Building a Hackerspace

A lot of good things are going on lately. Last weekend I was in Nuremberg for the openSUSE Board f2f meeting which when more than fine. I am preparing for oSC15 and on the openSUSE Camp things are better than usual.

We spent a few months talking about making a Hackerspace in Thessaloniki and almost a couple of months some people decided to stop talking and start acting. So we made Tech Ministry , a 180 square meters place in the center of Thessaloniki where everybody can find a home for their projects. Of course we are still building it, literally a hackerspace is never over, but we still need a few things to make it functional. We plan to have it fully functional but the end of next week, but I know really well that everybody has a plan until they get hit, LoL.
If you have some money left in your paypal and you want to help you can do it by donating to our Hackerspace here. We could also use any kind of equipment that you don't need so all you have to do is contact me here by sending a comment or by sending me an email. If you are an FOSS Project Tech Ministry is always happy to support you by promoting your project in our members, so just send us all the information you think we will need for that. 

Running again for the openSUSE Board

Last year I was elected from the community to be one of the members of the openSUSE Board. It was an amazing experience and I learned more things that I could imagine. What I learned from this experience is that being an openSUSE Board member requires people that are deeply involved to the project.

This year I am running again for board and I would like your vote.

History

Over the years I served the openSUSE project with many ways. I was for some years in charge for the Ambassador program, I was a member for Travel Support Program and I am a member of the Marketing Team. Last but not least I was one of the creators of the Greek community where in 2013 organized the openSUSE Conference in Thessaloniki Greece.

My vision

What I believe I could change as a member of the board would be mostly to strengthen the role of the community in order to continue bringing contributors to the Project. My opinion is that the openSUSE Project can use some more visibility in events around the globe, events that will continue bringing more people and more contributors to the openSUSE Project. Our Project is evolving and I feel that more people should know about it, evolve and be a part of those changes. 

SUSE is providing the openSUSE Project some of the best people around FOSS. Many community people see the SUSE people that work for the openSUSE Project not as part of the community but as something different, the truth is(and it should be heard) that those guys are not 9-5 employees but a genuine part of the broader openSUSE community that are very open to any help. So my vision for this year is to do what is needed to eliminate this perception. I believe that by doing that will help the Project evolve even more and faster.

oSC13 is over, but there are more to come, join us.

openSUSE Conference is officially over. We did our best and it worked. I hope all of you had fun although I know that most of you did. There are no words of how gratefull I am to all of those people that helped for this to become a reality.
You can find all the talks in this YouTube playlist. If you have any more photos and you want to share please send them to me, I lost most of the conference trying to make it happen so I would like to see every minute.

More to come...

For those of you who lost oSC13 and for those who want to do it again, no worries openSUSE Summit is comming, join us there and have fun. I will come back with more information about it soon. I need to sleep a few days before doing that :D

oSC14 is around the corner...

Yeap oSC14 is comming on April so get ready for even more fun to Dubrovnik, Croatia. Another Great team of volunteers and Free software activists are ready to host us and rock our brains out. Also one of the things I will come back later with more details.

Bottom line

Community works and it can make anything happen, all it needs is people to stand up and do things, so simple. Stop complaining about stuff, stop talking about stuff, just stand up and make things happen. We are the openSUSE community and we are evolving.

Organizing oSC13 - 2 days before(Zero hour)

Well we are practically on day zero. All the core volunteers are now here, and final set up and testing is doing and every hour counts. Huge efforts are becoming from all people around and all people working in the same spot make this one huge hackfest, saving precious time. Preparation for this conference was huge and this is 'show time' for us. The dark spot here is that no matter how we tried, no matter how personal time we dedicated and no matter how tired we are, nothing of that will actually matter if we do not deliver the best  openSUSE conference done.
 To be honest this whole thing surely did not started how I wanted and did not continued as I wanted. I hoped for more help from people, and this is 'my' people. Unfortunately many people were not sure for us taking the conference and many people that said will help were just vanished from the face of the earth after we finally got the conference.
On the other hand help came from unexpected places, faith to the broader community paid off and Stella and Henne turned out to have super powers. I am a very lucky guy I'm telling you...

I don't want to jinx it but if this conference goes the way it should then this will be a great 'fuck off' to all those people. This years oSC team finally made it and delivered what promised to the community.

I am not sure if I will have another actual post until the conference starts(I am planning to post some preparation photos along with comments :P ) so for those coming to this years openSUSE Conference, make things that matter, have a lot of fun and drink like there is no tommorow.
For those who won't come all I will say is that you will lose an once in a life time experience.

Organizing oSC13 - 22 days before

"It is in the nature of things that every time you try to avoid one danger you run into another"
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli


I am so happy that I read some books when I was younger since now I can understand things better in order to accept various sittuations that happen. You see I have that thing that I cannot accept situations that I cannot understand.

We are 22 days before and although we have made a great progress there are things that need to be done. One thing I see clearly the last few weeks is that no matter how important or minor are the tasks left, they get bigger and bigger every day. This happens because when you plan a conference and add tasks you see in your mind the whole picture when ALL those tasks will be done. Of course you reject some in the course of making the conference but now, just 22 days before you want everything to be done. The alternatives we talked before all worked so far but problems keep comming every single day and you just stand in the front line and face them, lossing a task is not an option, not 22 days before. It is a do or die situation.
 Of course we seem to be in good shape since so far we are doing great but honnestly I have the fear of the failing. On the other hand failing is not an option so...
The thing is that the situation kind of looks like Lernean Hydra where when you cut one head two other pop up. 

Organizing oSC13 - 38 days before(a conference without history is a tree without roots)

Today I feel like talking about history. The history of all the openSUSE confernces in the past. If I made my research right the first openSUSE Conference was in 20-23 of October in 2010.

Here are some graphics that was used at that time. I really find them interesting since I like history and I believe that a lot of lessons can be tought by history. I don't really know much about oSC10 since I was really new to the openSUSE project at that time and I hessitated on going there at that time. Looking back now I think I made a mistake not going there. Of course I found this out when joined the second conference in 2011 which also took place in Nuremberg from 11 to 14 of September in 2011. This was a lifetime experience. If you ever joined an openSUSE conference I am sure you all remember your first time there. It was amazing since I was a volunteer and I went to Nuremberg one day before the conference and there I had Allan Clark making pins, Juergen Weigert making the lights and a bunch of other top coders carring arround stuff in order to set up the venue. No Rock stars there, just people who are devoted in openSUSE and in making the conference work, for all.

 Then it was oSC 2012. This was different for me. The Greeks were so close at taking oSC2012 but when Prague also claimed it we took a step back since we understood and we knew that we were not 100% ready for it. We needed more people for the Greek community to get practically involved with it so that next year we would have even more experience and feedback. You see sometimes stepping back is better.

We joinned oSC12 more active than oSC11 and we tried to do the most we could and we learned a lot there. The idea though was the same, people hanging around and talk to each other. There was no need to know someone from before or to be friends from before. Afterall the meaning of the conference is also to have people meet and talk F2F. I have to say here that I made actuall friends in all oSC's, people that I am happy to hear their news beyond openSUSE matters. People from all over the planet and this is something you can't do sitting in front of a keyboard.

 Then we finally got the oSC13 to Greece. Not many things stayed as originally planned but this is only a good thing. We are prepairing a conference that for the first time is organized exclusively by the community and it is planned to be friendly to everybody and to produce a lot of work for the project. If you have any hessitations on comming to the conference because you don't know people or you fear that you will be a stranger among strangers forget it. Just track someone you really like from irc or from wherever and go say a hello, there is a big posbility a long time friendship to start with that hello. Any problem you might have will be solved. Ask anyone that ever joined an oSC. Come to share thoughts and learn from people. Come as you are and don't hessitate to deploy your personallity. There is enough place for everyone here.
Hope to see you all there.

Organizing oSC13 - 65 days before

Feedback is very important while organizing a conference or when organizing or creating anything. Right feedback when it comes it can give you everything. I mean really everything. It can show you what you are doing right or wrong. It can guide you in avoiding dificult situations. It can give you new ideas. It can save you a lot of time. So it is really important to seek and take feedback.

The most important and immediate source of feedback is yourself and the experience you have. The other is your team's experience. That is why when making a team try find people with experience, not neceserally conference or specific to whatever you do experience but life experience. Almost everything you do has to do with people so having people who know how people work is pretty important.

Another important source is feedback from past events. I read tons of blogs from people that attented past openSUSE Conferences. Finding what people liked and what they didn't is one of the best roadmaps you can get. I have to say here that before deciding to take over a conference is of high importance to make a research to see if you can actually do it.

Other than that feel free to bother people who organized great conferences you attended or you heard of. Never hesitate to ask anything, it is afterall the only way to get answers and feedback :D

Above all things try to stop what you are doing regularly and spend some time by asking people what do they think about what you are doing. I know perfectly well that time is really valuable but this is not at all wasted time. Have in mind that many times you will get feedback that you don't really like, meaning bad feedback that say that you are mistaken, accept it and value it. It can be a life saver if it comes from good source.

The feedback is something that is practically imposible to be finished in one(readable) post so I will continue with this at some other post. Afterall how the hll I will manage to fill 64 more posts? 

Organizing oSC13 - 66 days before

This is the first monday since I started writing about the upcomming openSUSE conference. Also I must warn you that I am in a good mood and I don't feel like being modest today, if you get uppset with arrogant people please stop reading this here.
 I will take advantage of every humans hate for that day to write about things I and you might hate but when when you cannot avoid them maybe you should try to take advantage of them.
People who met me at least once might not believe the following but people who really know me know the truth. I don't really like to talk to people, when I was a little I had that problem and this was a big deal when I realize I like girls but in order to flirt you have to do some talking(at least most of the times). As time past by I had too so I started talking, I did that great ( I told you I am not feeling modest today...). In fact I did so great that most of the times I do talk now is because I like what it's happenning when I talk, than because I like talking. Where I am getting with this is that while organizing a conference one thing is for sure, you will do things that you don't really like and in some occasions you might even hate it. Doing those things have in mind that this does not mean that you are doing them wrong. It is very important to be concentrated to it no matter how you despise it so that you will do this thing right, since you have to do it then do it right. This is important also because if you are concentrated you will have to do it once. Also because you don't like on doing something that does not mean that you are not a natural talent. I mean look at me, I am a firefighter and I do not really like to organize conferenses, but I am doing it and trust me it will be one hell of a conference.
One question not answered clearly here is how you can take advantage of it? Well doing anything for the conference you organize, especially when you have to.
Now it is Monday so I am really bored in writting more for today

Organizing oSC13 - 70 days before

For more than a year I am living in the heat of organizing the next openSUSE Conference, first it was oSC12  and about a year ago it became oSC13. At some point it even became organizing no oSC at all for what it counts but we manage to prove ourselves again and we finally got oSC 2013. I knew from the first moment and maybe even some moments before that, that this would be a hell of a work. I even knew that I will regret it many times for some moments when everything will seem to go to hell and I will stand there asking myself 'What the Fuck did you do dude?' , but as usual I went against common sense and I followed my instinct, it worked when I started with Stathis the Greek community, it also worked some times before.

Disappointment is what I felt most of the times and other than the love for FOSS I really don't see another reason to do such a thing as organizing a conference, at least no other that acts as a countermeasure to disappointment when that comes. Beside that, it is a great life experience and it gets you closer to what you are made of which is great if you are into that kind of inner research.

Disappointment comes from anywhere and especially from people that told you that they will be there to help. I was lucky at that since there was always Stella who 70 days before and a year after is still standing and Henne who is just doing things, even when I got burned and could not work at all for some time those guys where there. It is great to have a co-pilots, if someone out there is looking on doing something like organizing a Conference that big he/she should find someone like them or just contact them :D

Now there is a bright side of course to all that but after 13 hours in front of 2 screens I find it dificult to describe it, maybe in Day 69 since my purpose is to blog every day up to the conference day.

For today all I can say is that I am hugely happy with myself since I finished more than double the tasks I planned for today and I just realize I still were my work uniform, I have a meeting in Skype now and after that I will have a bath and sleep. Nice thing that people cannot actually smell you through Skype :D

How it's made - OBS

As all human beings I am curious by nature, I always liked to see how things are made and listening to stories of what lead people in doing interesting stuff. When I was in Nuremberg for the Marketing hackathon, Jos (Poortvliet) told us that there would be that meeting with the OBS guys and have a talk about everything around it so that we could wright a series of articles in order to promote it. After a few sentences I understood that we would start from the day that OBS was conceived until the present day. For me this was a conversation I had to be part of.

The day after Jos told us about the meeting we were gathered in a room with the guys that created the OBS magic. Some of you might say that I become excessive putting the word magic next to OBS but be patient to read the upcoming OBS series of articles and judge me then.

We gathered in the room and we started recording with our laptops and our mobiles so that we would be sure that we will not lose any part of this conversation for the articles we will prepare. 

We started by asking typical stuff like 'How it started?' and 'What created the need for a tool like that?' but the answers, along with the flame on the eyes of people answering was something that it is very difficult to describe in written language, filled the room with energy. 

What originally started as an interview so that we would gather information to write some articles became a six people group telling a story that was closer to the atmosphere of a fairy-tale than anything else. Soon there was that flow that questions were unnecessary and everything was coming out naturally.

Listening to those peoples stories and seeing the passion in their eyes made me envy them for not being a part of it. Yes OBS is a great project and there are a lot of interesting stuff you can do with it but at that one hour that I was in that room this was the last thing that I cared about and the last think on my mind. It was all about passionate people who love Free Software, who love giving stuff back to the community and who love every little step while doing it. It makes you realize that what most people see as letters and numbers and variables in a part of code other people see a part of themselves and a way to individual freedom. Someone once told me that the basic difference between a free software programmer and a proprietory software programmer is that the guys in free software most of the time see their code more as a child and less than some lines of code. I could understand this but I had never really felt it. This hour I spent in the 'Rome' room at SUSE offices in Nuremberg with those guys taught me more things about Free Software Programming than all the conferences and all the talks I had been part so far. Feel Free to suppose that I am making this thing bigger that it really was, for me it was just an experience I had to share with those who will get it.

openSUSE Conference 2012 – Invitation to Lightning Talks and Speedy Geeko

The openSUSE Conference in Prague is about to happen and we know that all of you are really excited about it. One more year with great talks and workshops and the warmth of the openSUSE Community around. Being there is really awesome and being a part of it is really great. Since having fun has no limits for us we feel the need to ask you the following:

• Did you wanted to submit a talk and you were late?
• Do you feel like talking about something that has to do with openSUSE?
• Do you feel like talking about something that has nothing to do with the openSUSE?
• Do you feel the need to have an on-stage group-hug with Izabel and Kostas?
• Can you do all that in 2 to max 5 minutes?

If yes is the answer to at least the last and one other of those questions, here is your chance to make it happen.

This year, on oSC we bring one more time the openSUSE lightning talks and the Speedy Geeko and we encourage everyone to come and be a part of it.

Lightning Talks

After many people submitted talks a bit late to fit on the regular conference Schedule or weren’t sure if they wanted to submit a whole talk in order to present something related to openSUSE, we recognised the need to organise something for all of you. After all there should be place for everyone in the openSUSE Conference.

We invite all people that want to make a short talk or talk short about their work inside openSUSE to join us in Lightning talks. Send your requests, info below.

How it works?

• Each Presenter gets 10 minutes to present their topic (depending on the number of submissions…)
• The topic should be related to openSUSE
• You must send a description of your talk until the 10th of october and have the slides ready to send before the beginning of this years oSC
• Your talk has no slide limit

Time is crucial so after the time limit you will have your microphone taken no matter what…

Speedy Geeko

After last year’s huge success and fun we dare to do it one more time. This year we promise to entertain you showing you the other stuff that openSUSE people do. Last year we had bacon, bees, countries, global personalities plus other cool stuff, this year we hope to be at least that interesting and exciting.

How it works?

• Each Presenter gets 4 minutes to present their topic
• Each Presenter will present with 20 slides
• The slides progress every 15 seconds whether the Presenter is ready or not
• The topic can NOT be related to openSUSE

Time is crucial here too so after the 5 minutes we will find ways to remove the microphone from you. Please don’t make us run for it and be aware that we will carry some sort of weapons.

Instructions

If you feel like participating all you have to do is to follow the instructions below:

• For submitting a lightning talk click here with subject title: Lightning talks
• For submitting a Speedy Geeko talk email click here with subject title: Speedy Geeko

The deadline for sending your talks is 10th of october and we will release both schedules at the 15th.

After we release the schedules all you have to do is to be sure that you will have your presentations given to us at some point before this year’s openSUSE conference.

Of course in an open format, preferably ODF or PDF!

Your hosts
Izabel Valverde and Kostas Koudaras

2ο openSUSE Collaboration Summer Camp

Ο καιρός έχει ζεστάνει για τα καλά και ήρθε λοιπόν η ώρα να κανονίσουμε ξανά τις καλοκαιρινές μας εξορμήσεις για φέτος. Έτσι λοιπόν ήρθε η ώρα να βρεθούμε και πάλι όλοι μαζί για το φετινό openSUSE Collaboration Summer Camp !!! 

Τι θα κάνουμε είπες;

Θα μαζευτούμε όλοι μαζί δίπλα στη θάλασσα για να παρακολουθήσουμε διάφορα workshops (μην ξεχάσετε να φέρετε τα laptop σας!) και θα δουλέψουμε πάνω στα αγαπημένα μας projects! 

Πότε;

Το Παρασκευοσαββατοκύριακο 20-21-22 Ιουλίου 2012! 

Πού;

Στο ξενοδοχείο Grand Platon Hotel ( www.grandplaton-hotel.gr ) στην Ολυμπιακή Ακτή στην παραλία Κατερίνης. Λεπτομέρειες για το πώς να έρθετε μπορείτε να βρείτε εδώ. 

Ποιός;

Η ελληνική κοινότητα openSUSE που διοργανώνει το 2ο openSUSE Collaboration Summer Camp θα φροντίσει για την ομαλή ροή του προγράμματος, το χώρο και τις λεπτομέρειες της διοργάνωσης. Απευθύνεται σε όλους όσους ασχολούνται με το ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ οι οποίοι μπορούν τόσο να συμμετέχουν όσο και να πραγματοποιήσουν το δικό τους workshop! 

Γιατί να έρθω λοιπόν;

Στόχος μας είναι να φέρουμε πιο κοντά τις κοινότητες, ενθαρρύνοντας τη συνεργασία και δουλεύοντας όλοι μαζί πάνω στα projects που μας ενδιαφέρουν, ενώ ταυτόχρονα να ενδυναμώσουμε την επικοινωνία ανάμεσα στα μέλη της ελληνικής κοινότητας ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ. Φυσικά δε θα λείψουν οι αμέτρητες βουτιές στη θάλασσα και οι άφθονες μπύρες, διότι αγαπάμε αυτό που κάνουμε και περνάμε ωραία συνεισφέροντας στο ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ ακόμα και το καλοκαίρι! 

Όσοι θέλετε να συμμετέχετε, επικοινωνήστε μαζί μας και δηλώστε συμμετοχή ώστε να μπορέσουμε να οργανώσουμε καλύτερα τη διαθεσιμότητα των δωματίων! 

Για περισσότερες πληροφορίες & δήλωση συμμετοχής: 

- Επικοινωνήστε μαζί μας στο summercamp@os-el.gr 

- Μπείτε στο κανάλι μας #openSUSE-el στον IRC server Freenode. 

openSUSE Travel Support Program is on

Hi Geekos!
 I'm proud to announce the official kickoff of the openSUSE Travel Support Program. This program will provide openSUSE contributors with some financial support for traveling to conferences and events where they represent openSUSE.

The openSUSE Travel Support Program aims to support contributors representing openSUSE at events, conferences and hack-fests with their travel and hotel costs.


The Current Committee are:

* Kostas Koudaras (ambassador event planning)

* Izabel Valverde (finance & planning)

* Jos Poortvliet (advice & coordinating with SUSE)

Learn more about the openSUSE Travel Support Program at the wiki page we've created.

We look forward to doing this! If you have any questions, you can bring it up at the next openSUSE Project meeting (Wednesday 22) or email us directly.


Have Fun
Kostas 'Warlordfff' Koudaras

Οι εγγραφές για το συνέδριο openSUSE είναι ανοιχτές!

 

"Η οργανωτική ομάδα βρίσκεται στην ευχάριστη θέση να ανακοινώσει ότι έχουν ανοίξει οι εγγραφές για το συνέδριο openSUSE που θα πραγματοποιηθεί στη Γερμανία, στην πόλη της Νυρεμβέργης, στις 11 με 14 Σεπτεμβρίου. Πηγαίνετε στη φόρμα εγγραφής και εγγραφείτε. Έτσι μας βοηθάτε να οργανωθούμε καλύτερα για μια καταπληκτική εκδήλωση.

Ναι, ήρθε η ώρα να αρχίσετε να ετοιμάζετε το ταξίδι σας στη Νυρεμβέργη!

Προετοιμασία
 
Σε δύο μήνες από τώρα θα πραγματοποιηθεί το συνέδριο openSUSE και SUSE Labs στη Νυρεμβέργη της Γερμανίας. Αυτό σημαίνει ότι, επειδή τα αεροπορικά εισιτήρια δε φθηναίνουν, πρέπει να αρχίσετε να ετοιμάζεστε! Ζητήστε άδεια από το αφεντικό σας, αρχίστε να ενημερώνετε τους καθηγητές σας ότι δε θα είστε παρόντες στις 11 - 14 Σεπτεμβρίου. Και φυσικά αρχίστε να βρίσκεται φτηνές πτήσεις ή εισιτήρια τρένου. Κάντε κράτηση στο ξενοδοχείο και είστε έτοιμοι να εγγραφείτε για το συνέδριο. Φυσικά μην ξεχάσετε να υποβάλλεται μια συνεδρία αν θέλετε να κάνετε κάποια παρουσίαση, να οργανώσετε ένα BoF (συνάντηση ομάδας), να πραγματοποιήσετε μια συνεδρία hack ή ένα workshop.

Ξενοδοχείο

Η ομάδα του συνεδρίου openSUSE έχει φτιάξει μια λίστα με ξενοδοχεία όπου μπορείτε να μείνετε κατά τη διάρκεια του συνεδρίου. Σας συνιστούμε να προτιμήσετε κάποιο από αυτά τα ξενοδοχεία καθώς θα έχουν μόνο συμμετέχοντες του συνεδρίου (fellow geekos), έχουν λογικές τιμές (ειδικές τιμές για τους συμμετέχοντες του συνεδρίου!) και φυσικά δεν είναι πολύ μακρυά από τον χώρο διεξαγωγής, στο Zentrifuge.

Ταξίδι

Για μερικούς από εσάς ένα ταξίδι στη Νυρεμβέργη δεν είναι κάτι εύκολο από οικονομικής απόψεως. Ίσως είστε φοιτητής ή πρέπει να έρθετε από πολύ μακρυά. Τα γνωρίζουμε όλα αυτά πολύ καλά και είναι ο κύριος λόγος για τον οποίο ψάχνουμε συνεχώς για χορηγούς! Μπορείτε να υπολογίζετε να δείτε σχετική ανακοίνωση σε μία εβδομάδα περίπου, σχετικά με το τι και πώς μπορούμε να σας βοηθήσουμε οικονομικά να ταξιδέψετε και να είστε σίγουροι ότι θα κάνουμε ό,τι μπορούμε ώστε μέλη της κοινότητας από μακρυά ή με οικονομικές δυσκολίες μπορούν να έρθουν και να συμμετέχουν κι αυτοί μαζί μας!

Εγγραφή

Η εγγραφή σας εξασφαλίζει καρτελάκι για εσάς στο συνέδριο χωρίς να χρειάζεται να περιμένετε στην ουρά μέχρι να σας ετοιμάσουμε ένα εκείνη τη στιγμή. Επίσης σας προσφέρει πρόσβαση στο ασύρματο ίντερνετ και σας εξασφαλίζει μια θέση στο πάρτυ! Και φυσικά μας δίνει τη δυνατότητα να οργανώσουμε καλύτερα τα πάντα, επομένως έχει σημασία να εγγραφείτε το συντομότερο δυνατό αν σκοπεύετε να έρθετε!
Να σημειωθεί ότι για να εγγραφείτε δε χρειάζεται να δημιουργήσετε λογαριασμό. Θα πρέπει να κάνετε κράτηση σε ξενοδοχείο μόνοι σας, ρίξτε μια ματιά σε αυτή τη σελίδα!
Τέλος, υπάρχει η δυνατότητα για 2 διαφορετικά εισιτήρια. Η είσοδος είναι ελεύθερη για όλους αλλά όσοι θέλουν να υποστηρίξουν το συνέδριο και έχουν την οικονομική δυνατότητα μπορούν να αγοράσουν ένα επαγγελματικό εισιτήριο (professional ticket). Κοστίζει 250 ευρώ και σας παρέχει, εκτός από πρόσβαση στο συνέδριο, βραδινό με τους ομιλητές και άλλους κατόχους εισιτηρίων καθώς και με τη διοίκηση του προϊόντος SUSE.

Βοηθώντας

Εν τω μεταξύ, οποιαδήποτε βοήθεια στην ομάδα διοργάνωσης είναι ευπρόσδεκτη. Αν θέλετε να ασχοληθείτε κι εσείς και να βοηθήσετε να κάνουμε το συνέδριο openSUSE το καλύτερο που έγινε ποτέ, εγγραφείτε στη λίστα της ομάδας και δείτε και τη σελίδα οργνάνωσης." 

Πηγή:  http://own.opensuse.gr/

Πρόγραμμα 1ου openSUSE Collaboration Weekend Camp

Πρόγραμμα 1ου openSUSE Collaboration Weekend Camp

Παρασκευή
17:30 - 17:45  Καλωσόρισμα
17:45 - 18:30  Μεταφράζοντας την διανομή openSUSE - Χρήση του Lokalize και του Gtranslator (Eυστάθιος Ιωσηφίδης - Κώστας Κουδάρας)
18:45 - 19:30  Μεταφράζοντας το weekly news και το wiki - Πως, τι και γιατί
19:30 - 20:30  Βραδινό
20:45 - 22:15 Wiki Hackfest - Διαγωνισμός με δώρο ένα :
22:15 - … Συζήτηση: openSUSE people - From us to us - Διομήδης Αναδιώτης "Καινούργιος στην κοινότητα"

Σάββατο
08:00 - 10:00 Πρωινό
10:15 - 11:00 Χρήση του Yast - Διαχείριση συστήματος εύκολα, γρήγορα και με πολλές δυνατότητες(Ευστάθιος Αγραπίδης-Κώστας Κουδάρας)
11:00 - 12:00 def python_django(tutorial): (Θοδωρής Χατζημίχος)
12:15 - 13:15 "Security and arduino:Multifactor authentication system(voice recognition and rfid technologies)" - Μέρος 1ο (the-hackerspace)
13:30 - 14:30 "Security and arduino:Multifactor authentication system(voice recognition and rfid technologies)" - Μέρος 2ο (the-hackerspace)
14:30 - 17:30 Μπάνιο/ρακετες/Beach Volle/φαϊ/μπύρες
17:30 - 18:15 Qt Signals And Slots (Αντώνης Τσαπαλιώκας)
18:30 - 19:30 "Security and arduino:Wireless devices remote control (client - server control center)"(the-hackerspace)
19:30 - 20:30 Βραδυνό
20:30 - 21:30 Vim introduction (Γιάννης Χατζημίχος)
21:30 - … Συζήτηση: Δουλεύοντας μέσα σε μια κοινότητα Ε.Λ/Λ.Α.Κ

ΚΥΡΙΑΚΗ
08:00 - 10:00 Πρωινό
10:00 - 10:45 Επιβίωση με Gnome 3 στον κόσμο του KDE (Ευστάθιος Ιωσηφίδης)
10:45 - 11:00 OBSάρω, OBSάρεις; (Ευστάθιος Αγραπίδης)
11:45 - 12:30 KDE Frameworks (Γιώργος Τσαπαλιώκας)
12:30 - 13:15 openSUSE Medical project - openEMR (Αθανάσιος-Ηλίας Ρουσινόπουλος)
13:30 ΤΕΛΟΣ ΕΚΔΗΛΩΣΗΣ

openSUSE Summer Camp Greece 2011

Summer in Greece! Is the weather too hot for you to code or contribute to your favorite FOSS project? Do you need some motivation and a refreshing swim? Come to our Summer Camp!
The Greek openSUSE community is organizing its first openSUSE Summer Camp, in central Greece at Grand Platon Hotel at Olympiaki akti. This is is the beach of the city of Katerini. The doors will be open from the 15th to the 17th of July 2011, at the Heart of Summer!

Sounds awesome, I’ll book my tickets.

So, you’ll be there. What can you expect?
Our goal is to bring FOSS communities closer and encourage people to contribute to their favorite projects.
A lot of people, with little to a lot of experience can benefit from the workshops included in our program, during which we will work on things like translation, wiki usage, coding, packaging and much more, showing how to work inside a community and how to collaborate with others!

Hmmm. But I could go swimming…

There will be relaxing and swimming of course! But hey, we have a common passion, don’t we?
We love what we do, we are having fun contributing to FOSS and we hate doing it alone in our rooms during Summer time. Besides coding, translating and all other ‘working stuff’ there will also be plenty of sun and beach, a large swimming pool and plenty of beers – all paid by you since we only sponsor the sun, the fun and all the other free stuff…
We are looking forward to seeing you at the openSUSE Summer Camp Greece!
Please use info@os-el.gr to contact the team organizing the event.

openSUSE strategy voting close to the finish line!

As we wrote three weeks ago, June 30th is the deadline for voting for the openSUSE Strategy!

Relevance

2 years ago the subject came up at the openSUSE conference: what do we want? That is not a simple question. We are a large community with wide-ranging diverse backgrounds, goals and interests.
Having a coherent answer matters: it shows potential new contributors what they can (although not limited) contribute to; it helps us make decisions. Do we focus on fancy web stuff? Do we go for a stable or more experimental product? Do we simplify at all costs or cater to more advanced users? These and more are questions brought up in our strategy discussion.

Discussion

It took a long time – we are an open community and as such, strategic discussions take time. However, we went through the effort. Lots of input came from a variety of people – each iteration had sometimes over a hundred comments. You can view some of the although you should notice that co-ment is just one of the ways we collected feedback (others being the mailing lists, IRC, forums and more).

Serious

While the current proposal is not meant to be limiting new directions or will be forever set in stone, it is meant to provide clarity to our community for the time being. So we do want it to be taken seriously. We develop major software products promoting open source and the use of Linux world wide. We’re a major Linux distribution, the second largest by most metrics. We provide a packaging build service that is used by distributions more than just openSUSE.  We have an obligation to deliver a consistent, quality product to our users. And to provide an open and fun place to be around for contributors. We can’t satisfy every need to the fullest, but what we can do is make clear what we are trying to do here.
Providing that clarity to our users and contributors through this strategy is a major step towards our future. So, we need our membership to vote. To make your voice heard and to know if it truly has the support it needs.
So, if you’re an openSUSE Member, go, read the document one more time and cast your vote!


Source

openSUSE releases milestone 2

About 3 weeks after the first milestone for openSUSE 12.1, today the second milestone has been made available. Following the Roadmap, this is the second of 6 milestone until the openSUSE 12.1 release in November.

Milestones

openSUSE is developed in a repository called Factory. Packages flow from the devel projects into Factory upon OK from the release team following the Factory Development Model. During the development cycle (more detailed model) periodic releases are made available for testing – these are the milestones. Six of them become available. After some several freezes go into effect, the component freeze just before the fourth milestone for instance. And about a couple of weeks after the last milestone the first of two Release Candidates is made ready for testing. The final openSUSE 12.1 release is expected on November 11th.

Progress since the previous milestone

The first milestone had a huge number of changes and improvements on top of the latest openSUSE release. Again, many packages have been updated. You can check the latest package versions on this page. What are the major changes?

• Firefox 5 RC
• Horde4 packages (php5-pear-horde)
• “The Board”
• rawstudio
• llvm/clang 3.0 snapshot
• many smaller updates to KDE and GNOME applications and desktops

Also nspluginwrapper is now updated which will allow a more stable Flash plugin on 64bit platforms. With this change you can now watch two flash videos at the same time. And over 100 new packages have been added, including extensions for Banshee, some small tools like DDS2tar and brainfuck interpreter, Cdecl (turns C/C++ gibberish into English), cint (small C/C++ interpreter) and a number of other devel and language tools.

systemd

On the openSUSE project and factory mailing lists a discussion is taking place centered around the new systemd init system. After the introduction of the road to systemd for openSUSE 12.1 by Frederic Crozat, issues, complaints and limitations of systemd are being discussed and dissected. Changing an init system is an invasive change and systemd has ambitions beyond just replacing sysV not everyone always agrees with. Work will be needed to ensure a stable and usable init system for 12.1 and the team welcomes help and bugreports!

Helping out easier than ever!

As expected from a development release, there is still a lot of work to do, so your input at this early stage will be a huge help in making the final release into the beautifully polished work that we aim for. openSUSE 12.1 Milestone 2 has a list of most annoying bugs here, please add issues you find and help fix them. As Will Stephenson recently blogged, fixing an issue is a matter of BURPing on build.opensuse.org! Find a how-to here.
So go and see for yourself what the next version of openSUSE has in store for you at our download center.

By  Jos Poortvliet
Source  

1ο openSUSE collaboration weekend camp

Ο καιρός έχει ζεστάνει για τα καλά και ήρθε λοιπόν η ώρα να κανονίσουμε

...τις καλοκαιρινές μας εξορμήσεις!

Για φέτος είχαμε μια πολύ ενδιαφέρουσα ιδέα...

Σκεφτήκαμε να κάνουμε κάτι διαφορετικό!

“Μια εκδρομούλα που θα συνδυάζει παραλία με ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ!”

Έτσι λοιπόν θα μαζευτούμε όλοι μαζί δίπλα στη θάλασσα για να παρακολουθήσουμε διάφορα workshops (μην ξεχάσετε να φέρετε τα laptop σας!) και θα δουλέψουμε πάνω στα αγαπημένας μας project!

Μια συνάντηση που γίνεται από την κοινότητα... για την κοινότητα!

Δηλάδή τον κάθε έναν από  ΕΣΑΣ, με σκοπό... (εκτός από τα μπάνια) τη συνεργασία!

* Πότε;
   Το  Παρασκευοσαββατοκύριακο 15-16-17 Ιουλίου 2011!  

* Πού;
   Στο ξενοδοχείο Grand Platon Hotel ( http://www.grandplaton-hotel.gr/ ) στην Ολυμπιακή Ακτή στην παραλία Κατερίνης.   
   Λεπτομέρειες για το πώς να έρθετε μπορείτε να βρείτε στη σελίδα http://www.os-el.gr

* Ποιος;

  Η ελληνική κοινότητα openSUSE που διοργανώνει το 1ο openSUSE collaboration weekend camp, θα φροντίσει για την ομαλή ροή του προγράμματος, τον χώρο και τις λεπτομέρειες της διοργάνωσης.

 Απευθύνεται, όμως, σε όλους τους ανθρώπους του ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ, οι οποίοι μπορούν να συμμετέχουν καθώς και να πραγματοποιήσουν το δικό τους workshop!  

  Αν θέλετε να κάνετε κάποιο workshop δεν έχετε παρά να μας στείλετε email με μια σύντομη περιγραφή του, μέχρι και την Τετάρτη 6/7.  

* Γιατί να έρθω λοιπόν;

   Στόχος μας είναι να φέρουμε πιο κοντά τις κοινότητες, ενθαρρύνοντας έτσι τη συνεργασία, και να δουλέψουμε όλοι μαζί πάνω στα projects που μας ενδιαφέρουν, ενδυναμώνοντας την επικοινωνία ανάμεσα στα μέλη της ελληνικής κοινότητας ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ.  

Φυσικά δε θα λείψουν οι αμέτρητες βουτιές στη θάλασσα και οι άφθονες μπύρες!

Γιατί αγαπάμε αυτό που κάνουμε και περνάμε ωραία συνεισφέροντας στο ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ ακόμα και το καλοκαίρι!

Όσοι θέλετε να συμμετέχετε επικοινωνήστε μαζί μας για να δηλώσετε συμμετοχή ώστε να μπορέσουμε να οργανώσουμε καλύτερα τη διαθεσιμότητα των δωματίων!

Για περισσότερες πληροφορίες & δήλωση συμμετοχής:
 - Επικοινωνήστε μαζί μας στο info@os-el.gr ή
 - Μπείτε στο κανάλι μας #openSUSE-el στον IRC server Freenode.
Οδηγίες για το πως να συνδεθείτε στο irc μπορείτε να βρείτε εδώ: http://el.opensuse.org/SDB:XCHAT