With all of the foss-y events going on, its been an exciting month, and will be so for the month to come. Most of you would have heard about conf.kde.in this year, and some wondering what its all about. Thats what this post is all about.

So a bit of history about my experiences with KDE. My first encounter with KDE was the KDE booth at foss.in 2008 with the cool posters and super people like Pradeepto, Sharan, Adriaan etc. Even the people who didn't contribute to KDE were present at the booth. The reason was simple, that is the way KDE is, the most important thing is the community and whoever is a supporter of freedom is welcome.

I wasn't very used to the GNU/Linux system and had just begun using Ubuntu, and had installed Kubuntu separately for the KDE workshops. Those were the days of KDE 4.0 which was in a very early phase. Even with the coarse experience with the desktop, I loved the Plasma intro by Adriaan and I dedicated the whole day for that simple plasmoid tutorial. Thanks to his help and patience in helping me, I was successful.

At the closing of the KDE workshops, I got a Qt book gifted for helping with the banners setup etc. I felt obliged and thought its a good opportunity to learn Qt and some C++ in the process. I learnt Qt for a month and built KDE from source and fixed a bug I had myself reported few weeks back. I never expected that I would be the one fixing it

I applied for GSoC 2009, but due to lack of experience, I didn't get selected, however Season of KDE gave me a chance to contribute to the project I had applied for GSoC, Plasmate. (The only mistake I did was assuming that SoK didn't require me to inform Lydia that I am working for it). Working with Diego Casella and Yuen Ho I added an editing part to Plasmate. However I didn't get the tshirt as I never asked for it

This was followed by patches for bug fixes and feature requests. I slowly gained confidence and fell in love with KDE [nerdgasm]. Come foss.in 2009 and I was the person who coordinated KDE PoTD and the sessions. It was a huge success and made me feel even more happy.

I was also thrilled at giving Qt talks at events like NITC FOSSMeet and MSRIT's Mukthi and even more in the same year. That also made me realize something I inherited from my father, the urge of teaching people how to do practical stuff.
Come 2010 and I applied for GSoC again, and hurray I got selected, and got a chance to work with cool people such as Leinir, Arjen and Sacha. And that wasn't enough for my happiness, I got a chance to go to Akademy at Tampere, Finland and meet all KDE folks, and it was great – um .. Wait I don't think great is the word great enough.

I would go on explaining all the coolness KDE gave me, but I guess the above gives an idea. Oh and for the people who are very concerned about college “placements”, all the contribution to KDE SC made the interviewers go crazy  They never asked me technical questions, just asked me to explain my KDE work (well except Google, they're just algorithm addicts). So KDE gave me the practical experience that helped me a lot.

After that long introduction, I think I need not explain the importance of meeting other community members so to understand where you can make a difference. Thats exactly what conf.kde.in has been designed to provide students and pros alike. Its one of the once in the lifetime opportunities that you certainly don't want to miss.

Oh and by the way, friends who are unsure about the registration fees, think about it, the experience you will have at conf.kde.in will be priceless. (So why is there a fee? Well, some things ain't free of cost, so the fee pays the delegates' lunch/snacks etc). And in the end, delegates attending any conference don't go home empty handed. I've always got tshirts and goodies worth more than the conf fee itself at many conferences I have attended.

Hope that helps you decide whether to attend the conf. But as always, feel free to ask.
Register NOW! http://kde.in/conf/register.

NOTE: As pointed out by my friend Nikhil here, make sure you bring your laptop to the conf if you have one. Even if it doesn't have GNU/Linux, we will help you setup one