Randa Meetings 2012

In only a couple of weeks, this years KDE Randa Meetings will again take place in the Swiss mountain.

It's the first time I get to take part and I'm already very excited.

One of the main working groups this year will be focused accessibility: Six people - including a representative of the GNOME team and two dedicated GSoC students who are flying in from India even after the program has already officially ended - are coming together to create an accessibility infrastructure for free software that truly works.

And if that wouldn't be enough, it's not even "just" accessibility. There will also be teams working on Plasma, Education and Multimedia.

Sadly, not all applicants could be funded this year. But you can help! Please consider a small donation to help cover the expenses for this years sprint in Randa.

Crossroads

Roughly a month ago, I tendered my resignation from the post of vice-chairman of the Simon Listens e.V.
By the end of the week, this will take effect.

Photo by MarkSmallwood

As a founding member this decision did by no means come easy.

However, after careful deliberation I came to the conclusion that my own goals don't line up with the rest of the board anymore.

The remaining board members and I parted on good terms and we continue to stay in contact to discuss new projects as well as current efforts.

What happens now?

To be honest, not a whole lot will change.

I remain fully committed to Simon, its core community and KDE at large.
I will continue to lead Simon development and maintain all components.
I will continue to release new versions of Simon. There will be neither a fork of the codebase nor a change of name or logo.
I will continue to use this blog to keep you updated about new developments.
I will of course also continue to mentor my two great GSoC students :)

The Simon Listens e.V. will continue to take on research- and commercial projects like the Benefit project or the Astromobile project.
In fact, another project under the sponsorship of the Austrian federal ministry of transport and innovation to further the development of the simon-touch voice controlled multimedia station for disabled and elderly people has just started.
The code, of course, remains open under the terms of the GPL and available in KDEs playground repository.
Claus Zotter will keep you updated about this projects progress right here on this blog.

In short: The Simon community remains just as healthy and vibrant as before.

Still, there are a few minor changes to announce:

• My personal Ubuntu PPA which used to hold the Simon packages has been replaced by a new team repository of  which I am an administrator. The new repository already contains a new addition: A new package of Simon 0.3.0 for Ubuntu 12.04 courtesy of Mark Dammer. Thank you very much!
• The Simon Wiki has been moved to KDEs Userbase. The old URL will become a redirect soon.
• While I continue to be reachable via my old Simon Listens email address for the time being, please update your address books to me@bedahr.org. Thank you.