Because I met Hsu Chia-chun at the KaLuG 2603 meetup and was pulled into SLAT’s exclusive Mattermost small-circle group, I stated that I would definitely attend this year’s Software Liberty Association Taiwan (SLAT) member meeting.
March 28, 2026, happened to be the day of the Students’ Information Technology Conference (SITCON). Because traveling from Kaohsiung to Taipei takes too much time, there was no way to make it.
This time I went north to attend the SLAT meeting, but because of Ubus I arrived two hours late. As a result, the meeting ended early and everyone had already run off. GG. I could only awkwardly chat with the people who stayed behind about what was fun at SITCON.
I looked at the agenda on SLAT’s NextCloud. It was mostly sharing what members had done, including the practice of introducing free software into medical systems, and two new books to be published soon, one of which was the printing of 《電腦上試跑 LINUX：硬體測試筆記》. Mm-hmm, it seems… I probably did not need to rush to take the bus early in the morning and suffer from Ubus delays. If I had known, I would have just bitten the bullet and taken the high-speed rail.
After having the experience of attending KaLuG, I knew that although I did not have much to say, I had to gather courage, overcome social anxiety, and not run away directly like two years ago. I had to talk with people. It is a bit of a pity that I did not get to talk with Professor Hung Chao-Kuei.
The main thing was exchanging experiences with Bo-Ren Lin about using reMarkable 2 e-paper. Wow, it is color e-paper. The matte screen makes writing notes feel just like writing on paper. They claim this is an open Linux system that provides SSH and Root privileges, but it is not completely open either. You need to use their proprietary format to install APPs, and you cannot install Linux desktop software. Also, although it supports color, the PPI is low and the colors are dim… at most it prevents you from being unable to distinguish dark tables when reading. Looking at it this way, the NT$20,000 price seems worse than an iPad. I originally thought it could install a Debian system by itself like the Pine64 PineNote, but reMarkable 2 seems to be cut from the same cloth as mainstream e-paper manufacturers.
At this point, Wally Lian came over and told us the story of how their company developed a Jin Yong novels e-paper device and failed miserably.
I also asked Bo-Ren Lin about Ubuntu contributor packaging issues. And where translations should be contributed: if I want to fix missing translations in the GNOME desktop, should I report them upstream or to LaunchPad? I found that even though Ubuntu 24.04 LTS has been out for a long time, there are still incomplete translations. He briefly described the development process to me and said that if it is Ubuntu’s own thing, then contributions should probably go to LaunchPad. Bo-Ren Lin previously noticed that the GNOME desktop’s new-folder action could not use iBus to input Chinese, and helped fix Mutter. So impressive. I think it is because GNOME desktop upstream basically does not want you to put things on the desktop, and Ubuntu applied its own patch, so almost nobody noticed.
Then I saw a Framework laptop again. This is already the third one, right? It is really tempting me to buy one… But seeing those magnetic modules start losing paint as time passes makes me wonder about their durability. Amos Li demonstrated how Framework’s USB modules can be freely swapped, along with interesting community-made 3D-printed gadgets, including ones that can add wheels or springs and so on… You can even remove the Framework laptop motherboard, put it into a case, and turn it into a NAS. I sighed that this really is a rich person’s DIY toy.
Finally, I greeted Amos Li, whom I had previously met at KaLuG. From him, I learned that during the KaLuG 2603 event, their Open Culture Foundation (OCF) actually went to Megaport Festival to run a booth, which is why they did not come. Truly amazing. Are all NGOs welcome there? No wonder Amos Li attends Kuma Academy and g0v events.
Next, I will keep attending KaLuG and COSCUP events.
