A summary of the first French Sailfish OS meetup
We recently got together with some members of the French Sailfish OS community - finally meeting face to face!
The French Sailfish OS community
There's a lot of Sailfish OS users and fans, and not only in France but more generally in the so-called "Francophonie", as of course there are users in French-speaking Belgium and Switzerland as well.
We mainly use a Telegram channel, composed of around 30 members. It was created pretty recently, in April 2020.
Before that, a lot of Francophone users were (and still are) using the main English-speaking Telegram channel, but as we see more and more French-speaking fans, we created that channel. It is very active with a lot of interesting discussions, questions and answers, people helping each other in their daily usage of Sailfish OS :)
Why a meetup ?
I recently attended Jolla's 10th year anniversary in Berlin which I enjoyed a lot, and upon discussing with the French community on Telegram, we decided to organise a meetup in France, so that we can finally meet face to face!
The meetup
The place
We met in Paris, even though not everyone lives near Paris - a poll made Paris first, but close second was West of France - maybe next time? :)
We were "just" 5 members, a small number, to the point where we almost cancelled the event to do it with a larger audience in 2022, but in the end we decided to carry on to get the ball rolling!
We gathered in a nice pub, "the Frog & Princess", in the 6th arrondissement.
The only thing we hadn't foreseen was that there was a Champions League match
that evening, and the pub broadcasted it, so it was a bit noisy.
Discussions
We had created a Framapad with a list of topics to discuss, but in the end we'll cover those topics in the next meetup, which we'll be holding in a more quiet place.
That didn't prevent us from discussing about Jolla/Sailfish OS of course, but also Nokia, Palm/WebOS, etc.
Fun fact: of the 5 attendees, only 2 work in IT (Guillaume and myself), the 3 others (Patrice, Driss and Pierre) work in completely unrelated fields and are not necessarily "geeks", but are rather curious and care about privacy.
From left to right on the 2nd picture: Nico, Patrice, Guillaume, Pierre and Driss.
I also committed on writing a blog article explaining how to install Openrepos (and probably Chum as well): indeed, some fans only use the Jolla Store, because installing Openrepos means installing a RPM, which is not easy for everyone.
Sailfish OS devices!
Of course, we all brought devices running Sailfish OS:
- we're all using a Xperia 10 II as main device! :)
- Pierre brought his old Jolla 1 and Intex Aqua,
- Guillaume his old XA2,
- Patrice had a Jolla tablet!
- Driss had a XA2.
Very nice to see all those devices, and to have so many SFOS devices on the same table!
Bonus !
I had a little surprise for the members attending: some Jolla/Sailfish OS swag!
Upon hearing that I'd organise a SFOS meetup in France, Jolla (thanks David!) sent me a package with SFOS t-shirts and polos, pens and key holders.
What's next
The event was a success, and we all agreed that we must organise follow-up meetups with a larger audience (of course depending on the whole Covid situation).
We're working on identifying a nice place for the 1st quarter of 2022, and decide on the date upfront so that as many people as possible can attend.
Also, I'll start working on a series of articles explaining the basics, e.g. how to install Openrepos or Chum - as most resources are in French, and furthermore not always easy to find, as they're spread out between the SFOS forum the old TJC (together.jolla.com), the Jolla wiki, etc.
Tags: SailfishOS