Back from Transylvania (unbitten)
greve
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Saturday 19 May 2007
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I've just arrived back home from the eLiberatica conference 2007 in
Brasov,
Romania. The conference itself was great fun: The organisers were
extremely good hosts and the crowd engaged in the presentations and
discussions during and after sessions.
Furthermore, Brasov is right in the heart of the Southern
Carpathians in Transylvania and around the corner from Dracula's
castle.
Unfortunately we did not get to visit the castle, because everyone
was so engaged in Free Software discussions that Friday flew by like
nothing. All I saw of the area was the city of Brasov at night, which
is a very beautiful old town with lots of places to sit outside and
have a beer with friends.
But from discussions with many people I realised that Romanians
seem to have a strong tendency to embrace the new and I've certainly
never seen so many EU flags outside Brussels. It is great that people
in the new EU member states are so enthusiastic about the EU. Those of
us who had to deal with its problems for so many years sometimes
forget what an amazing project the European Union actually is.
Another thing I learned is that there are some very interesting
projects in Romania, for instance Yate, which seems to be a very mature and easy to configure telephony engine for Voice over IP
based on a very powerful design that I will have to test out.
All in all I've decided that I should definitely go back there and
spend a few more days to discover this extraordinary country and its
people.
