary competition, and its
strengths (mostly a bunch of lawyers) and its weaknesses (less
innovation). What is our situation? Firstly, we grow faster than our
competition. And we innovate. And we have lower costs. All this is due
to the way Free Software works, both by increasing competition and
co-operation. The Free Software market is much more dynamic, and thus it
offers a much stronger eco-system.

     Where does the Linux Foundation come in? Well, aside from paying
the bills for some high-profile kernel hackers (for example Linus
Torvalds), they are here to defend us. Our biggest competitor has a
habit of trying nasty things to continue its monopoly and sustain the
huge income it has (during the time you read this article, several
millions are brought in to Redmond). It is spreading fear, uncertainty
and doubt [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt],
trying to get proprietary, non-interoperable standards everywhere, and
even denying our existence (even though Linux is a multi-billion dollar
business). The Linux Foundation tries to co-ordinate our defence, both
in the marketing and the legal area. There are a lot other organizations
working on these things, like the Software Freedom Law Center and the
Free Software Foundation. The Linux Foundation mostly tries to focus on
the long-term, building a defence, for example lobbying for a reform of
the patent law.

     Jim proceeds to talk about the Linux desktop. He begins with the
image it has, where we're at in that area. He points out that most talk
is about what's wrong with Linux, what's missing, while we're already
very good. Not perfect, of course, but what is? We should focus more on
our strengths, communicate them. He told us how easy it was to impress
some journalists from big American papers like the Wall Street Journal
with a Ubuntu live CD.

     He finally talks about things that the Linux Foundation has done,
like the Linux Standards Base (LSB) or the co-operation on Text Layout
(failing to mention it was Trolltech who donated the bulk of the initial
code). He also asks KDE to stop locking in users and applications to our
framework. Partly due to time, we didn't really interpret and understand
what he meant by this statement.


  V. CONCLUSION

     The keynotes were fun, interesting and thought-provoking. Thinking
is good, and most of us like  it, so we are grateful to the speakers for
joining aKademy 2007, and sharing their perspectives.