Svens Blog

So, people are asking me about the days in GC, and I'm getting tired of it. Time to blog. Hopefully I don't forget anything important. :)

So, first of all: no, it was no holiday, The day I arrived was the official beginning of the conference and it ended just the night before I left. Which of course doesn't mean we weren't allowed to have some fun.

So, the journey begun on July 3rd, Stuttgart airport. My first flight ever, before that all conferences could be reached by car or train. Well, that's the benefit of living in central Europe, I guess. It was pretty cool to meet Fregl and other KDE people at the airport in Germany and just a few hours later again over 3000 kilometers away in Gran Canaria (they were on a different plane). Anyway, the flight itself was boring. The only moments it really felt like flying were those right before touch down next to the military aircrafts on the island. The others made it in time to catch the Bus to the Santa Catalina bus station in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, I was a few minutes too late for that. The problem is: the busses go there hourly. But there are also some (from the same bus line 60) that go to San Telmo. As the bus driver explained (his English wasn't very good), that it's just a 20 minutes foot walk to Santa Catalina I decided to go there instead of waiting. Well, the bus driver was wrong: it took me 40 minutes to my hotel, which was located in between those two stations. Well, so at least I have seen some more parts of the city...

I guess we had one of the cheapest hotel on the island, the official travel agency simply wasn't able to manage the trip for a lot of conference participants. Anyway, for sleeping and taking a shower even the cheapest hotel should be good enough. But not for having a reception that is actually able to open the door. I was waiting for about 20 minutes, ringing the door bell again and again, when it finally opened. Some other guest was leaving. So I got inside. Of course due to my delay I missed Sebr, my room mate. The reception was empty, but the window into the reception room could be opened easily. That's what you get when inviting hackers into your hotel and don't offer them the expected service. ;-) I simply left my luggage there and left again to check out the conference location, which should just be 20 minutes or so away by foot. We heard that number before? Yeah, history repeats itself...

I had a printout of the OSM map of the area with me, but as I didn't realize that parts of the highways on it were located inside a tunnel and I had the wrong maps on my Garmin GPS device (Spain... but WITHOUT the Canary Islands... *damn*). I of course managed to walk at least 5 kilometers more than needed. And so i learned: 1) nearly no one speaks English at that place and 2) "Complicada!", when asking a native taxi driver for the way. In the end, just a few meters away from the Alfredo Kraus Auditorium I heard a voice shouting "SVEEEEEN" loudly across the square. Mamarok and Markey found me. :) The conference registration was already closed, the Canonical-sponsored welcome party nearby (here the OSM data was helpful again) and so everything worked out fine for the first day. All the free beer had been drank and they serve a Cuba Libre by giving you a half full (empty?) rum filled glass together with a small bottle of cole. No lemon. And more cola than is needed to fill up the glass. Strange. Very strange.

The next day was mainly Keynote day. So a very hangover-friendly program. Richard Stallman talking about free software, Mono and the Church of Emacs. He even sang the Free Software Song as a person in the audience asked for it. A gnu has been sold of 150 euros, iirc. So basically the usual and expected talk from RMS, but still amusing. There was one free icecream and coffee sponsored by Intel each day at the autitorium. Oh, and after registering everyone received a green Qt-towel, a Google drinking bottle and a Nokia SD-card reader. Nice. The towels are very useful when trying to spot geeks on the beach. 700 people in the main hall were also way too much for the wireless network. Oh, and thanks to Casper for lending me a netebook for the conference, I would not have survived without it!

Sunday the Akademy talk sessions started, additionally to the Cross Destop ones. During lunch break I also learnd how evil the sun in GC can be. Always walk on the sidewalk where you find some shadows, always were something to protect your head. I learned the hard way and used the afternoon to think about it in the hotel. So I missed the group photo, but certainly not the social event in the evening, located at the Club Sotavento, sponsored by Nokia.

On Monday there were several interesting talks. I really think the "getting things done" one had some useful ideas in it. Also Bart and Nikolaj talked about free software business ideas, especially with Amarok in mind. The whole business track talks complemented one another, imho. The day ended with the Akademy awards ceremony, where as always last years winners announced this year's ones. Also the KDE group photo was made afterwards (yeah, didn't miss that one at least). The KDE party (sponsored by Basyskom) then took place at the Terraza El Cielo, which even some taxi drivers didn't know. "I just drive you to the place all the other taxis go." Well, the other taxis were right. Oh, and totally cheap, btw: about 4 euros across the city. That's nice, isn't it?! I guess there I discovered "tinto verano": red wine with ice cubes and zitron or lemon limonade. Nice stuff.

Tuesday was the yearly meeting of the KDE e.V., so basically a day off for non-members. Soooo many different people told me I should definitely apply for a membership, so I guess I'm gonna do it in the next few weeks. Well, anyway, some of the few non-members then met at the Playa de Las Canteras beach to get a slight sunburn (I wrote I learned something? well...) and do some hacking afterwards in a hotel lobby.

Wednesday: first day at the second conference location, the Gran Canaria university "ULPGC - Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria". Here we Amarok people located in one of their computer labs to hack and discuss a lot of different issues during the next few days. Dynamic Playlist, GSoC, certain bugs, Windows and Mac builds, etc. We decided that my Summer of Code project should use C++ unit tests instead of ones written in QtScript, for example. Details follow in a blog entry seperated from this one. And why do television reporters have to walk right in a BoF and do their recording including moderation during the time everyone around them wants to discuss things? Collabora sponsored the last official party of the event in the evening, at the Terraza Black Lounge. Spirits were included. ;-)

After going on with the discussions the next day many conference participants joined the free tourist trip to Maspalomas. The dunes were quite interesting, as you imagine the Sahara. But all the rest of the place... one large tourist trap. Horrible. Looking at the sea and knowing the ~230 kilometers away people are starving in africa, while you can eat German potato salad and drink Bavarian beer... definitely not a place to go on holidays for me.

The next two days went on with discussions and hacking, but on Saturday we decided to meet directly in Las Plasmas, not at the university, as so many people had already left the event. Details on all of those debates will show up in our Wiki soonish.

And finally the flight back was a bit more interesting. You know the legendary "if there's a doctor on board..." sentence? Well two seats next to me some woman got tachycardia, it seems. But two doctors were found, stabilized the situation and we arrived in time in Stuttgart again. You might want to check out Flickr and other sites to see pics.