I had absolutely the most amazing time at this year’s Google Summer of Code Mentor’s Summit. I’m sure I’ll sound like quite the gushing fan-boy, but so be it.

I’ve been involved in the KDE project for the last couple of years. I can thank Adriaan deGroot fully for getting me hooked, and also for being a great mentor and friend throughout. Until this last weekend, I had not actually met any other KDE geek in the flesh. Living in the United States as I do, I’ve met many a GNOME zealot and developer, but nary a KDE kindred spirit. And so, I am still coming down off of the “high” of getting to spend this last weekend with both Thiago and Seb. Yeah, there were a bunch of other Open Source developers there too, and I’ll get to them in a second. But first, this weekend did much to further cement my feelings about the KDE project and our amazing community. We, the KDE geeks, are a really rare and cool thing. Oh sure, we have our share of flame wars, passionate people, and occasional un-professionalism. But at the end of the day, we have an extremely talented group of people who share a common vision, try to treat each other with respect and professionalism, aim to mentor and grow each other and new-comers, and can even have some serious, geeky fun together. I see a lot of Open Source communities (and no, I’m not going to point fingers) who don’t have all this going for them. And after a weekend like this last, I am once again excited about being a part of our community, the KDE team.

To add to the above, it was an absolutely amazing opportunity that I shared with Thiago and Seb to represent KDE at Google’s SOC Mentor’s Summit. It was a surreal experience. I mean, just being at the Googleplex and interacting with the Google staff was wild. Chris DiBona is a real, honest, down to earth, cool guy, and he spent a good hour at least chatting with a group of us about anything and everything that came up. You know… just like a real person. And then there was the opportunity to mingle with, talk to, make friends with, share ideas with, enjoy mass quantities of pizza with (thanks Leslie!!), have some drinks with, pay $44 for a less-than-stellar dinner with, and in general hang out with fellow FOSS developers… many of whom have written software that I’ve been using and enjoying for years! Too cool!!! Kind of like listening to Sting for the last 15 years of your life and then getting to go out to dinner with him and spend a day chatting. =:)

So (noticing that it’s now 1:47 a.m. and I have to be at work in 7 hours), to summarize…

1. We, the KDE community, have a unique and amazing community. Let’s keep it that way!!
2. Google’s Summer of Code project was a huge success for an awful lot of FOSS projects. Let’s all (FOSS community-wide, I’m talking) get even more involved next year. Let’s challenge ourselves to bring more students in and get more mentors involved! Check out the pix…
3. Oh yeah… I’m moving to Palo Alto.  You may now congratulate me and then go out and buy a VMware product of your choice (I recommend the free Player product).  =;)  I’m going to have a heck of a time hiding this smile….