Mario Fux

… I finally got my diploma for a study that took much longer than I first thought ;-). But then with the knife at my throat (the old study model ran out and thus it was my last chance to finish) and great support of friends and family I found the time and energy to successfully finish and get my Master’s degree. The title of my diploma thesis was “Media Choice and the Media-Synchronicity-Theory – Development of an Instrument for the Study of selected Elements of MST for Free Software Communities” and here you find its English abstract:

This paper will analyse the media choice and media usage of Free Software communities and hence to draw conclusions for a more successful deployment of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) in the area of education and school. After a history of ten years of CSCL in action, relevant failures and possible causes, we develop a questionnaire on the foundation of the Theory of Media Synchronicity from Dennis et al. (2008). The acertained data will be evaluated regarding the daily media usage on the one hand and the media choice in specific situations on the other hand. Additionally we are going to compare the data with the data of the study of Miller (2014) about "learning strategies and new media".
To validate the ideas of a more successful deployment of CSCL two concrete hypotheses will be established: 1. the characteristics in media usage und choice in Free Software communities and the preferred choice of asynchronous media when being longer within the community, and 2. the importance of email as communication media in these communities. The acertained data and its evaluation do not confirm the first hypothesis. But there are lots of results that confirm the second hypothesis.

Unfortunately this is the only English part of the diploma thesis besides the questionnaire. With this questionnaire I collected some data through a survey. Thanks everybody for participating in this survey and yesterday I finally informed the two lucky winners about their prices.

A paper that might be more interesting for you is the one about “KDE as an example of a Free Software community” from a social-educational perspective. In the appendix you find 9 longish IRC interviews with different people from the KDE community. There you might find some interesting insights and different perspectives.

PS: Oh and one of my sons has his birthday today so: Happy birthday little b.

The dates for the sixth edition of the Randa Meetings are set: Sunday, 6th to Sunday 13th of September 2015. The first Sunday will be the day of arrival and the last Sunday accordingly the day of departure.

So what about you? If you know about Qt and touch gesture support, want to bring your KDE application to Android and Co, plan to work on KDE infrastructure for mobile systems, are a UI or UX designer for mobile and touch interfaces, want to make your software more accessible or just want to work on your already ported KDE application please register as soon as possible on our Sprints page.

The registration is open until the 13th of May 2015. Please add your estimated travel cost and what you plan to work on in Randa this September. You don’t need to include any accommodation costs as we organize this for you (see the Randa Meetings wiki page for further information about the building). After this date we will present a budget and work on a fundraiser (together with you) to make it possible for as many people as possible to come to Randa.

If there are any questions or further ideas don’t hesitate to contact me via email or on freenode.net IRC in #randa.

I’m close to being back to KDE joy and work. Just one last exam on Thursday and I’m done with my final exams. But let’s concentrate on the subject.

For the topic of the Randa Meetings this year it’s planned to focus on tablet/smartphone and touch platforms and make our software fit for them (e.g. touch ui for Kdenlive or Android CI) and work further on already adapted software (e.g. KDE Connect, GCompris or KPhotoAlbum). And e.g. the Visual Design Group of KDE might help to design these new UIs (e.g. a tablet-ui for KRecipes where you can recook all the great dishes of the recent Randa Meetings 😉 or make them better. Or what are your ideas for this topic?

So if you think you should be part of this endeavour and you want to come to Randa this year please go to Doodle and select the start date that fits you best. The dates that can be selected are the possible start dates of the respective Randa Meetings. Just add another 6 days till you need to leave Randa again ;-).

Oh and please forward this information to potential other participants and people you think should come as well.

Konqi – the friendly dragon is our well-known mascot. There is the traditional one which didn’t change much over the years and was even created in plush. And on our historic KDE clipart page you find some versions of Konqi and his friend Katie.

There is even a moving Konqi and if you’re talented enough you might create your very own Konqui.

Then there is a collection of new Konqis by Tyson Tan. (And this is not the place to discuss which ones are nicer and you like more. As it’s my blog I dare to say that I like both versions very much. So thanks Tyson for the new ones and whoever did the historic version (after Kandalf?;-)).

But what about the question in the title of this blog post? Today I found some time to read about the “Plasma Sprint 2015” by Ken Vermette (kver). Thanks Ken for this nice outside (and now inside 😉 perspective. Ken is one of several people of our Visual Design Group. Under this blog post I read a comment with the question “why are there no women in the picture?” (another and IMHO very important question but not the topic if this blog post, so for another time!) and later a small discussion about Konqi and his friend Katie and why a female version and why a pink dress and eyelashes. Unfortunately the comments are gone now (although they were very well written and had some good ideas and perspectives).

And as this is a topic (gender research) that interests me very much I had a short discussion with my wife how it would and could be possible to draw a female Konqi without using any gender stereotypes. We didn’t find an answer.

But in the end the answer is actually quite simple (thanks again Ken and his commenters for the insight) and even visible on this picture: KDE Dragons Ensemble.

Konqi is female, male and nothing at all. Just take a look at the ensemble above and you’ll see that there are a lot of different Konqis, different colors and some might be male, some female and some something else. So there’s no specific need for an additional female version of Konqi as we’ve already female Konqis. But there is always need for new Konqis…

But the ultimate proof (at least IMHO) gave my son when I asked him (he is a huge fan of Konqi and I’m completely innocent about this fact 😉 if Konqi is female or male? He answered: “It’s Konqi.”

PS: Another question could be (for bikesheding purposes ;-): if our mascot’s name is “Konqi” or “Konqui”. (Please note the irony, sarcasm or rhetorical character of this question ;-).

The Randa Meetings 2014 fundraiser is quite successful and I want to thank everybody who already donated or supported us. But there is still some time till the 9th of July and thus we have still some time to convince more people for this good cause.

So please, remove the dust from your blog or social media account and spread the word and convince your friends and environment to give something. Just ask them politely and the worst you get is a “no”.

You can tell everybody that they will get even better KDE software, software that runs on almost all platforms and in the future on even more and software that everybody can use and share. Concretely this means that at the end of September 2014 you will get an updated KDE Book that helps you to work with KDE Frameworks 5, a more stable Kdenlive, a first port of KMyMoney to KF5, a glimpse at Amarok 3, another beta of GCompris based on Qt, a reinvigorated Gluon Games Framework, at least a first idea of the KDE SDK and much more. Isn’t that worth it?

And we will try something new this year at Randa to keep you, dear supporter, better informed about what happens at the meetings. Everyday you can check this work page and see in a short and concise form what everybody has done and achieved.

So thanks for donating, spreading the word and supporting us!

Today B. and me had our second christmas cookie day of this year. Listening to some music. Towards evening we listened to Nokia Night of the Proms on Deluxe Television (I like this music TV and radio channel) which I hope to see one day live.

Last week we did two kinds of cookies (Mailänderli and Vanillegipfeli) and some Gittibänze (no idea how to translate this: some bread men ;-). On the first picture you see the Mailänderli

Today we did three types more: Spitzbuben, Schoggichuggle and Mohngüetsli. You see all of them on the second picture.

The whole picture gallery is available on this link for some days. And now your question is probably: and where is the relation to KDE in this blog post? I’ve three answers:

1. We’d like to wish all the KDE people happy family and holidays.
2. I hope to release the recipes of these cookies as KRecipes data in the next days.
3. And last but not least we’ve got a third picture below. And the first person who send us (my last name at KDE servers dot organisation) or comment the ingredient which is shown in this picture receive a package M & B cookies (not necessarily the same as shown above) at the next meeting (e.g. Randa 2011 or Berlin Desktop Summit 2011).

Yes, almost forgot it. We still miss a KDE or Konqi cookie form…

Update: Fixed the link and the email address (not the first name but the last name which is btw “Fux”). So if you already tried to send in the correct answer please try it again and if you think you’ve won if the address was correct in the first run just email me.

It’s quite some time since I last blogged. I wanted to report every week about my KDE work day: one day dedicated only to KDE, be it development, research, documentation. Unfortunately I didn’t succeed in reporting about it. But I more or less managed to work one day each week for my KDE skills.

Normally it wasn’t a whole day just for this but several hours during the week and mostly all hours summed up to more than a day. So there is and was a lot going on.

I did a lot of work on my Qt skills. Tried several things about linguistic stuff like stemming, part of speech tagging. Most of the stuff not really worth publishing. And there is other stuff. Stuff not yet ready to talk about in the public. But hopefully soon.

And there was and is this Qt and KDE programming course in my local LUG: We’re still on it and the number of participants grows!

And even Konqi and his tale are alive. In my brain. There will be another story but I don’t know when and I don’t know when I’ll tell you more about this two bigger projects. But I will. I just wanted to let you know that I’m still alive and coding, reading, organizing, thinking, brainstorming, talking, discussing, ….

Oh and almost forgot this: I’m now since 6 weeks in the English Grammar foundation course. Do you see a difference ;-)?

So this shall be the start of a tale or a long story about the little dragon Konqi and its adventures in our (or his) world. But first a preamble.

As you probably read in my former blog entry I did a schooling to be able to teach in the primary school and in general I like or better love kids and people who are from time to time childish ;-). And I’d like to improve my english language skills (I’ll do another course in autumn as well). So there is no better possibility to train than writting in this language. In the next time I plan to write on a rather regular basis about the smaller and bigger adventures of the little dragon Konqi. It should be or become a story or tale for kids that means if and when you have, know or own some of these beings tell them this story. or let them read it. Young human beings are still honest and very critical and they will tell you or me if they like it or not..

In the same way as I’m interested in your comments (about the content, about the grammar or orthography (errors ;-)) I’m interested in the opinion of your kids. And there is another thing I’d like to mention before I start to tell you about the life of another little being: What’s a good tale without good and nice pictures and paintings? So if you’re in some way talented or you are one of the few KDE artists (Nuno, Alexandre and all the others 😉 and you’ve some spare time send me an email (fux at the KDE server DOT the mandatory TLD org) and you could be the first who gets the newest report about Konqi’s life. And probably and with some luck the next part of the story has a nice little painting besides.

Oh btw, Krita would be the perfect tool for your fantasy. And there is only one rule for the paintings: Konqi must be green! And now let’s fly to another far away part of the world …

Once upon a time there was a little dragon called Konqi. He was rather small for his kind but more than anything else his heart was good. Konqi grew up in a land far away in the mountains near a nice little village inhabited by human beings. This village was surrounded by a dense coniferous forest and several small rivulets which ceased in magical little ponds. Some of the rivulets had its sources high in the mountains others started just somewhere in between the numberous tall trees. In the steeper areas of the forest there were some caves. Most of them were deep and never entered by a human being, others were just the right place to hide when a sudden summer rain began to fall down to earth.

And in one of these caves, certainly one of the more hidden ones, the little dragon Konqi lived. He was still in his childhood when one day he decided to walk over to the big hill and check what’s there behind this big little rock. After his breakfast, which consisted of berries of the forest, mushrooms and some tasty leaves (Konqi was not one of these dragons who liked to eat up other beings or earthlings), he packed some food for lunch, closed the door of his cave and took the stick which was leant to the rock in front of his cave. It was already at this moment when he first had the feeling that this day would become one of the more thrilling of his long life.

After some minutes of walk through the dense forest he had to cross the first little river. At this place the trees stood not that narrow so that the sun could throw its beams till the ground and there were some white little flowers which enjoyed the warm light of the sun and the soggy neighborhood of the rivulet. Konqi took a break sat down and drank some of the river’s water to refresh himself. He was not really cautious in doing this even though he heard stories about some bewitched waters in the forest. But they must be much deeper in the forest and at places much darker than this beautiful place. And actually it was not the first time he took some of this water.

Finishing his rest he packed up the blanket he had been sitting on and started off into the darker part of the forest. Ten minutes later Konqi then found a place where a lot of different mushrooms were growing. But as he already had enough of them in his bundle he decided to continue his walk over to the big hill. Then after a nice morning walk through denser and clearer parts of the forest he arrived at the hill at around midday. But before he had lunch he wanted to investigate the new side of the hill. ‘New’ because he never before was this far away from his home cave. This was also an area where almost no trees grew.

On the other side of the hill the further area looked exactly the same and so he decided to continue his journey after a short lunch in the hot sun. "Why not take a few more steps away from home?" he was thinking. Just as he was taking his first step of this new part of his trip he perceived a gentle voice almost inaudible. First the voice was just gentle but then suddenly you could recognize fear in it. For the shortest of a moment he continued in lowering his foot to the ground but then suddenly and abruptly its motion was frozen.

And why Konqi’s motion froze so suddenly and who the owner of this gentle and silent voice was you’ll probably find out in the next week at this place. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoye(d) it.

So good morning dear readers. It took a long time for this new and next entry of mine about my kde work days. But I’ve an excuse. I moved – and the new and better internet connection starts to work from the 19th of August. Till then I’m online only when I’m in the office and on some swiss train stations occasionally. It’s now more than two or three weeks since the last entry and I want to start right on about some stuff I did or tried.

Last Friday I started a serie of programming courses at my local LUG (the LUGO – Linux User Group Oberwallis). I’m not yet good in developing with Qt and KDE but I tought that I could give and share my new knowledge with some other LUG mates as I go on. And we already were a group of four people increasing in the next course. There are some spare notes and nine slides of a short presentation. Probably I still write some text of what I told them. But the course shall and will be quite interactive as we are all on different knowledge. So if and when you’re in Switzerland and speak German visit us. The next course is on Friday, the 10th of September 2010. Oh and btw. This Friday, the 13th of August, we have another general meeting at our LUG with some presentations about Linux on different devices (and of course a short presentation by me about KDE mobile) and somehow an integrated release party for KDE SC 4.5.0.

Then I read and tried some of the git stuff in the last weeks. As the projects grow (more than one file) and version control system begins to make sense and which could be better suited than git (no flame war about vcs please – I’ve choosen git because Qt already switched to it and KDE will finally switch to it in the next months). So here is a short summary and listing of some git commands:

• "man git-log" or "git help log" to get information about the git log command
• "git init" in a directory to create and initialize a new git respository
• "git add ." to add the current directory to the cache (index) and
• "git commit" to finally commit it
• "git commit -a" to commit all new changes without explicitely adding them
• "git diff –cached" to see the changes and
• "git log", "git log -p" or "git log –stat –summary" to view the history
• "git branch <newBranch>" creates a new branch and
• "git merge <newBranch>" merges it with the master branch (what a surprise 😉
• "git clone <localOrRemoteUrl> <newName>" clones another repository
• "git pull <otherRepo> master" merges the changes of the otherRepo with your master and
• "git fetch <otherRepo> master" does the same without merging
• "gitk" is a graphical history and diff browser for git

All the stuff I read or learned is from the gittutorial and git documentation (aptitude install git-doc on a Debian system ;-).

As you probably already noticed I’m somehow interested in semantic and natural language stuff. Some months ago I asked some friends of mine to send me five to ten (5-10) sentences in natural (human) language about searches they want to do on their computers. Something like: "show me all the text documents I worked on last week and tagged with ‘project X’". So here is a wish to you or job for you: Send me some such natural language query (english or german, probably some french once, that’s all I speak and understand ;-), preferably from collegues or friends who are not power users but normal computer users. I want to analyse them and try something out.

As this blog entry is already longer than expected I want to add some information about myself. You should now my name and that I like (or love?;-) free software and thus KDE. I’m 31 years old, life in Switzerland (grew up in the south of it and life now somewhere in the middle (who knows where and read the last entry?;-). Eleven years ago I finished my schooling as a primary school teacher but decided to study which I hope to finish in the spring of 2012. My major at the university is education and social education and the minors are computer sciences (with a special interest in AI and semantic web engineering) and computational linguistics.

And to end this entry. There is a new Qt technology coming up about the semantic web and desktop: QtSparql… (but Soprano is worth a look as well to say the least) and soon you’ll find here more information about Konqi the dragon…

If you were a participant of this years KDE multimedia meeting I would be interested in your opinion:

As you probably know this was the second kde meeting I organized and I plan to do another one next year (btw I got today the OK of a certain person and I think this means the topic for next years meeting is set but more about this in the following weeks). What do you think if I would earn some money with the organization of the next meeting.

As I like or love to organize such meetings and I doesn’t seem to be that bad in this I’d like to organize another and another and … You see ;-). But even if it’s a lot of fun it’s also work and time consuming work nonetheless. For the meeting this year it took a good month of time to organize everything (incl. the meeting time). The whole amout of time is or was distributed over half a year.

And the other thing is that I need to eat (;-), pay the bills and as I’m moving to my girlfriend and my studies end in the next year or two a family is not that far away. And that’s another reason I’d like to professionalize the meeting, make a conference/sprint out of it. An annual one. And don’t missunderstand me: I’d don’t want to become rich on the shoulders of kde developers and/or the KDE e.V. The contrary I starting to plan and search for sponsors much earlier this time to decrease the amount of money the e.V. "needs" to sponsor.

Oh and if or when you’re waiting for my next "kde work day" blog. It’s in the making but as I’m moving (the whole room is full of stuff to package 😉 some stuff delays a bit. And there’s anoher idea floating in my mind. Something somehow kde related but not code related and something for the kids and probably something to play and something about Konqi the dragon but …

Oh and I’ll do something like (yes, I like the word "something" 😉 a qt and kde course in my local linux user group… Oh and this is the last oh: I’ll do an english course in the next semester to meliorate my english grammar. Hopefully to your pleasure as well ;-).