Spread to more platforms – Registrations for Randa Meetings 2016 open

Posted on February 23, 2016 by Mario Fux

The Randa Meetings as the annual KDE Tech Summit are back. This year a bit earlier to not clash with QtCon and for some other reasons. So if you want to join us from Sunday, the 12th to Sunday the 19th of June 2016 in the middle of Alps don’t hesitate, get in contact with us and register yourself. The registration will close March, 16th so we can start to work on a budget and continue with the organization.

The main topic of the Randa Meetings 2016 (RM2016) will be multi-platform end-user application development. This includes stuff like improving KDE Frameworks 5 (KF5) on other platforms like Microsoft Windows, Android or Apple’s MacOSX, presenting and discussing how software distribution works on other systems than GNU/Linux (Windows installers, app stores and application bundles) and learning from the experience projects like Krita, digiKam, Rkward, Kdenlive & Co collected. We’d like to bring this information to more KDE Applications and work on this during a full week.

Randa Meetings Konqi with Matterhorn and Edelweiss

Are you interested in C++ programming on a certain operating system, do you know the internal functions of the underlying system or are you well-known for porting Qt applications to other operating systems than GNU/Linux then we need you. Or do you just want to port your KDE application to another OS then please add yourself too.

Do you have knowledge about the software distribution channels and mechanisms on the popular systems and have experience in creating installation software for MS Windows, application bundles for MacOSX or repositories for F-Droid and want to share this knowledge and help a great and welcoming Free Software community to bring their software to this systems? Then please get in contact and come to Randa, Switzerland in June 2016.

If there are any questions, don’t hesitate to get in contact (email, comments section below or IRC: freenode.net in #randa). And if you know somebody else that would fit please forward this information and spread the word about it. See you soon in Randa…

Posted in english | 1 Comment

Randa Meetings – the Past and the Future

Posted on December 9, 2015 by Mario Fux

The end of the year is near and this year’s Randa Meetings ended quite some weeks ago. But just some days ago we published an extensive report about the happenings at this KDE Tech Summit: Randa Meetings 2015 – Huge Success Again. I’d say it’s worth reading and looking at the pictures.

And this edition of the Meetings wouldn’t have happened without the great help of supporters, donators and sponsors (in alphabetical order):

Thanks a lot to you! And if you want to be on this list next year don’t hesitate to contact us.

Randa Meetings Konqi with Matterhorn and Edelweiss

So what about the future of the Randa Meetings? They will happen again next year and we’ve already a main topic:

Multi-platform end-user application development: Bring KDE Apps to other platforms and strengthen them on their free home platforms. This might include stuff like improving KDE Frameworks 5 on other platforms like MS Windows, Android or Apple’s MacOSX, presenting and discussing how distribution works on other systems than GNU/Linux (Windows installers, app stores and application bundles) and learning from the experience projects like Krita, digiKam, Rkward, Kdenlive & Co collected. We’d like to bring this information to more KDE Apps and work on this together.

So if you would like to bring your KDE Application to other platforms than just GNU/Linux, have some knowledge about Qt on these platforms or “just” know a lot about how to integrate software on these platforms hesitate and add yourself to the date selection Doodle. We need to start early as the house is quite occupied in the summer months and there is a lot work ahead to make another edition of the Randa Meetings happen and another huge success.

Posted in english | Tagged | 1 Comment

Randa Meetings 2015 – The countdown begins

Posted on August 4, 2015 by Mario Fux

In a bit more than a month, 50+ KDE contributors will arrive in Randa, Switzerland and work again on different topics for a whole week. The motto this year is:

Bring Touch to KDE!

From September 6th to September 13th, developers, artists, documentation writers, translators and other contributors will meet in Randa and continue their work on great KDE software that’s free for anyone to use, modify and distribute. We will welcome people from Africa, America, Asia and Europe (missing Australia and Antarctica, there will be plenty of penguins though).

Six groups are going to bring KDE’s great software to touch and mobile devices:

  • digiKam – Manage your photographs
    like a professional with the power of Open Source
  • KDE Connect – to coordinate communication between all your devices
  • KDE Multimedia – Audio, Movie, Music, Sound and Video
  • KDE PIM – personal information management including email, address books, calendars, tasks, news feeds and more
  • QMLweb – Bring QML to the web
  • Touch and Mobile – The biggest
    group with the main topic

It will be an intense, creative and productive week, and anyone is welcome to visit. There won’t be a designated Open Day, but tell us that you want to visit and we’ll have interesting things for you to see.

mascot_onqi-commu-randa

For this week to happen, we need more than the motivation of Free Software contributors and local helpers. Travel costs, accommodation and other expenses need to be paid. Thanks to your financial support in previous years, we have held five successful Randa Meetings events creating exceptional value for users. With your help, the sixth will be the best ever, and we will be able to plan for more events in the future.

Don’t hesitate, make a donation, spread the word, ask questions or make recommendations, take a look at the list of participants or read the experience of a developer last year.

Posted in english | 2 Comments

The Randa Meetings 2014 are on

Posted on August 10, 2014 by Pascal Mages

The Randa Meetings started yesterday and approx. 45 people incl. friends and family are already here. More are still to arrive.

Some impressions…

Randa Meetings 2014Hard working KDE hackersIMG_1459Sightseeing around Randa

More pictures can be found on Bruno’s Google+.

Posted in english | Tagged | 5 Comments

Randa Meetings 2014: Registration deadline approaching

Posted on April 24, 2014 by Mario Fux

Yesterday I sent an email to the people already registered, to the corresponding mailing lists and to some more people who would or could come to Randa to remind them about the approaching deadline:

Sunday, 4th of May 2014, 23:59 UTC

Till this point in time you should check your data on the KDE sprints page or register if you’ve not yet done so (or poke your team mates to register ;-). We need to fix a budget by then to start the fundraising campaign.

And don’t hesitate to contact us or ping me (unormal) on Freenode.net IRC in #randa if you’ve questions, hints or you just want to help with the fundraising campaign. Help there is very much appreciated.

Oh and if you’ve not yet participated in this small survey about Randa Meetings, Work and Money it’s still open ;-).

Posted in english | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Randa Meetings 2014: The date is set, please register

Posted on February 19, 2014 by Mario Fux

After talks with some people, exchanging some ideas and a first doodle the date for the Randa Meetings 2014 is set:

Saturday, 9th to Friday, 15th of August 2014

Furthermore the house is reserved so you’ll have a place to sleep and eat and thus the kitchen team is set as well. So from the organizational point of view we’re done ;-). Now we just need some discussing, hacking, developing and planning people who want to come to Randa in August and be productive as hell. And that’s the second topic of this post: the groups and motto for this year’s meetings.

Most of the groups are already set and are of the following kinds:

  •  Amarok and Multimedia: Phonon 5, Amarok 3.0 and what else?
  •  Gluon: Restart of the KDE gaming framework?
  •  KDE Edu: Port the remaining apps to KF5 and work on math and language tools
  • Kdenlive: Bring new life to our great video editing application and maybe porting it to KF5
  • KDEbooks: We need a new version of the KDE Development book and maybe another one?
  • KF5: Do you plan to port your (KDE) application to KDE Frameworks 5?
  • KDE SDK: more about this below
  • OSM: OpenStreetMap (Switzerland)

So the main motto of this year is: KDE Frameworks 5 and KDE SDK.

After the planning and discussing that happened about KF5 two or three years ago in Randa by this summer we will have a working Plasma based on a stable KDE Frameworks 5. And we are going to have already quite some KDE applications ported to the new KDE Frameworks. But we plan to do another strong porting push and if you’ve not yet any set plans for the porting of your application this might be your opportunity. We are going to have some knowledgeable people that will support you as much and where they can.

But we would also like to bring not just people who work already on and with KF5 to Randa but people who use and know Qt and KF5 on Windows, MacOSX, Android and iOS… Let’s make KF5 a great and real cross platform addon and supplement for Qt. And maybe add some foreign operating systems to our CI infrastructure?

And what about this KDE SDK? You know Qt SDK, right? Everything included right from the start. Just download, install and start to develop and deploy cross platfrom applications. We offer something similar but not as easy, complete and integrated (yet): KDevelop, KF5, Kate, kdewin installer, etc. Let’s make a big step forward in Randa to a fully working and cross platfrom KDE SDK.

So if you’re interested in this work and think you could contribute something talk to us (#randa on freenode.net), tell us (fux@kde.org) and add yourself to the sprints.kde.org page. If you have questions or other feedback or just want to help us with fund raising or dish washing you might contact us as well ;-). And for further information about the Randa Meetings in general look at:

PS: And you might even bring your whole familiy to Randa. It’s a nice place for relaxing holidays and we help you to find some cozy place to stay. At the current state we know that there will be at least two kids at the Randa Meetings this summer.

Posted in english | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

No Randa Meetings in 2013 – CU in 2014

Posted on June 3, 2013 by Mario Fux

I discussed this for a long time and in the end it was a hard decision to make. And for the people who needed to know it early they are already aware of this. Or if you are/were in the IRC channel #randa on freenode.net you know it as well but here is the long overdue official blog post about it.

There won’t be any Randa Meetings in 2013.

The reason is simple. As the organization still lies mostly on my (and my families) shoulders (but that’s changing, see e.g. Pascal, who did this great website and more) it’s not possible to bring up the time this year. Someone of my family had an accident at the end of last year with a quite long recovery time (and at the beginning the prognosis was not that positive at all) and we’re now half way through this year and she’s not yet back to 100% as before (but we’re optimistic and there was great progress!).

But we’ll do (the Fux family and the Randa meetings crew) our best to be back in 2014 and welcome you in Randa for the 5th time.

In the meantime you could do something for a great IT project: the Fairphone. Unfortunately there are not yet that many fair IT projects or products and if you google, search and read a bit about this topic you’ll see how much blood and unfairness can adhere to our all IT stuff. Thus a project which tries really hard to assure that the IT product is produced in a (n as) fair (as possible) way should be supported. Fortunately enough the Fairphone project is already in the stage of a first production run but they need some more pre-orders (at this moment they need 690 more people to pre-order to reach the 5000 mark). So pre-order a Fairphone if you need a new smartphone and port Plasma Active or another free software project to it.

Oh and btw: I won’t be in Bilbao but wish you all the best and cu soon!

Best regards, Mario Fux (aka unormal)

Posted in english | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The Randa Meetings 2012 are history

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Pascal Mages

 

Blogposts from Randa
Randa 2012 Day 6
Line Graphs for Qt Quick
Reminder from Randa: Free Playbook for KDE contributors!
Changing wallpapers
More Randa 2012 goodness
Plasma++ at Randa
Randa Results: New Maxima backend for Cantor
More consistent GUI, and updates to the SoundMenu
Randa: Rekonq installer for Windows
Randa 2012: First Half of Awesomeness
First days of Randa 2012
Randa 2012: Day 4
Randa: KDE Games for Windows
Sound Menu in KMix – Live from the KDE Sprint
Randa Day 2
Randa begins and LernstickRanda: KDE Frameworks build experiment on Harmattan
Randa Fundraising Success!

Blogposts before the Randa Meetings
Check what’s happening in Randa
Rebooting at Randa
The KDE Project – A project of the community, by the community, for the community.
Frameworks5 and Libplasma2 Hacking in the Mountains
Who is Randa for?
It’s great to be a part of KDE
The Importance of Developer Sprints

Posted in english | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

KDE Entwickler treffen sich zum vierten Mal in Randa

Posted on September 22, 2012 by Pascal Mages

Seit Freitag, 21. September befinden sich gegen 40 Programmiererinnen, Künstler, Freie-Software-Enthusiasten und Dokumentationsschreiber im kleinen Walliser Bergdorf Randa und arbeiten eine Woche lang intensiv an der Verbesserung von KDE Software für Millionen Nutzer und Nutzerinnen aus der ganzen Welt.

Das Randa Meeting findet dieses Jahr bereits zum vierten Mal statt. Leute aus der ganzen Welt (von Brasilien bis Indien) diskutieren, essen, schlafen und programmieren eine Woche lang unter dem gleichen Dach, wie die nächste Version ihres Multimedia-Programmes oder ihrer freien Lernsoftware aussehen sollen.

Auch dieses Jahr sind mehrere Gruppen der KDE-Gemeinschaft in Randa:

  • Accessibility: Freie Software für blinde und sehbehinderte Menschen (inkl. 2 Programmierer des befreundeten GNOME-Projektes)
  • Education: Freie Lernsoftware (von Chemie über Geographie und Mathematik bis zum Sprachen lernen ist fast alles mit dabei)
  • Multimedia: Musik- und Videosoftware für jeden Mann und jede Frau
  • Plasma: Arbeitsumgebung für Desktop, Tablet-PC und Info-Displays.

Accessibility
Wer schon einmal einem blinden Mitmenschen bei der Bedienung seines Computers zugeschaut (oder vielleicht sogar zugehört hat), der weiss, dass ein Mauszeiger und Fensterleisten keine grosse Hilfe sind. Meist gibt es zwei Arten, wie dann die Software bedient wird: entweder mit einer Braillezeile unterhalb des Keyboards oder mittels (nicht ganz billiger) Sprachausgabesoftware. Hier kann freie Software wie die von KDE eine interessant Alternative bieten, aber bisher fehlten ein paar Grundfunktionen der Programme, die die Nutzung mittels Braillezeile oder Sprachausgabe verhinderten. Nun sind wir aber soweit, dass die letzten Hürden genommen wurden und in Randa soll nächste Woche der letzte Feinschliff gemacht werden und so alle unsere Software auch sehbehinderten Leuten zur Verfügung stehen.

Education
Die Lernsoftware-Gruppe plant dieses Jahr ihren Fokus auf Lernsoftware für mobile Geräte wie Smartphones und Tablets zu legen. Einige der Programme können schon getestet oder sogar in Apps-Store heruntergeladen werden. Aber auch hier sollen ein paar richtungsweisende Entscheide gefällt werden und es darf gehofft werden, dass bald die Welt der Android-Geräte auch mit KDE-Software ausgestattet werden kann.

Multimedia
Die Multimedia-Gruppe gehört schon fast zum Inventar der Randa Meetings. So sind auch dieses Jahr wieder einige Mitglieder der Audio- und Video-Gruppe in Randa. Ein Klassiker ist dabei der Medienplayer Amarok. Dieses Programm kann man am besten als Musikplayer auf Steroid bezeichnen. Es kann fast alles: Liedtexte zum gerade gespielten Musik-Stück herunterladen, die neusten Charts aus dem Music-Shop herunterladen (nach Bezahlung), die nächsten Konzerttermine der Band anzeigen und Youtube nach den neusten Videos durchsuchen.

Plasma
Mit der Plasma-Gruppe haben die Randa Meetings 2009 angefangen. Plasma ist bei KDE für die Arbeitsumgebung verantwortlich und ist daher für die Benutzer von zentraler Bedeutung. Dieses Jahr liegt der Fokus auf Tablet-Computern und KDE Frameworks 5, der nächsten auf Qt 5 basierenden Technologie Generation.

Posted in deutsch | Leave a comment