Wow, 7 years….

Originally post to Collabora co-workers:

7 years since starting the Collabora Multimedia adventure,
7 years of challenges, struggles, and proving we could tackle them
7 years of success, pushing FOSS in more and more areas (I can still hear Christian say “de facto” !)
7 years of friendship, jokes, rants,
7 years of being challenged to outperform one self,
7 years of realizing you were working with the smartest and brightest engineers out there,
7 years of pushing the wtf-meter all the way to 11, yet translating that in a politically correct fashion to the clients
7 years of life …
7 years … that will never be forgotten, thanks to all of you

It’s never easy … but it’s time for me to take a long overdue break, see what other exciting things life has to offer, and start a new chapter.

So today is my last day at Collabora. I’ve decided that after 17 years of non-stop study and work (i.e. since I last took more than 2 weeks vacation in a row), it was time to take a break.

What’s next ? Tackling that insane todo-list one compiles over time but never gets to tackle :). Some hacking and GStreamer (obviously), some other life related stuff, traveling, visiting friends, exploring new technologies and fields I haven’t had time to look deeper into until now, maybe do some part-time teaching, write more articles and blogposts, take on some freelance work here and there, … But essentially, be in full control of what I’m doing for the next 6-12 months.

Who knows what will happen. It’s both scary … and tremendously exciting 🙂

PS 1: While my position at Collabora as Multimedia Domain Lead has already been taken over by the insane(ly amazing) Olivier Crete (“tester” from GStreamer fame), Collabora is looking for more Multimedia engineers. If you’re up for the challenge, contact them 🙂

PS 2. wtf-meter : http://www.osnews.com/story/19266/WTFs_m

PS 3. My non-Collabora email address is <my nickname>@<my nickname> dot com