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Desktop Summit Survey Report

Thanks to the people who completed the survey for the Desktop Summit 2011!

To improve Desktop Summits in the future, the Desktop Summit organizing team collected feedback from attendees through this survey, which 192 people answered. The survey asked for brief background information, a general evaluation of the Desktop Summit and various elements of it, and feedback on the social events.

Wrap up - Desktop Summit 2011 Berlin

A big "Thank You!" to all the sponsors (shown to the right), Technologiestiftung Berlin (TSB; in English, Technology Foundation of Berlin), Humboldt University of Berlin, and nearly 800 attendees who gathered from around the world to make a successful Desktop Summit 2011!

Desktop Summit in the News

News stories and interviews about Desktop Summit 2011 - Berlin

News articles (in German)

GNOME / Ubuntu: "Die Spaltung ist schon längst da (in English below)

Gnome und KDE treffen sich zum Desktop-Summit in Berlin

Day 3 - Toasters and Pants


Keynote: How to make a toaster

The third and final 'traditional' conference day began with Mirko Boehm, Claudia Rauch, Stormy Peters, Karen Sandler and Cornelius Schumacher meeting with members of the Berlin City authorities. The city officials wanted to get acquainted with the free and open source leaders involved in the Desktop Summit, because open technology is important to the local government (more below).

Perhaps as a result of the beach party the night before, attendance was slightly reduced at the first round of talks, but picked up quickly. However, there was plenty of interest in the track that included social capabilities in free desktops. And of course, many participants are eagerly awaiting the rest of the week which is filled with meetings, workshops and BoFs.

Keynotes and Sandals - Day Two at Desktop Summit 2011


Nick Richards

For the second full day at the Desktop Summit, the organizers played a little trick on us by starting talks at 9:00 a.m. Those who were awake enough after the dinners and chat of the previous night were treated to talks on Calligra (the KDE creativity and productivity suite), suggestions about blending the web and the desktop, color management and the build process for GNOME. Those who were still in bed will have to wait for the videos and slides to be posted online in the next few days.

The hallways and courtyard were again busy with small, lively discussions. As the morning went on the attendance at talks increased noticeably. Sunday was also the day of the press conference, where key figures from GNOME, KDE and the cross-community organizing team met with the press to answer their questions about the event and the future of free software.

Everyone having fun at Desktop Summit 2011

Friday, 5 August—preparing

People were standing a bit lost in the cloakroom of the Humboldt University at Unter den Linden, Berlin. They were the volunteers for the Desktop Summit 2011—but without guidance and leadership, they were just nervously looking around and talking to each other.

At 11:00, Mirko Boehm came in, gathered everyone together, and told them what to do! Tables got moved, tape stuck to floors, posters hung up.

Copyright Assignment Panel

Should free and open source projects and companies require developers to sign community agreements in order to contribute, possibly signing over their copyrights? Some do, some don't, others have a blend. Canonical is leading an effort, called "Harmony", to create standardized community agreement documents, an effort they compare with the license standardization work of Creative Commons.

Of course, free and open source developers don't want to give away too much control over their contributions. On the other hand, some project and business leaders say that they must have copyright assignments to be successful. Is there a middle ground?

Conference Attendee Policy Published

As we want all our attendees to have a great experience at our conference and to provide an adequate environment, we have developed the conference attendee policy. All participants are valuable parts of the Desktop Summit. We want to make this a wonderful event for all of them.

From the introduction of the conference attendee policy:

Community Keynote Interview: Nick Richards

Nick Richards is an interaction designer. Not to be confused with graphic design, Nick's work is about the communication frameworks that connect people to data and tools. He helped the GNOME project with creating a useful and meaningful environment in GNOME 3, and he has also worked on the Moblin and MeeGo mobile OS projects. A Senior Interaction Designer at Intel, Nick contributes an important usability voice in design-driven development.

Nick will deliver the GNOME community's Desktop Summit 2011 keynote address on meaningful connections for humans and technology. To provide some insights about Nick, William Carlson asked him a few questions:

Social Events at the Desktop Summit

We are pleased to announce the Desktop Summit social events, bringing even more excitement and fun to the Conference program. The social events vary from sports to parties, and will take place throughout the week in different locations in Berlin. They will provide opportunities for attendees to get together informally while enjoying foods and drinks provided by our sponsors—Intel, Collabora, SUSE, Igalia and corporate partner, c-base.