So the last train has left Randa, and we can look back at a -- judging from the bugs that were fixed and the ideas that were traded and the code that was written -- successful sprint. The last two days were characterized by the authentic Randa Internet experience, in which a mountain goat eats 18% of the packets, but that doesn't stop KDE developers from writing code and sharing AppImages.

Peter Simon from AppImage stopped by to give a talk and lend a hand in building AppImages for those that wanted them. Talking with him has clarified a few ideas in my mind about how I'd do something similar in FreeBSD. It's also clarified the rationale behind these bundling (upstream-) application formats: a application image is for when you need the latest version of a specific application for a specific purpose, or when you're testing an application; in both cases you want nothing else to change. These are not my own words: they have been expressed several times on lwn.net recently, and Boud puts it eloquently on his own.

Given that, we can conclude that a given user will have only a few to a dozen application images in use.

With those assumptions, certain objections to the whole format go away. Not all of them, but enough to make me wonder if something like that could be done for FreeBSD, and if it would make testing easier.

Saturday I played the cook; I have tremendous respect for Hadrien who ran the show the rest of the week by himself (it is a full-time job). Fortunately I had great help in the kitchen: Mario's parents who helped clean and drove me to the grocery store. Ayrton and Lays who convinced me to make brigadeiro. Grace and Scarlett who minded pans and cut potatoes. Alexander and Pinak who also stirred and scoured. If I've forgotten anyone, my apologies: it's your help that made the community kitchen a success, too.

The following things were developed for saturday dinner: schwytserbrigadeiro, with 85% cocoa Swiss chocolate, doppelgeschnitzelteknoblauchbraten because we had leftover schnitzels and 20 cloves of garlic, and a potato-salami-raclette melt which just melted away in front of the hungry developers.

We also all got Cholera, but that is a local specialty.

Anyway, this puts me in mind that we could possibly do a cooking thing in Berlin at Akademy, if we put our minds (hearts? tongues?) to it.

Here's a gigantic thank-you to Mario Fux and Randa Meetings e.V. for putting this week together, special thanks to Scarlett and Grace for being there at the right moment, and to all the other participants for making it a great and productive week.