aKademy Team Announces International Lineup

AKADEMY TEAM ANNOUNCES INTERNATIONAL LINEUP

DATELINE July 23, 2004
Web URL: http://conference2004.kde.org/announcements/schedule_announcement.php

Bedford, England: The aKademy Team announces the schedules for the KDE 
Community World Summit 2004, code-named "aKademy", taking place in 
Ludwigsburg, Germany from August 21st to 29th. Featuring speakers from IBM, 
Novell, SuSE, Connectiva, Trolltech, HP and many community hackers and 
activists, it promises to be a highlight of the Free Software calendar.

Kurt Pfeifle from the Program Committee said of the summit: "We have
put together an impressive programme of talks, demos, tutorials,
workshops, presentations, and joint coding activities spanning a
record number of nine days of working on the future of KDE".

SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE

Tom Chance (KDE UK) looks forward to meeting some KDE users who will
take the chance to get into direct and personal contact with KDE
developers: "What is great about the 9 days is that we have different
sub-events for different people. There is a Developer Conference, a
Coding Marathon, a User Conference, a Social Event and a series of
Tutorials. I am especially interested in hearing first-hand accounts
from representatives of various German migration projects who are
narrating their success stories on the final day of the event."

DEVELOPER CONFERENCE

The opening weekend Developer
Conference</a> puts a focus on such issues as accessibility,
integration, multimedia and tools. This will be an ideal opportunity
for members of the KDE community from around the world to make rapid
progress towards KDE 3.4, while the release of KDE 3.3 is planned for
shortly before the summit. Till Adam, a KMail hacker, is looking forward to
"being able to draw an idea on the back of a napkin and show it to
someone instead of having to explain everything in emails."

TUTORIALS, CODING MARATHON, ACCESSIBILITY AND USABILITY FORUMS

The following week will see a Coding
Marathon for developers running alongside an ambitious programme
of 15 one-day Tutorials for KDE users and administrators, as well as 
KDE's first Unix Accessibility Forum and a Usability Lab. Rosie Schuster
(Linux New Media) looks forward to see how these two forums will drive 
Linux desktop development to new levels: "The permanent presence of experts 
from 'relevantive AG' is a very useful initiative. Relevantive professionals 
will offer daily consultation-hours for GUI developers, plus a 'Usability 
Lab' on site with real-life test persons to be watched by developers as
they try to find their way through KDE programs as first-time users."

Kurt Pfeifle, who organised the Tutorial programme is very pleased
about its scope: "We won some world-class instructors for the
topics we offer. Could you imagine to find a better teacher on
'Samba-3' than John H. Terpstra, a long-standing Samba Team member
and principal editor of The Official Samba HOWTO Collection and
Reference Guide? Users or companies booking such a tutorial will get
real value back for their money. KDE benefits too: the tutorial income
serves to finance the whole event."

USER CONFERENCE

The second weekend of the summit will see the User and
Administrator Conference. Presentations on everything, from
managing your enterprise Linux rollout with KDE Kiosktool,
to learning to develop for the web with KDE Web Development Suite and
Quanta Plus, to explaining new technologies for cross-platform
KDE desktop deployments like FreeNX and NX from NoMachine, to a whole
series of exciting "migration success" stories showcased by various
speakers from German government organisations and companies are
expected to attract visitors from business and government background
pondering the ideas to be next in their move to a Linux/KDE desktop.

Fabian Franz, a Knoppix developer, said he is glad to be able to
participate in aKademy for 9 full days: "I am looking forward to work
with several developers from KDE in person to integrate FreeNX Server
and FreeNX Client into the enterprise desktop of the future."

Daniel Molkentin, who works on Kontact, the KDE Groupware Suite
added that "alongside the scheduled meetings, developers and users
can have 'on the spot' discussions about significant topics such as
the future of Qt4/KDE4".

No matter what your interest in KDE, you will find plenty to talk
about and participate in.

GETTING THERE

Detailed information on all aspects of the Summit including
registration and travel information is available on the website.
Book your place early to avoid disappointment!

The KDE Community World Summit 2004 is jointly organised and run by 
KDE e.V., Wirtschaftsf�derung Region Stuttgart GmbH (WRS), and 
Linux New Media AG.


NOTES TO EDITORS

For more information on aKademy, including the detailed schedule:
http://conference2004.kde.org

About the KDE Project and Kde E.V.

The KDE Project is a non-profit group of volunteering professionals 
and enthusiasts contributing to free and open-source software, 
especially to the "KDE Desktop for the Enterprise". KDE e.V. is a 
German entity of KDE members  for handling legal matters 
(http://www.kde.org/areas/kde-ev/).

About Wirtschaftsf�derung Region Stuttgart Gmbh (WRS)

WRS is the "Stuttgart Region Economic Development Corporation", 
a subsidiary of the administrative body of the Greater Stuttgart 
Region. WRS provides services to industry and municipalities in 
the field of economic development and in 2004 is running an 
all-year campaign to help advance the deployment of Open Source 
Software in private and public entities in the Stuttgart region 
(http://opensource.region-stuttgart.de/).

About Linux New Media AG

Linux New Media, based in Munich, Germany, is the world's leading 
supplier of Linux content. Linux New Media currently publishes 
six monthly Linux magazines, produces eight Linux-oriented web 
sites, and organizes the LinuxPark exhibition at major European 
trade shows such as CeBIT (http://www.linuxnewmedia.com/).


CONTACT INFORMATION

KDE Project
 Kurt Pfeifle
 Phone +49-172-715-7017
 Email: pfeifle@kde.org
 
Wirtschaftsf�derung Region Stuttgart
 Hans-Ulrich Schmid
 Phone +49-711-22835-27
 Mobile +49-172-731-0463
 Email: hschmid@region-stuttgart.de

Linux New Media AG
 Ms. Rosemarie Schuster
 Phone: +49-89-9934-0
 Email: pr@linuxnewmedia.com