community

I am pleased to announce that a new Haiku User Group is being started in Chicago. The Evanston Haiku User Group (eHUG) is the second user group in the US focused on the Haiku operating system, and we have a temporary website at ehug.wordpress.com. We are very similar to other user groups already in existence, but one of the differences between the eHUG and other HUGs is the fact that one of our primary goals is to design and build a computer specifically for Haiku. We currently have two members and the president of the group is Yuri Wordsmith, myself.

We are very pleased to announce that, for the second straight year, Haiku has been accepted as a mentor organization for the Google Summer of Code. The student application period will start soon, so if you are a student who would like to work on a Haiku project for the GSoC 2008, please check out our List of GSoC Ideas and Students: How to Apply pages for detailed information on how to apply. If you still have any questions specific to GSoC after reading these pages, please contact the Haiku GSoC administrator (Bruno Albuquerque). If you have any general questions about Haiku and want to start familiarizing yourself with our community, which we encourage you to, please join the Haiku development mailing list and also feel free to stop by the #haiku IRC channel on irc.freenode.net. Our friendly community members will be glad to help you out in pursuing a Haiku project for the GSoC 2008 and beyond.

SCaLE 5x, Haiku Tech Talks at Google, Picn*x XVI, CNSL 3 in Venezuela, FISL 8.0 in Brazil, NUMERICA in France, T-DOSE in the Netherlands, Kansai Open Source Forum in Japan. The list of 2007 events where Haiku had a presence is very long. In fact, never in the past has Haiku had so much public exposure as it did during 2007. And as the project keeps making progress towards its first release, this trend of increased exposure before the eyes of the open source and computing world in general is expected — and desired — to continue. In the first two months of 2008 alone, Haiku will be at BeGeistert 018, SCaLE 6x and FOSDEM 2008, not to mention the Haiku hacking event that is taking place this very same week. With very few exceptions, these events are all the result of initiatives by one or more community members.

In an attempt to assist the effort of these community members who drive such initiatives and to lure more of them to follow suit, we have added to the Haiku website the ability to easily publish information about conferences and events, as a means to increase their exposure and as a tool to further engage the participation of the community in this events.

Jorge 'Koki' Mare and his fellow NorCal Haiku User Group members have graciously put together an event in honor of Stephan Aßmus, Oliver Ruiz Dorantes and myself to take place Sunday, October 7th. This will be from 1PM to 5PM at the Wild Palms Hotel in Sunnyvale, CA, where we are staying for the Google SoC Mentor Summit. If you live in the area, please check Jorge's post on the NORCAL-HUG site and sign up! We look forward to meeting everyone!

Posted to the Haiku mailing list earlier today was an announcement of another Haiku user group. BeOS in its heyday had user groups -- BUGs -- and it is good to see the appearance of corresponding groups for our favorite underdog operating system. Below are all the details as written by Jorge Mare (aka Koki) himself.

Hello Haiku Fans,

During the Haiku gathering at the Picn*x event last August, a few of us who live in and around the San Francisco Bay Area talked about presenting Haiku at user group meetings in the area. In the following weeks we continued these discussions, and today we are happy to announce the creation of the Northern California Haiku User Group, or NORCAL-HUG for short.

Our mission is simple: we want to build and grow a Haiku community in Northern California, and to that end we will be planning activities such as (but not necessarily limited to):

* HUG meetings (initially every 3 months)

* Online community building (NORCAL-HUG website and mailing list)

* Represent Haiku at local conferences, user group meetings and other events

* Organize install fests and/or Haiku workshops

* Network with other local/regional computer user groups

* Build relationships with local/regional high schools and universities

At this point we are the following three members:

- Jorge G. Mare
- Scott McCreary
- Urias McCullough

But we want more people to be part of NORCAL-HUG. So we are inviting all individuals living in Northern California with an interest in the Haiku Operating System and/or who would like to shape up NORCAL-HUG to join us. For now just subscribe to the norcal-hug@freelists.org mailing list shown below, and send a message introducing yourself. We are in the process of setting up a website, and once this is up and running, you will be able to register as a HUG member.

Viva Haiku!

Each year after the Summer of Code is over, Google holds an informal Mentor Summit at their Mountain View, CA office to allow mentors to meet each other and talk about their experiences in the program. This also allows Google to get first-hand suggestions on what was done right and what could be improved in the program. This year the Summit is being held on Saturday, October 6th.

I am glad to report that three Haiku mentors will be attending the Summit: Stephan Aßmus, Oliver Ruiz Dorantes and myself. In a continuing show of their support for open source, Google pays for airfare, one night hotel stay and food during the Summit.

In addition all three of us will be staying an extra day or two in the San Francisco/Mountain View area and are planning an informal Haiku community gathering on Sunday, October 7th. Any Haiku developers or community members in the area are welcome to join us. Further details will be provided as the date approaches. My colleagues and I are very excited about meeting any Haiku community members in the area.

As another avenue to spread awareness of the Haiku project, the Haiku project has opened a store for official Haiku merchandise at CafePress. Find T-shirts, mousepads, coffee mugs, and more! Most items are sold at Haiku's cost and any proceeds go directly to Haiku. Read more for how you can contribute designs for the store. What's more is that this is a community-driven effort. Got a great idea for Haiku stuff? Here are the guidelines: