Akademy 2023 will be a hybrid event held in Thessaloniki, Greece, and online from Saturday the 15th to Friday the 21st of July. The Call for Participation is open! Send us your talk ideas and abstracts.

Why talk at #Akademy2023?

Akademy attracts artists, designers, developers, translators, users, writers, companies, public institutions and many other KDE friends and contributors. We celebrate the achievements and help determine the direction for the next year. We all meet together to discuss and plan the future of the Community and the technology we build. You will meet people that are receptive to your ideas and can help you with their skills and experience. These sessions offer the opportunity for gaining support, and making your plans for your project become a reality.

How to get started

Do not worry about details or a slides right now. Just think of an idea and submit some basic details about your talk. You can edit your abstract after the initial submission. All topics relevant to the KDE Community are welcome. Here are a few ideas to get you started on your proposal:

• Helping new people and organizations discover KDE
• Working towards KDE's goals
• Granting people more digital freedom and autonomy through KDE technologies
• Developing new technologies
• Guiding new, intermediate and expert users to encourage participation
• Anything else that might interest the audience.

These are just some ideas to get the ball rolling. However, you can submit a proposal on any topic as long as you can make it relevant to KDE.

For more ideas for talks, check out the videos from previous years: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, and 2015.

For more details and information, visit our Call for Participation page.

Dot Categories: Community and Events

By Benson Muite

This year Season of KDE has several projects focusing on the accessibility and sustainability goals. There are three projects focused on accessibility, three on sustainability and three additional projects in other areas.

The sustainability projects had fifteen excellent applicants for just three projects, so selecting mentees was challenging. The time mentee applicants invested in applying is much appreciated, and any applicants who have not been selected are encouraged to continue contributing to KDE and open source. It is possible to make smaller contributions to KDE projects that allow possible mentors to see your work and then mentor you informally.

The projects and their mentees that were officially selected for SoK are listed below.

Sustainability Projects

These projects are related to the Blauer Engel (Blue Angel) for FOSS project, a certification for environmentally friendly open source software. The Blauer Engel project is part of the Global Ecolabelling Network, a non-profit organization that certifies eco-friendliness of products within a particular class, and thus allows users to make informed choices.

• Preparation of KDE apps for Blue Angel eco-certification
• Mentor: Joseph P. De Veaugh-Geiss
• Mentee: Rudraksh Karpe
• Improve KDE Eco Test emulation tool
• Mentors: Karanjot Singh, Emmanuel Charruau, and Joseph P. De Veaugh-Geiss
• Mentee: Mohammed Ibrahim
• Measurement of energy consumption with Selenium
• Mentors: Emmanuel Charruau and Harald Sitter
• Mentee: Nitin Tejuja

Accessibility Projects

These projects aim to allow eveybody to use KDE software and KDE websites by improving their accessibility.

• Rishi Kumar will be working on the accessibility and UI testing of Tokodon. This is based on theAT-SPI/Selenium bridge created by Harald Sitter.
• Mentor: Carl Schwan
• Mentee: Rishi Kumar
• Improving the accessibility of KDE’s websites
• Mentor: Paul Brown and Aniqa Khokhar
• Mentee: Victoria Chen
• Plasma accessibility widget
• Mentor: Fushan Wen
• Mentee: Brent Mackey

Additional Projects

• Automate Flatpak checks in GitLab Invent CI
• Mentors: Timothée Ravier and Aleix Pol
• Mentee: Neelaksh Singh
• Brannon Aw will be working on improving the annotation tools in Spectacle (KDE's screenshot app). They will be adding features such as cropping, an eraser tool, and so on. Spectacle: Improving the annotation tools.
• Mentor: Bharadwaj Raju
• Mentee: Brannon Aw
• Plasma: Better holiday support in the digital clock widget.
• Mentor: Fushan Wen
• Mentee: Ruoqing He
• Théophile Gilgien will be working improving Audiotube. He will be working on multiple small features like KRunner integration, ability to play favorite songs as a playlist and more!
• Mentor: Carl Schwan, Devin Lin & Jonah Brüchert
• Mentee: Théophile Gilgien
• Arpit Jain wil be working on the new epub reader, Arianna, which is based on epub.js and QtWebEngine. His knowledge of web-based technologies will be helpful to achieve his goals of syncing the application color scheme to the webengine content, adding settings and adding a table of content.
• Mentor: Carl Schwan
• Mentee: Arpit Jain

Good Luck and have Fun!

KDE thanks the mentors and mentees for improving the KDE ecosystem and wishes them a good experience. The KDE community looks forward to learning about the mentees progress through their blog posts.

Akademy 2023 will be held at the University of Macedonia (UoM) in Thessaloniki, Greece, from Saturday the 15th to Friday the 21st of July.

Akademy 2023 will be a hybrid event, combining on-site and remote sessions, and will include talks, workshops, Birds of a Feather (BoF) meetups, training and coding sessions. The conference is expected to draw hundreds of attendees from the global KDE community to discuss and plan the future of the community and its technologies. Many participants from the broad Free and Open Source software community, local organizations and software companies will also attend. The call for papers will open soon, and the registrations shortly after. We will soon update Akademy's website, in the meanwhile follow us on Twitter and Mastodon to keep up to date with Akademy’s news.

About Thessaloniki

Thessaloniki was founded in 315 BC and has a population of over 800,000. It is Greece's second major economic, industrial, commercial and transportation hub. It is renowned for its rich history, festivals, and events, and is considered to be Greece's cultural capital.

About the University of Macedonia (UoM)

The University of Macedonia is a modern state university that provides education in a wide range of disciplinary fields. UoM’s Department of Applied Informatics makes software, especially free software, the main focus of a large part of the university's studies and research. The university is located only a short walk from the centre of the city, close to cafés, restaurants, and other historical and cultural spots.

About Akademy

For most of the year, KDE, one of the largest free and open software communities in the world, works online communicating over email, instant messaging, video-conferencing, forums and mailing lists. Akademy provides all KDE contributors with the opportunity to meet in person to foster social bonds, work on concrete technology issues, discuss new ideas, and reinforce the innovative, dynamic culture of KDE. Akademy brings together artists, designers, developers, translators, users, writers, sponsors and many other types of KDE contributors to celebrate the achievements of the past year and help determine the direction for the next year. Hands-on sessions offer the opportunity for intense work bringing those plans to reality. The KDE community also welcomes companies building on KDE technology to Akademy, as well as those that are looking for opportunities.

Dot Categories: Community and Events

By Benson Muite

Season of KDE is an opportunity to contribute to KDE, while at the same time improving your skills with guidance from experienced mentors.

Apart from code, software projects require artwork, translations, documentation, community management, and funds acquired through fundraising campaigns. With Season of KDE, you too can get the chance to hone your skills in one or more of these areas over a 12-week period. Participation is open to people of all ages with an interest in learning about open source.

Finding a Project

The first place to look for projects is on the KDE SoK page. If a project listed there interests you, contact the mentor. If you are looking for something different, other open source projects are hosted on KDE's development platform. To find interesting projects, you can list them by:

• the number of stars
• how they are trending

You can also try out applications listed on the KDE applications website and see if you can find something in the application that needs improving. If you are a programmer, have a look at the bugs listed for that application. Once you have found a project you find interesting, and have ideas for improvements, contact the project leads to see if they might be supportive of your ideas and, if you find at least one mentor, post your idea on the KDE SoK wiki before the 15th of January 2023.

Timeline Date Event 15 Dec 2022 Start of Season of KDE 15 Jan 2023 Deadline for Participant and Mentor Applications 22 Jan 2023 Projects Announced 24 Jan 2023 Start of Work 15 Apr 2023 End of Work 20 Apr 2023 Results Announced 20 May 2023 Certificates Issued 1 Jun 2023 Merchandise and SWAG Sent Out by Courier

Past SoKs

If you would like to know more about SoK projects and learn what to expect, check out SoK 2022 and read some of the outcomes from last year. While much of the work is focused on programming, projects in all areas related to the KDE ecosystem are welcome.

You too make KDE possible! Check out our End of Year Fundraiser!

We’re happy to announce that Linux App Summit 2023 will take place in Brno, Czech Republic on April 21–23, 2023. For 2023 Linux App Summit (LAS) will again be held as a hybrid event, allowing attendees and speakers to join virtually or in person at our venue in Brno. Linux App Summit (LAS) is a conference focused on building a Linux application ecosystem. LAS aims to encourage the creation of quality applications, seek opportunities for compensation for FOSS developers, and foster a thriving market for the Linux operating system. Everyone is invited to attend! Companies, journalists, and individuals who are interested in learning more about the Linux desktop application space and growing their user base are especially welcome. The call for papers and registration will be open soon. Please check linuxappsummit.org for more updates in the upcoming weeks.

About Brno

Brno, the second-largest city in the Czech Republic, is a technological hub in Central Europe and the wider region. Several universities specializing in Information Technology give Brno a large source of IT talent and as a result, many companies have opened research and development facilities in the city. With around 90,000 students residing in the area, Brno is a vibrant university city and home to many museums, theatres, festivals, and cultural events. It is a member of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network and in 2017 was designated as a "City of Music". Alongside the urban areas, visitors will find traditional Moravian folklore preserved in some districts and can experience traditional Moravian costumes, wines, folk music, and dance.
View of Brno. SchiDD, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

There are lots of sights to see in Brno! Some of the most popular attractions are:

• Špilberk Castle
• Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul
• Veveří Castle
• Villa Tugendhat

We hope to see you in Brno!

About the Linux App Summit

The Linux App Summit is co-organized by GNOME and KDE. It brings the global Linux community together to learn, collaborate, and help grow the Linux application ecosystem. Through talks, panels, and Q&A sessions, we encourage attendees to share ideas, make connections, and join our goal of building a common app ecosystem. Previous iterations of the Linux App Summit have been held in the United States in Portland, Oregon, and Denver, Colorado, as well as in Barcelona, Spain, and Rovereto, Italy.
Attendees at LAS 2022.

Learn more by visiting linuxappsummit.org.