Last year, amid an atmosphere of nostalgia, KDE – the second largest free software community in the world – celebrated its 15 years of activity at Latinoware. In the audience, old acquaintances had the chance of recalling important actions undertaken by the group during its trajectory.

For this edition, one of the goals of KDE will be to show that anyone can get involved and contribute to the group, regardless of the user’s level of technical knowledge. “Many people are still under the impression that writing code is the only way to help a free software community. My idea is to present other possibilities and their importance within the free software production cycle,” comments Aracele Torres, who will be one of the speakers at the event.

Last year, KDE celebrated its 15 years of activities: the group currently has over 2000 collaborators worldwide.

In her lecture, she will introduce some of these possibilities, such as the areas of translation, promotion, artwork, documentation, software bundling and testing. Check out the full interview:

- Can anyone can participate in this fascinating world of free software?

Yes, the key to getting involved in the free software community is to be interested in contributing.

- What are the main difficulties of “newbies” in the area and how they can be reduced?

I think many of them are unaware of the free software production cycle. They are not aware, for instance, that anyone can contribute and that participation in the cycle is voluntary and based on merit. Because they are very accustomed to proprietary software, they tend to believe that free software also works well under the same hierarchy system. In the case of this difficulty, I believe that ideally the free software communities should aim to provide beginners with information on their basic functioning mechanisms and possibilities for insertion and collaboration these provide.

- How can people contribute to KDE? Where should they begin!?

There are several ways. If you know how to program and would like to contribute with code, there are several programs with which you can help develop. The first step for people who want to start is getting involved in the community. This can be done, for example, through participation in the KDE mailing lists. For those who would like to be involved with KDE in Brazil, I recommend subscribing to the KDE-Br list (https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-br) and get to know our activities better.

I also recommend two great pages, where they can find several tutorials and important information about KDE and how to contribute to it: the KDE TechBase and KDE UserBase.

The Ubuntu community holds many surprises for Latinoware 2012. In the group’s larger participation in the history of the event, they plan to hold contests, raffles, installations and demonstrations of their work to the public, as well as showcasing their products in a booth at the exhibition area.

According to Ayrton Araújo, member of the Brazilian Ubuntu community, the main goal of the event is to recruit new collaborators. “We will be teaching how to collaborate, in real time, with highest affinity segment, establish new teams and beat the 3-day collaboration record. We will also make a tribute to someone who was among the three main translators in the history of Ubuntu: our good friend André Gondim”.

Tiago Hillebrandt, of the Ubuntu-BR-SC community; Julian Fernandes, reference for his articles on the community site; Pablo Rubianes, leader of the Ubuntu community in Uruguay; Marta Vuelma, LPIC-3 and representative of the Ubuntu-BR- RS; Ursula Junque, Ubuntu Defect Analyst at Canonical, plus André Noel, the real programmer of blog “Programmer Life” will be among the speakers.

Check out the full interview with Ayrton Araújo:

- What you users expect from Ubuntu lineup at this year’s Latinoware?

We have getting organized for four months and we expect this year we will have the best participation in the history of the Ubuntu community at Latinoware. We will have many new features and surprises.

- What platform related subjects will be discussed at the event?

This year we will be focusing on a more practical context of using Ubuntu. Focusing on more technical lectures to show the potential of the platform as a whole and very much hands on. We are betting on a more practical and relaxed lecture format, to allow participants to interact and learn in real time. Some lectures will be given in smaller groups to drive greater interaction with the audience.

The topics will be: the advantages of using Ubuntu in the corporate environment and as a development platform; Hardening of Ubuntu Server; uncomplicated Proxy Server with Ubuntu Server; bundling; development of lenses for Unity; real-time collaboration in translations; presentation of the new Ubuntu; as well as a talk on games and, who knows, the beta of Steam. Besides, of course, other surprises!

- What are the novelties of the operating system this year? And what to expect for the future?

Other than the security improvements, greater performance and hardware compatibility, we have many improvements in Unity, where we will be abandoning the development of Unity 2D because Unity 3D will be compatible with machines without graphic acceleration with a quite satisfactory performance in this aspect.

We will have new features in the famous Unity lenses, in addition to supporting new types of integration with them, like Webapps. We are also hoping to see the start of the era of gaming on Linux, with the Steam beta coming out soon and exclusively for Ubuntu, as announced by Valve.

We’ll talk about each of these points in Latinoware. So do not forget to check us out.
As for future novelties, I’m with Mark on the bet that the next LTS version of Ubuntu, which will come out in a few years, will be the best and most human platform ever developed, regardless of the dominant segment (desktop, modular computing, smartphones, smart TVs ).

As for release 13:04, we have confirmed presence at the next UDS, in Denmark, where we will be helping to vote on new features of the distribution. A week after Latinoware, you will learn our bets and opinions in Latin American Meeting of Ubuntu Users. Also do not forget to track the announcements of the Ubuntu community on the better known Brazilian Linux news media and watch the live vidcasts weekly “Papo de Buteco (Pub Talk)” offered by Ubuntu-BR-SC.

En 2012, el espacio será ampliado y contará por primera vez con un conferencista internacional.

This is not the first time that Latinoware makes room for one of the most developed areas in recent years with the use of free software: GIS. Also called Geo-matics or Geo-referencing, this year the area gets a trail dedicated to discussing topics on the subject – LatinoGEO – with an integrated program of lectures, short courses and activities of the sector.

For the first time, the event will have an international speaker. Jody Garnnet, founding member of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation and chairman of the foundation’s incubation committee, will be responsible for transmitting knowledge about current structures that support free geo-processing around the world and the technologies available for deployment. According to Rafael Soto (right), organizer of the Trail, “to overcome an old barrier that inhibits the participation of enthusiasts and beginners, this year’s program focused on introductory lectures and tutorials where geomatics is also treated at basic informative level and some of the events available do not have knowledge in the area as prerequisite. ”

Conozca la programación completa:

- Luís Lopes, GIS specialist IMAP Amapá, will present the busy \ “Breaking taboos: free GIS software also does! \” (# SLGeoTbFaz). The lecture clarifies, especially for beginners in the area, that free software GIS (Geographic Information Systems) have the same tools found in proprietary software, running primary and advanced tasks with the same efficiency for academic and / or professional purposes. The speaker promises jolt the audience showing some replacement scenarios in practice.

- Jonatan This and Cesar Habby, both GIS systems analysts at Foundation Itaipu Technological Park (FPTI), will present a case study on the use of free software based on the Java platform for developing interactive map systems on the web. In the lecture will Jonatan and Habby will share a bit of their work showing JSF 2.0, Primefaces and HSLayer (ExtJs + OpenLayers) technologies which applied in the solution.

- Jody Garnettpromises to have a very broad participation presenting three lectures: the first focused on a technical audience, will show news of world’s most popular free map server – GeoServer 2.2 and the free library for geospatial application development on platform Java (Geotools); then it will be the time to make a tour of the main free projects that are kept and sponsored by OSGEO.

Finally, in “The State the OSGEO – Open Source Geospatial Foundation”, he will present the state of the art and current goals of the foundation, the structure of collaboration and governance currently in effect, and how the process of incubating projects and several other institutional matters work. “It will be the first lecture of this OSGEO segment in Brazil. We hope to encourage the Brazilian and Latin American public to contribute to projects and even submit their ideas,” stressed Rafael Soto, organizer of the Trail.

- Benício Ribeiro (#larsurilch), with extensive market experience in developing web applications and today in particular for the area of WebGIS, will show the news geo opensource world in addressing the mobile application market in the Ruby on Rails platform. In the lecture, he will share with the audience his experience of mobile development using the very latest in web technologies: HTML5, CSS 3, Rails, jQuery Mobile, RGEO, Leaflet and PostGIS. Well known for presenting lectures innovation in previous editions, this year using the Rails platform larsurilch says “Let’s put the geo mobile on the rails and show how the technologies currently available for geo mobile are coming with better polished fittings. Even though coming from different groups, they can integrate seamlessly and facilitate the developer’s life every day. ”

- Fred Estrela currently works as the business development leader for Cobra in Banco do Brasil and has invested efforts in the evolution of the initiative demoiselle-spatial and geo-components for mobile applications Geodroid (Geo + Android). In his lecture, he will address the integration of the free demoiselle framework with the demoiselle-spatial initiative for the development of corporate geospatial solutions while maintaining the concept of high level standardization and productivity.

- Wille Marcel Lima, also part of the LatinoGEO programwith the lecture “OpenStreetMap – Use it and help build free maps,” which will provide good examples of using the tool and show how easy and fun it is to collaborate with the project. Wille will also coordinate a novel collaborative project called “mapfest.” “We’ll map the area of Itaipu Binacional using various techniques. Some will use GPS devices to trace paths and roads, cameras to record points of interest and also annotations on printed maps. Furthermore, we use also the satellite photo,” Wille emphasizes. More information about the “MapFest” on: http://2012.latinoware.org/?p=1179.

As has become the tradition, LPI certification tests will once again be held at this year’s edition of Latinoware. The LPI 101, 201, 301, 303, 102, 202, 302 and 304 tests will be applied by 4 Linux on October 17th and 18th, from 11 to 12:30 am. Enrollments must be done in advance using link http://www.lpibrasil.com.br/inscreva-se. The website also has additional information about the test content.

In their official blog on Steam for Linux, Valve released a post talking about the performance of the company’s first port for Penguin, the acclaimed ‘Left 4 Dead 2′. Information is encouraging. Imagem: Disclosure

Ignored for many years by major studios as a gaming platform, Linux is experiencing a new moment, especially after the announcement of important partnerships in the sector. That’s what Julian Fernandes will address in his lecture at Latinoware 2012. Check out our interview with the speaker:

1. What is the content of your lecture at Latinoware?

The lecture will focus on the gamer audience, not programmers. The idea is to show that we can have fun using Linux too, and that it is not necessary to leave Windows in dual boot to play.

In it I’ll show some interesting games developed by the community and by some companies focused on the subject, in addition to bringing everyone up to speed on the latest news and theories in the area.

Overall, it’s a lecture by a gamer for gamers. (more…)