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<\/a>Happy to find Ana, Ricardo, Eric and sometimes ginger around the kitchen table<\/p><\/div>
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\n[john] This year was my second Libre Graphics Meeting, with the first being last year in Brussels, so I only have the two experiences to contrast. I’ve never been to Montreal before other than through the airport, so the place was fresh for me but I can only imagine what it was like for some who have been here at other LGMs during the many times it was hosted here.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Toonloop workshop with Alexandre Quessy<\/p><\/div>\n
[ludi] At pre-LGM I discovered Toonloop, a spontaneous stop motion programme.
\nIn 30 mn, we managed to build a full color animated title.
\nIt was awesome to see the Singer machines collection.
\nThe Open Clip Art Famous People category grew not that bad and Spiro made Eric organic.
\nYes ! Starting with practicing together is a really good entry.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>Alina cutting perfectly normal pants<\/p><\/div>\n
[femke] Just like in 2007 and 2009, the meeting took place in the Ecole Polytechnique. The campus is located on Mont Royal, half an hour by Metro or bike from the city centre. The journey from the front door to the actual meeting room includes several escalators, traversing vast orange, green and drab pink hallways. For food and coffee there are four cafeterias spread over different floors plus vending machines and racks of sweet-dispensers (25c for a fistful of artificial coloring). The many cork-board display-units placed around the the work spaces across the main hall remained unused apart from our rather uninspired re-play of the poster exhibition earlier in StudioXX. The view from the 6th floor is breathtaking.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Visiting the Biodome with Tom Lechner<\/p><\/div>\n
[ludi] Under the pretext of an iron transfer, on Monday we get to visit the Biodome with Tom Lechner. The most interesting part of the dome is the view from the outside. Walking around the building you discover the decor’s backside, composed by tubes, aeration, lights supports – structures of micros worlds populated by fake stones and trees and decorated with real animals. 2 days later we find back the famous rodent laid out in Laidout.<\/p>\n
<\/a>User feedback at the Scribus meeting<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Scribus OIF in progress<\/p><\/div>\n
[femke] Each year I come home from LGM convinced that bringing designers and developers around the table is not only necessary, but that it is very special and inspiring too. My enthusiasm for an occasion to work together on the Libre tools we share, has obviously grown stronger through the practice we developed as OSP in parallel.
\nBut also every year it is harder to accept that the community seems to miss the opportunity to push for that potential while in the mean time our expectations of LGM (and of the Libre tools it showcases), have grown and expanded. I think this year I started to run out of patience.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Dressed for OSP<\/p><\/div>\n
[femke] Maybe LGM has always been a happy accident that I am taking too serious. The start of the Libre Graphics Research Unit obviously addresses this but I am curious what other people in the audience thought.<\/p>\n
[john] This brings up the concept of ‘vibe’, that ethereal but ever-important quality that can and does make or break events. The metaphor I kept coming back to, trying to explain it to people at the party on the last night, was of being trapped in the ribcage of a dead horse. This is really different than the feeling of last year, where I was completely invigorated to be in a packed audience almost all of whom were running GNU\/Linux. Last year I felt like I was in the midst of a vibrant scene buzzing with energy. This year the vibe was, well, just about the opposite.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Interviewing Scribus' Claudia Krummenacher, usability designer<\/p><\/div>\n
[femke] There was energy in the room, also this year, even with a smaller group of attendants. But it felt undernourished and much of it dispersed. The actual stuff of the meeting (practitioners of different persuasion spending time together to figure out what matters for them in the tools they use and develop) seemed taken for granted and so glue was missing. Or were we missing Alexandre Prokoudine?<\/p>\n
[ludi] Parallel talks, the interviews and the meetings we’ve been searching for were each time enlightening. Thank you Tom, Claudia, Asheesh.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Schoolbus to the cocktail.<\/p><\/div>\n