"Ok .. where am I going with all this? Well, a couple years ago at Akademy 2006 in Ireland we put together a speaking track and arranged meetings around the topic of KDE and FOSS in Asia. The soil was being tilled and fertilized.
"People came from China, Korea, India and beyond representing both community and companies. We met, we talked, we forged relationships, we exchanged business cards and email addresses. Seeds were being planted. It was the first time I'd personally been able to meet with several of them, including people from Red Flag. We talked about how to draw people from cultures rather different in terms of computer usage, social norms and communication patterns closer to the KDE upstream community. Everyone agreed that working together more would benefit us all, and that simple things like having people send patches upstream would be great.
"Red Flag people sent a raft of patches directly after Akademy 2006, but as usual with large patch drops some were already done upstream, some no longer applied cleanly, some were incorrect ... a couple made it through though and that was an interesting first step. Seedlings poked their first leaves through the soil."
