Registrations for Users Groups still open
May 15, 2012
One of the classic parts in fisl is the presence of various Users Groups who promote a huge exchange of knowledge. That's the time when participantes gather around common interests and share novelties, besides getting to know those persons that they only have interacted with remotely. Good news is that registrations for "U.G.'s" are still open and available.
Selection will happen in the first days of July and the chosen groups to occupy the 40 slots will have an outstanding location in the event's exhibition hall. Requisites are: having more than 4 representatives in the event; availability and responsability for their area in the four days of the event; having contributions to the community; having a website and discussion list with info about the group for disclosure. Members have the right to two Participants registrations and tickets (able to attend speeches) and two exhibitors registrations and tickets.
Cissa Gatto is founder of the community #GarotasCPBR, who attended for the first time last year. The Group had attendees from various Brazilian states, like Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Santa Catarina. That was the first time Elaine visited Porto Alegre, and the cold weather was very impressive to her! "I slept with almost all the warm clothing I had taken with me and only two blankets provided by the hotel. Showers were a big problem, in that freezing cold weather, but I had to face it!", she says. By the way, cold weather is always a big problem for those not living in South Brazil, and coming from other states. Don't forget to bring some warm clothing ;)
If you are encouraged to create your own group and participate in this big freedom party, register here. In case you have doubts, send an email to gus at softwarelivre dot org.
Help build the programme for the Free Technologies Festival
May 9, 2012
A bunch of people around electronic gear, wires, screws, wheels, monitors and tools. Suddenly, a remotely controlled penguin crosses the place, followed by someone driving a recycled metal vehicle while dodging robots built on spare parts and debris. That's the scenery known by those who's already attended a Free Technologies Festival, that happens at the Forum. This year you will be able to be part of this, by proposing activities to the official grid.
Projects and devices that use free hardware and software may be exhibited during the event. Candidates must get in touch by the email roboticalivre at softwarelivre dot org. It is important to send a brief description of the piece, as well as photos, videos and site, if there is one.
The Free Technologies Festival at fisl13 will gather those interested in digital culture, robotics and metarecycling for workshops, meetings and presentations. The main goal is to be a moment of gathering and networking of the robotics community and to strenghten the idea of a new model for production which values free knowledge as a fundamental basis.
Fisl13 will be the first event in Brazil to accept bitcoins for ticket purchase
May 9, 2012
The taste for new ideas is part of fisl spirit! This year, for the first time, BitCoin currency will be accepted for purchasing tickets to fisl. 10 tickets will be available, costing 20 bitcoins each. To arrange the purchase, get in touch with programafisl13 at softwarelivre dot org.
The currency may be fabricated (or mined, using community´s terms) using an open source program in a computer with a good configuration, or bought using conventional money in specific sites. Transactions are made through P2P networks, avoiding the need for
intermediaries in the transactions with the virtual currency.
One of BitCoin team members will speak at fisl, so if you are curious about how it works but couldn´t get familiar using just the web, this opportunity to learn with the people in charge is unique.
The coin obtained by the organizing committee will be spent in hours of programming for free software maintenance.
The novelty was posted to the blog of our friend Vanessa Nunes, who explained very simply how the system works. It´s worth taking a look ;)
Deadline for proposals submission to fisl13 was postponed
May 9, 2012
The proposals submission deadline was postponed to May, 13. To submit your proposal, click here. Activities will be organized in the following thematic zones: Admin, Development, Desktop, Emerging Issues, Education, Ecosystem, Workshops and Community Meetings. The first call for the approved submissions is planned for May, 25.
Just like in fisl12, the best proposals will be selected by the community, which will soon receive an email with a code for evaluation. In this system, called Swiss Tournament, each evaluator will see pairs of proposals, one is to be chosen. This process, iterated many times among users, allows for the best proposals to outstand. Besides the participants and speakers who applied this year and in the previous, also the associates to ASL will join the
process.
Last year, the system received around 670 submissions of activities proposals. This initiative wishes to integrate the users community and programmers in building the event´s programme grid.
Doubts may be sent to programafisl13@softwarelivre.org.
GIMP Project releases stable version 2.8
May 7, 2012
After three years of collaborative development, the GIMP Project releases version 2.8, with improvements and innovations both in the user interface and in the tools and features.
IN the UI now there's an option to have a single window for all the GIMP tools. The previous floating windows remains the default, but you can switch between them and have this config saved.
Version 2.8 also allows dialogs docked to multiple columns. To create a new column, simply drag and release a dialog in the vertical edges of a window. That's an interesting feature for a multi-monitor configuration, where one monitor keeps all the dialogs, and the other one keeps all the images.
GIMP 2,8 brings a new concept in file export. Saving and exporting files are now clearly separated operations. Saving a file can only be done in xcf format (GMIP's native). To generate files in other formats, you use the Export function, in the File menu. This distinction makes it clear the preservation of all image information, when Save is used. There are some optimizations for alternative workflows, such as opening a jpg, working quickly in it and then exporting to the same file. This modification allowed to get rid of all the annoying dialogs about "flattening an image", when saving in formats that can't handle layers.
Image layers get a new feature: they now can be grouped in groups of layers, as in a tree structure. For complex works, the previous "flat" structure was very limiting.
Text edition now is made directly in the image, instead of a separate window. All the text attributes - position, font, size, alignment - will be able to be edited in this way.
All the tools drawings were ported to Cairo, for smooth and modern graphics, worthy of the users' expectations. All the plugins - except for a few - were also ported to Cairo. Additionally, tools now use a progress indicator right in the screen, instead of the one in the status bar.
As usual, GIMP can be found in its website. And here are Release Notes for version 2.8. Source-code download can be made in this link. To obtain a binary package for your distribution, wait a couple days, since this release is quite new (May, 3, 2012).
Guilherme Razgriz, Executive Director of Cria Livre, a School for Graphic Computing with Free Software, and active participant of the community, told us he's eager to know their student's reactions about the new interface (but personally, he'll just continue with the traditional one :). He also said he'll bring activities based in the GIMP to #fisl13:
"Yes, I'm planning to bring several activities involving GIMP, but everything will depend on whether they'll be approved, and if I'll be able to spare some budget for the travel, apart all that, yes I do plan to do everything in the new GIMP!"
Every year, the area of graphic arts and multimedia are always well represented at fisl. In fisl12 there were speeches and workshops based on GIMP. There were also activities with Inkscape and Blender 3D. To check out this year's programme, stay tuned to the
Call for Works!