Open Source Design infobooth – By Mariana Balla (Creative Commons – Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International)
During last weekend the Ura team traveled to Brussels, Belgium to attend FOSDEM. We had the chance to be present at one of the largest conferences in Europe (and probably the largest Free Software/ Open Source one). Just like at CCC, we strive to be at events which promote collaborative projects and initiatives. In addition to that, three members of the team were there as Mozilla Tech Speakers. It can be said that many of us wear various hats at the same time.
As part of the Open Source Design community, you could find us at the respective infobooth on both days. Members of our team were at the both along with other fellow designers. Together, we emphasized the importance of usability and user centered design in Open Source Projects. At the “Design Clinic” session, attendees could come to us and showcase us their project. By doing so, designers could advise them on the improvements their design would benefit from.
At the Open Source Design booth, apart talking about our Design philosophy, we also had the chance to tell people about the way we operate and why we are focused on Free and Open Source Software, We were also happy to introduce “Logobridge” our side-project which helps us contribute back to the community as a whole.
On the 2nd day, Elio, the founder of Ura presented Identihub. He presented a live demo of the latest version we are launching. During his presentation all attendees had the chance to watch in real time how they could host their visual assets and how to use some of its features, like format conversion of a certain file. Elio emphasized the importance of SVG as the “middleman” between developers and designers and how exciting it can be if in the future we would be able to have a similar version control powered by Git which would be tailored for designers and developers alike.
Further the attendees were introduced to more technical details of the project. Identihub development and discussion happen on GitHub and contributions from everyone are welcomed. Having said that, everyone who is willing to contribute to the project can do so by either contributing with patches, reporting bugs, suggesting usability improvements or creating mockups. Last but not least you can support the Identihub development financially by signing up for a monthly contribution at our dedicated Patreon.
The feedback we received was great! Among others, we are happy to have gone the AGPL route as it ensures full Free Software freedom throughout the journey of Identihub. Unfortunately there were a few technical problems with Elio’s talk recording so we will update you once we have updates.
Another wonderful experience for Ura at the largest Open Source conference in Europe.
Looking forward at the next edition with more interesting projects and more Open Source Design!