The Desktop Summit is a joint conference organized by the GNOME and KDE communities, the two dominant forces behind modern graphical software on free platforms. Over a thousand international participants are expected to attend. The main conference takes place from 6-8 August. The annual membership meetings of GNOME and KDE are scheduled for 9 August, followed by workshops and coding sessions on 10-12 August.

The Desktop Summit Team is now pleased to announce this year's program of talks.

Keynotes, Tracks and Panels

The Desktop Summit team welcomes keynote speakers from outside the GNOME and KDE world: Claire Rowland (Fjord, UX Design) and Thomas Thwaites (Technologist & Designer) are confirmed. More to come! There will also be keynoters from the GNOME and KDE communities.

The focus of the conference is collaboration between Free Desktop projects; the conference tracks reflect shared interests. The Desktop Summit hosts the annual conferences of GNOME and KDE. Similarly, each track includes speakers from different desktop projects. "We received a lot of really high quality and interesting proposals and spent a lot of time finding the best selection. It is fantastic to see how much the community has to talk about and show. It will surely be an interesting event with lots of opportunity to collaborate." says Lydia Pintscher, program committee member.

Topics addressed:

Accessibility & Help

Administration & Government

Applications

Community

Development

Platform

Tablets

Toolkits

There is too much going on at the Desktop Summit to give full details here. However, some of the talks highlight the quality and range of speakers and topics:

Karsten Gerloff (President of the FSFE) will speak about Free Desktops for Europe's public sector .

(President of the FSFE) will speak about . Knut Yrvin of Qt Development Frameworks will discuss Ways of winning organizations over to free software .

of Qt Development Frameworks will discuss . Asheesh Laroia will explain How to get new contributors (and diversity) through outreach .

will explain . Dave Neary cautions against The Cost of Going it Alone .

cautions against . Aaron Seigo will present the KDE Platform 4 Roadmap .

will present the . Benjamin Otte and Matthias Clasen speculate on GTK 4 - The future of your favorite toolkit .

and Matthias Clasen speculate on . Owen Taylor looks forward to GNOME Shell Version π (pi) .

looks forward to . Michael Meeks will talk about Liberating Open Office Development .

will talk about . Gustavo Sverzut Barbieri will provide a Quick Overview of Enlightenment Foundation Libraries and E17 .

will provide a . Clemens Buss tells us all about Design Thinking and how the Free Desktop may benefit from it .

tells us all about . Vincent Untz answers a common question: Swimming upstream or downstream? Both!

answers a common question: Federico Mena Quintero introduces Software with the Quality that Has No Name .

introduces . Pockey Lam talks about GNOME a continent, starting from Asia .

talks about . Pradeepto Bhattacharya presents KDE India.

The annual conferences always generate a lot of discussion. This year's summit is no exception with a panel discussion on one of the hot topics in free software. Representatives from Canonical, Novell and the Software Freedom Conservancy will discuss the pros and cons of copyright assignment.

About the Desktop Summit



The host area of Berlin The host area of Berlin

GUADEC (GNOME Users And Developers European Conference) and Akademy (KDE annual world summit) are the world's largest gatherings of people involved in Free Desktop and mobile user interfaces. Over a thousand participants are expected at the Desktop Summit this year, covering both the GNOME and KDE projects as well as related technologies. Organizers welcome developers, artists, translators, community organizers, users and representatives from government, education, businesses. Anyone who shares an interest in a Free Desktop is encouraged to participate.

GNOME and KDE are Free Software communities that drive the user interfaces of many Linux-powered devices--smartphones, laptops, desktops, personal media centers. 2011 is the second summit organized collaboratively by the two communities.

Stay Informed

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Mailing list: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/ds-discuss

Book a special discount accommodation before 30 June.

If you have any questions, email the team.

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The Desktop Summit 2011 is free to attend, but you must register.