I obviously survived the trip... It's nice to be home again. I'll
surely miss a bit the
[MIT Stata Center](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stata_Center) it's
really a unique building (as you might notice from the
[linked](http://live.gnome.org/BostonSummit_2fStataCenter)
[pictures](http://web.mit.edu/evolving/stata/photos/photos.html)).
For the last day in Boston, I managed to walk a bit around before
going to the airport, it was pleasant. Moreover I managed to buy
postcard... but not stamps. The only place I've found stamps I
needed to use a machine and I didn't figure out how to use it. So
I'll deliver my postcards by hand it seems. :-)
In the airport I noticed that the booked Paris/Toulouse flight was
planned for Paris Orly, while I was supposed to arrive in Paris
CDG... hmm changing airport, lot of trouble ahead. Luckily the Air
France crew in the Boston airport was kind enough to modify my
ticket in order to get my connection in CDG, which doesn't mean "no
trouble" either since CDG is really messy. Here what happened. My
plane landed in the terminal 2F but we didn't have the right to go
in 2F ourselves, so we had to take a bus to go in 2C (still
following?). But (and that's where it starts to be ridiculous),
when I arrived in 2C I had to take yet another bus since I was
supposed to check-in my Paris/Toulouse flight in 2F... that's sick.
In particular when you have only 30 minutes between the two
flights. But, I don't care anymore I'm finally home!
Now it's time to relax a bit, before going back to work tomorrow.
I'm also happy to see that
[some of my feelings about the discussions I had during the Gnome Summit are shared](http://www.martianrock.com/?p=152).
It was definitely worth it, thanks again to all the people
involved!
Today is my last day in Boston. I'll take my flight back to France
in a few hours. I'm taking my time, relaxing a bit before I take my
plane. I'll surely go to the airport early and try to buy postcards
from there... I didn't manage to find an open postoffice, since
it's the Thanksgiving week-end, lot of shops are closed.
This week-end was really nice, attending this summit was really a
great opportunity. I've been well accepted there, we had fruitful
discussions, and I hope it'll be the beginning of a better
collaboration between KDE and Gnome in some important areas. We can
definitely do a lot of interesting things and push the UNIX desktop
at another level. It could become the only platform I know
proposing two different desktops (in philosophy, etc.) while
keeping consistency when it makes sense with shared frameworks
under the hood. Of course, it'll be a permanent trade-off to also
keep diversity, and we'll have to make compromises in order to make
everybody happy... interesting times.
Finally, the funny thing is that I more or less discovered two
cultures this week-end, the american culture and the Gnome hacker
culture. Yes, they have a different culture in their own community,
and that's perfectly fine: diversity. I like to go in another
country and discover some different habits, way of thinking, etc. I
had this exact same feeling with the fellow Gnome hackers. Of
course, I'm also happy to go back home, both in my country and in
the KDE community. ;-)
Now, it's time for me to move on, I'll take a breakfast/lunch in
one or two hours, and then try to find my way to the airport. I'll
surely won't blog before I get home. See you later all!
This morning I woke up early, even if I get back to the hotel a bit
late yesterday. We had dinner in the
[Cambridge Brewing Company](http://www.cambrew.com/) yesterday
night... It's really an interesting concept, this bar/restaurant
does its own beer! It's really a nice restaurant... and of course a
loooot of beer has been drunk at my table. Since most of the people
I had dinner with arrived a bit late today, I suppose it was a bit
hard for them to wake up. :-)
Finally, this morning we basically waited for people to arrive.
Once again I was the first one in the Stata Center, changing
timezone has some advantages after all, so I used some of my time
putting together slides about my views on the current status of
FreeDesktop.org and how we could improve some things. Of course, I
know some of my positions might not be shared, but I consider that
it's a nice way to try to present the "fd.o perception from the
random KDE guy" now that I met some Gnome hackers.
I attended the DBUS BoF, it was interesting. It was the last BoF
before lunch, so I jumped out of the room and fought again for
pizza, another round of free food!
After lunch, we took some time with David Zeuthen and John Palmieri
to discuss about HAL, NetworkManager, DBUS, etc. It opened some
interesting opportunities for collaborating. I'm confident it'll
give some interesting results, some things are already in the pipe.
I gave to David my slides about FreeDesktop, it could be the start
of a broader thinking about FreeDesktop to go toward improvements.
It looks like we'll sooner or later prove that we can get really
good relationships between Gnome and KDE and share when it makes
sense.
Woke up early this morning, so I started looking at my mails. And
then prepared to go out. I decided to not take my breakfast in the
hotel (don't ask me why... I was just tempted by taking a
"pedestrian breakfast". I walked down the street in the general
direction for the subway station. Explored a bit the streets
around, and found a place to buy a breakfast, took a "small" hot
chocolate (and they're not joking since I burnt my mouth) and a
muffin... The chocolate was far enough for me (and they call this
"small"!), the muffin was big. Everything is larger here, cars are
larger, street are largers, train are larger... I'm not a tall guy,
and I feel even smaller here. =)
Took my breakfast under the rain, next to a tree (in order to
protect myself) in a park near my hotel. And then took the subway,
it went almost smoothly (had some difficulties finding the right
track in the station) and reached the MIT Stata Center easily...
but, very early! I was there at 8am (but the event starts at 9am).
I helped some people around to prepare stuff for the attendance,
and people where slowly coming.
I chatted a bit with people around they generally look amazed when
I tell them that I'm a KDE developer ("what the hell is he doing
here?") but that's well accepted of course, they are friendly. I
feel like a diplomat, I've already some possibilities for
cooperation between both projects through books ideas someone
raised to me. I have to admit that it's really tempting... some
topics we could cover would be interesting.
My diplomat role became even more "official" during the
presentation session, during this session everybody had to
introduce themselves. I then stated that I was basically here to
improve collaboration and sharing in my own area (hardware
discovery and interaction) but that if some Gnome developers wanted
to point some other area where we could do better, they just have
to ask me and then I'll take the time to push the information to
the right persons in the KDE community. Ok, we have the FreeDesktop
but most Gnome people don't know KDE people working in the same
topics (and vice versa).
For lunch, we had loooot of pizza sponsored by IBM. Very good idea,
free geek food!
I contacted David Zeuthen already, he's really friendly and
passionated about his work. I'm sure it'll be really a pleasure to
work more with him in the future. Because of the small discussions
we had with him and some other people working on DBUS or HAL, we'll
surely have a BOF about FreeDesktop tomorrow.
This evening I'll surely go to dinner with other people that
expressed an interest in improving the collaboration between both
projects. It'll surely be interesting. Overall, I'm really happy to
be here, doing all that. :-)
Today started with a call from Air France informing me that my
flight from Toulouse to Paris CDG had been cancelled. Grrreat!
Initially they only proposed me to take another flight going to
Paris Orly (which means troubles to get to Paris CDG) or to
reschedule for tomorrow (which is plain stupid when you have just
two days). I told them I need some time to think about it (and take
a shower and shave...). They finally called me back again proposing
another flight going to CDG directly... but I had only 45 minutes
to reach the airport and check-in. Which meant no breakfast... and
possibly troubles for going from home to the airport. But thanks to
E. (a fellow PhD student) who kindly proposed to take me to the
airport I was in time!
And that was the start of a looooong day... since I got to CDG
earlier than expected I waited more hours before taking my flight
to Boston. I was wondering if the situation was about to get worse
to the point where I would actually live in CDG (something similar
to Tom Hanks situation in The Terminal). :-)
The flight went well, lot of time... reading, watching movies,
"eating" in the plane, and finally we landed! Some formality with
the border... which looks impressive to me. I mean they took my
fingerprints, and a picture of me. As if the passport wasn't
enough... weird.
The last step was to reach the hotel, I took a courtesy bus and
surprise the driver was speaking french almost fluently. :-)
So now, I'm writing this from the hotel, using the free wifi
network. It's really terrific, this is the best hotel I have ever
seen! I had almost the feeling that I landed in another planet when
I entered it. It looks a bit retro, that's really a nice touch. I
definitely like it.
Ok, time to sleep now... otherwise it'll be difficult to be
productive.
Yes, I'll obviously attend
[this year Gnome Summit](http://live.gnome.org/Boston2005). I
expect this to be very interesting, I'm planning to meet at least a
part of the [HAL](http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software_2fhal)
crew... I'll surely learn a lot of things which is always a good
thing. I'm looking forward to meet [clee](http://c133.org/blog/)
again, I just hope I'll interact more with him this time (we didn't
succeed during Malaga, shame).
I'll take my flight tomorrow around noon. I hope I won't be too
tired when I'll land there. I just need to finish to pack my stuff,
I'm almost done.
That's really a great opportunity, I'm really feeling a lot of
gratitude for [Waldo](http://www.kdedevelopers.org/blog/70) and the
persons at [Intel](http://www.intel.com/) involved in this trip. It
would have been impossible to make it without this Intel
sponsoring.
