KDE-NL BBQ

The responses to by previous blog entry were more then I hoped for. Among them was an invitation to join the KDE-NL BBQ, which was helt last weekend. Whooha!

As newcomer, the experience was mindblowing. Everyone has the same passion and because KDE has so much to offer, everyone has something different to tell about too. So there is a lot to talk about: the state of development, Akademy, KDE4, marketing idea's, plans that are going, and all kinds of interesting details. There were developers from Amarok, KOffice, Mailody, the Music Notation Flake (Soc), but also translation, and marketing/promo teams.

Everyone was genuinely interested in each others stories, everyone clearly showed respect for each other, and we had some good laughs. If that wasn't cool enough, consider how conversations went full speed. Where you normally have to slow down because you're talking too fast, there was nothing to worry about among KDE enthusiasts. It's said that people keep spending soo much time on KDE because of the community. I definitely believe that's true. I enjoyed every piece of that day, and love to be part of such events more often.

I went homeward with Jos Poortvliet and Niels van Mourik. We had a some difficulties finding the the highway because we spent too much time talking. I had some good conversations with Jos back home, and thanks to him I didn't have to make the entire journey back by train. This would have taken more then 2 hours in total, now only 20 minutes.

At the train station I had an interesting experience as well. I sat waiting there with my notebook bag and a Baguette left from the BBQ. Which is quite odd at 23:00 to say the least. Some guys joined me to ask if I was from France, where I got that Baguette from. Oh BBQ? where? with friends? Well.. how do you say this.. er.. have you heard about Linux? yes? .. I had a BBQ with guys who work on KDE in The Netherlands.... er.. a set of graphical programs for Linux! Oh Cool! You work on Linux? It was pretty awesome to talk with those guys at a train station about Linux vs Windows vs Mac OS (due to my notebook), and how that guy didn't like Windows but still used it. Not that we could talk in detail - time was short and it mostly went about stereotypes - but every bit helps.

I spent the evening talking over MSN till about 2am, and was well awake before the alarm went off too. What a day!