GUADEC 2006 Wrap-up

I've just recovered from my trip back home from GUADEC (it took me 23rd hours to get home), so a blog post is in order, while all the things are fresh in my head.

GOME is people. I met lots of cool, interesting and fun people, got to know them as persons, and can call them friends, and not just imagining hackergotchi heads when I hear their names :-) That social aspect is definitely the best thing for me about this event. And we had so much fun, whether it was talking about hacking, searching for the best ice-cream in town, having a rock concert or just partying at the beach.

I've attended several sessions, and I think the hilights have been Kathy Sierra's Creating Passionate Users keynote and Luis' inspirational talk about the future of GNOME (hint: GNOME is people).

From development point of few, there were many topics revolving around multimedia editing in Linux (Diva, Pitivi, Jokosher, Elisa and all things GStreamer), improving memory and CPU performance, in context of being usable in OLPC and Nokia 770 (which is owned by all the hip people, btw), but extending to the desktop also.

I have to catch a bus so I'll cut this post short, with just one negative side of my trip to GUADEC. And that's VIP mobile/internet provider in Croatia (part of Vodafone). Do not, ever, under any circumstances, use GPRS roaming from VIP. Besides charging more than 11 eu/mb, they actually require you to pay the bill *immediately* (inside a week), instead of paying at the end of the month, as usual. It's part of their "customer protection" program, they say. I fail to see how requiring customers to pay immediately (btw the notice was sent to house address, and it was obvious that the bill was made by roaming, so the user is not at home. wtf??) means protecting them.

Anyways, that problem didn't mar the perfect time I've had at GUADEC, I'm so happy that I was able to attend. I want to thank Collabora for sponsoring my trip and stay at GUADEC and thus making it possible to me to share this wonderful experience. Thanks guys, I hope to see you again soon!