KDE e.V. and the GNOME Foundation to co-host flagship conferences

April 22, 2008

The boards of KDE e.V. and the GNOME Foundation have issued a call to co-host Akademy and GUADEC, the flagship conferences of the KDE and GNOME projects respectively, during the Summer of 2009.

This would be the first time that the conferences are to be co-hosted. The combined conference is expected to have around 800 attendees, being one of the biggest meetings of free software developers in the world. The content of the conferences will be organized independently, with a number of co-ordinated cross-over sessions with appeal to all attendees.

Cornelius Schumacher, director of KDE e.V., called the move to co-host the conferences momentous. “This represents collaboration between the two communities which some believed could never happen,” he said. “Members of our communities have long worked together through projects on freedesktop.org, or the Linux Architects initiative, but this could be the first time to bring large parts of our respective communities to the same place.”

Behdad Esfahbod of the GNOME Foundation added, “We have much more in common than we have differences. We share a love for the freedom which we give to our users through our software, and for the sense of community which binds us.”

“The big winner in the co-hosted conferences will be free software on the desktop. Getting the developers in the same place can only lead to increased collaboration, and even more high-quality software for our users”, he continued.

Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, applauded the move. “Having GUADEC and Akademy at the same venue is good news for the Linux desktop. I suspect we will see great things come out of this meeting.”

Keith Packard, from Freedesktop.org and the X.org Foundation, is looking forward to the joint event. “KDE and GNOME have worked together for years building great software. An integrated conference together will further enhance collaboration and strengthen the broader free software desktop community.”

Both organizations have noted, however, that proposals to host the conferences independently are invited as well. The decision about the events will be made in collaboration of the KDE e.V. and the GNOME Foundation based on the suitability of the available proposals.

Proposals should be made to the KDE e.V. and GNOME Foundation boards no later than June 15th 2008. The call for hosts for Akademy 2009 [ http://ev.kde.org/akademy/callforhosts.php ] is available at the KDE e.V. web site [ http://ev.kde.org/ ] and the call for hosts for GUADEC 2009 [ http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2008-April/msg00022.html ] is available at the GNOME web site.

For further information, or for media enquiries, please contact board@gnome.org and kde-ev-board@kde.org.

About KDE and the KDE e.V.

KDE is an international technology team that creates free and open source software for desktop and portable computing. Among KDE’s products are a modern desktop system for Linux and UNIX platforms, comprehensive office productivity and groupware suites and hundreds of software titles in many categories including Internet and web applications, multimedia, entertainment, educational, graphics and software development. KDE software is translated into more than 60 languages and is built with ease of use and modern accessibility principles in mind. KDE4′s full-featured applications run natively on Linux, BSD, Solaris, Windows and Mac OS X.

KDE e.V. is the organization that supports the growth of the KDE community. Its mission statement — to promote and distribute Free Desktop software — is provided through legal, financial and organizational support for the KDE community. KDE e.V. organises the yearly KDE World Summit “Akademy”, along with numerous smaller-scale development meetings.

More information about KDE and the KDE e.V. can be found at www.kde.org and ev.kde.org.

About GNOME and the GNOME Foundation

GNOME is a free-software project whose goal is to develop a complete, accessible and easy to use desktop for Linux and Unix-based operating systems. GNOME also includes a complete development environment to create new applications. It is released twice a year on a regular schedule.

The GNOME desktop is used by millions of people around the world. GNOME is a standard part of all leading GNU/Linux and Unix distributions, and is popular with both large existing corporate deployments and millions of small business and home users worldwide.

Comprised of hundreds of volunteer developers and industry-leading companies, the GNOME Foundation is an organization committed to supporting the advancement of GNOME. The Foundation is a member directed, non-profit organization that provides financial, organizational and legal support to the GNOME project and helps determine its vision and roadmap.

More information about GNOME and the GNOME Foundation can be found at www.gnome.org and foundation.gnome.org.

This announcement is also available [ http://ev.kde.org/announcements/2008-04-22-akademy-guadec.php ] on the KDE e.V. website.