A Short Intro

• Age: 37
• Located in: Aix en Provence, France
• Occupation: Computer Science engineer
• Nickname on IRC: cauliergilles
• Homepage: http://www.digikam.org/
• Blog: http://www.digikam.org/?q=blog/3

The Interview

In what ways do you make a contribution to KDE?

I was a French translator and now the digiKam developer since 2002.

When did you first hear of KDE?

By others Linux users during a meeting in my office.

How and when did you get involved in KDE?

My first KDE contributions were French GUI translations from 2001 to 2002. I have translated Konqueror, KMail, KDevelop and K3b.

KDE was the first graphical environnement that I have used under Linux. Because I'm originally a win32 developer, I was immediately charmed by the KDE project's looks and goals.

Are you being paid to work on KDE?

No. I just recieved some donations from digiKam users. I hope to recieve more money this way in the future... It's a good money workflow: if you are happy to use an application you contribe to the project to make money donations...

How much time do you usually spend on KDE?

Sometimes, 3 or 4 hours by day to coordinate and develop digiKam & co. Coordinating an open source project is really a long and complex task depending of context, contributors, development, guideline, etc.

Which section of KDE is underrated and could get more publicity?

I'm dreaming to have a KDE project mostly sponsored by commercial companies to promote the KDE project to the end user desktop. I hate M$ lobbying against open source projects.

What do you think is still badly missing in KDE?

KDE needs to be interfaced better with the hardware. I hope that HAL project will improve this situation.

Do you have any plans for KDE 4?

I'm not a KDE core developer. I work for the digiKam and DigikamImagePlugins projects only. I have planned to port digiKam & co to KDE4/QT4.

What motivates/keeps you motivated to work on KDE?

I've been a C++ developper for a very long time. The KDE project is the prefect open source world for me, better than the Gnome/GTK world. I think that using C instead C++ to develop a very large project like Gnome is the wrong way. I never use GTK/Gnome applications (except the Gimp, but this situation will change with the digiKam image editor and Krita).

What chances do you see in your country for KDE as a desktop platform?

In France, open source applications have a good chances to be used in gouvernements office. Some projects to migrate from Win32 to Linux are under progress, but it still a lot of work to do.

What is your favourite widget style?

Plastik or Redmond style because they are the most Win32 like. It's more easy to explain KDE to Win32 users.

Which text editor do you use? Why?

I always use KDevelop. It's the best IDE under Linux. I never use console text editors excepted in some cases. I use mc editor when it's necessary... That all. I never use the vi/emacs editors.

Which distribution do you use? Why?

Mandriva because it's the most user friendly. I have no time to get lost with configuration.

I have tested SuSE/RH in the past but Mandriva is the better choice for me. I have never tested Debian, but I have no more free time to play with it. Developping digiKam is the most important job for me.

What is KDE's killer app? Why?

Outside KDevelop, the most applications that use on my desktop are K3b, amaroK, Konqueror, and KMail. But K3b is a great piece of software... It's my preferred one.

What does your desktop look like?

What type is your laptop/desktop? What is it named?

I use 3 flat-panels with Xinerama extensions. I'm using 2 host computers ia32 based. One is a compiler (PIV-3,6Ghz-4Gb), the other one is my poor laptop (PIII-650Mhz-300Mb) used to develop outside my home/office.

If you were shipwrecked and had to share an island with a KDE contributor who would it be?

Marcel Wiesweg is a brilliant developer. He recently joined the digiKam team and I'm very impressed by his activity and motivation.

What is your most brilliant KDE hack?

The Digikam::DImg API used in the digiKam core to manage 16 bits images like QImage.

What is your most embarrassing KDE moment?

Talking about the Kipi project on the Kipi mailing list. I think that the Kipi project is not really a sucess due to bad communication between the digiKam team and other Kipi host application teams.

Personal Questions

First things first. Married, partner or up for adoption?

Married since 2001. One son named Adrien (3 year old).

If someone visits your country, which spot is a must-see?

Paris by night, the city of lights...

Who or what in your life would you say influenced you most?

About programing, nobody. I'm trying to find inspiration myself. About photography, Elliot Erwitt, certainly the better black and white photograph. About writting, Arthur C. Clark for the great fiction books.

Richard Stallman or Linus Torvalds?

Linus for the project management of the Linux kernel.

What do you get passionate about?

Photography and image composition techniques.

You're stuck on a train for 6 hours and are bored out of your skull. What do you do to amuse yourself?

I read a book about photography. If I have my laptop, I'm trying to fix last digiKam bugs available in B.K.O...

What is your favourite t-shirt?

I never use t-shirts...

What is your favourite place in the world?

New Zealand. It's certainly the most beautiful country over the world...