The Fridge

An Interview With Jono

2010-02-09T22:49:31+00:00

I’m about 100% sure that the next person to be interviewed needs no introduction – everybody will have heard of Jono at some point, whether it be from his role within the community, his activity on identi.ca & twitter, or maybe even from Lernid…Either way, I hope you enjoy this as much as I have!

1. Tell as much as you’re willing about your “real life” like name, age, gender, location, family, religion, profession, education, hobbies, etc.

I am Jono Bacon, the Ubuntu Community Manager working at Canonical for three years now, I am 30 years young and an Englishman living in the Bay Area, California with my wife, Erica. My parents live in Northern England and I have a brother living in Northern England and another brother living in the Isle Of Man. I was born in the north of England in North Yorkshire, raised in the south in Bedfordshire and and studied at Wolverhampton University in in the Midlands, graduating with a 2:1 in Interactive Multimedia Communication, going on to become a a journalist writing for a number of Open Source magazines and websites and writing a few books. I then became an Open Source consultant for the UK government-funded OpenAdvantage before moving to Canonical to become the Ubuntu Community Manager. My hobbies include writing, recording and producing music, videogames, movies, writing, travel and relaxing with friends.

2. When and how did you become interested in computers? in Linux? in Ubuntu?

I got interested in computers when I was a kid playing with a Commodore 64. I used to play games on it and try to write simple little programs in BASIC. Computers fascinated me, and my interest in video games (I was an epic Sega dork) got me into first learning BASIC and then learning C.

When I was 14, complete with bowl haircut, jack ups and large white socks, I went to night school to learn C and got more and more interested in the technology behind how software works, despite largely sucking at C. Shortly before I left for University my brother Simon came to stay for a few weeks and got me interested in Linux, specifically Slackware 96. Although it was ultra-technical, what really fascinated me was the concept of a global community of passionate contributors working together to build an Operating System that we could all share. I went to University and immediately formed a Linux User Group in my new home and progressively got more and more interested in Linux, starting to contribute to projects and then starting to write for magazines. I heard about Ubuntu when it was known as No Name Yet and it really captivated me: it really represented something I had been dreaming about – the fantastic technical foundation of Debian, but a different focus on integration, usability and ease of use.

3. When did you become involved in the forums (or the Ubuntu community)? What’s your role there?

My primary involvement in Ubuntu at the beginning was getting to the know the community, contributing bug reports and feedback and co-writing The Official Ubuntu Book. At the time I was spending most of my spare time knee-deep in the GNOME project and working with local Linux communities in the West Midlands, and my interest in Ubuntu grew from there.

4. Are you an Ubuntu member? If so, how do you contribute? If not, do you plan on becoming one?

I am an Ubuntu Member, and proud to be one! I contribute in a range of areas. I lead a team at Canonical that is tasked with helping to produce a rocking community to participate in and we work on a wide range of projects as part of that role. My contributions include team management, governance, software development, some translations, bug triage, raising awareness of Ubuntu and creating new initiatives to get people involved.

Outside of Ubuntu I like to develop community best practice with The Art Of Community and the annual Community Leadership Summit, do some podcasting with Shot Of Jaq and FLOSSWeekly, videocasts with At Home With Jono Bacon and Severed Fifth: Live In The Studio, record Creative Commons metal with Severed Fifth and work on some software projects such as Lernid, Acire, Python Snippets and some other projects.

5. What distros do you regularly use? What software? What’s your favorite application? Your least favorite?

I naturally use Ubuntu as my Operating System, both on my desktop as well as on the server that hosts my site and a range of other sites I run. I have so many fave applications – I love Empathy, OpenOffice.org, The GIMP, TomBoy, Scribus, Thunderbird, Docky, Network Manager, Gwibber, Quickly, Glade, and many more. As for least fave, I am not really sure I have a least fave – there are so many programs I haven’t got to yet.

6. What’s your fondest memory from the forums, or from Ubuntu overall? What’s your worst?

Fondest memory is a kid who emailed me telling me how he walked five hours from his village in Africa to an Internet cafe to to work on Ubuntu for an hour and then walked back. He emailed me telling me it was worth the effort and that he loved Ubuntu.

7. What luck have you had introducing new computer users to Ubuntu?

Fairly well, I think. Basically anyone who is not an Ubuntu user gets the advocacy pitch from me about how Ubuntu would rock their world. Many have tried it, which is what I consider a win, and a bunch have switched. Some don’t, which is fine, but my first goal is to have people take a sip of Ubuntu before they drink the rest of the bottle.

8. What would you like to see happen with Linux in the future? with Ubuntu?

I want to see free software, delivered via Ubuntu, become the most ubiquitous platform in the world for users and developers, available to all, respecting local languages and culture, and inspiring innovation and sharing.

9. If there was one thing you could tell all new Ubuntu users, what would it be?

Welcome to the Ubuntu community and welcome to the start of awesome journey in which we can all put a brick in the wall to create an incredible free software platform. I look forward to meeting you all!

[Discuss Jono’s Interview on the Forum]

Originally posted by Joe Barker here on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

Ubuntu Opportunistic Developer Week: Call For Participation!

2010-02-08T12:39:27+00:00

In the continued interests of helping to make Ubuntu rock as a platform for scratching itches and making awesome apps, I am putting together a new online learning event: Ubuntu Opportunistic Developer Week, happening online between 1st – 6th March 2010.

The week will be just like our previous online learning events such as Ubuntu Developer Week and Ubuntu Open Week, but instead providing a week jam packed with awesome sessions about writing applications that scratch your itch, and predominantly focusing on Python tools and frameworks, Bazaar, Launchpad and infrastructure. The goal for the week is give attendees a head start on a given technology useful for applications.

So, I am looking for volunteers. If you feel you could give a tutorial about a given Python module or associated technology (e.g. Glade, Launchpad, Bazaar etc), please drop me an email at jono AT ubuntu DOT com and I will liaise with you to get it scheduled. I am also look for some showcase sessions: stories about how you put together an application, how it scratched your itch and what tools you used. Thanks to everyone who contributes to leading a session!

The week has already been added as a Lernid event and I am going to encourage session leaders to create slides for their sessions. As each session is confirmed it will appear in Lernid and on the wiki page. Rocking!

[Discuss Ubuntu Opportunistic Developer Week on the Forum]

Originally posted by Jono Bacon here on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 6:53 am

Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #179

2010-02-07T20:02:29+00:00

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is Issue #179 for the week January 31st - February 6th, 2010 and is available here.

In this issue we cover:

* Open source industry veteran Matt Asay joins Canonical as COO
* Lucid Translations now open
* Ubuntu Developer Week Re-Cap
* Ubuntu 8.04.4 LTS Maintenance release
* Lucid Ubuntu Global Jam Announced
* Project Awesome Opportunity
* New Ubuntu Review Team: Reviewing bug with patches
* Jane Silber Interview
* Dustin Kirkland Interview: Encryption in Ubuntu
* Ubuntu Stats
* Nicaraguan LoCo Team’s Third Anniversary
* Report on Launchpad down-time of 4th Feb 2010
* The Planet
* In the Press & Blogosphere
* January Team Meeting Reports
* Upcoming Meetings & Events
* Updates & Security
* And much, much more!

This issue of The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

* John Crawford
* Craig A. Eddy
* Dave Bush
* Liraz Siri
* Amber Graner
* J. Scott Gwin
* Nathan Handler
* And many others

If you have a story idea for the Weekly News, join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list and submit it. Ideas can also be added to the wiki!

Except where otherwise noted, content in this issue is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License BY SA Creative Commons License

Jane Silber Interview

2010-02-02T23:53:48+00:00

Amber Graner: This Ubuntu Women interview in the Women of Ubuntu Series is with Jane Silber, the current Canonical COO, but as of March 1st, 2010, she will be taking the reins of Canonical as the CEO. More about this announcement and Jane’s history with Canonical can be found here (http://blog.canonical.com/?p=307). First I want to welcome you Jane, and thank you for taking part in this interview series.

Jane Silber: Thanks very much. I’m delighted to have the opportunity to support the Ubuntu Women initiative.

AG: After reading the announcement that you would be taking the reins as CEO for Canonical I couldn’t help but be excited for you personally, for Canonical, the Ubuntu Community and by extension Women in Open Source. I noticed in the announcement made on Dec 17th, on the Canonical Blog, when asked about “How will this impact Mark’s role on the Ubuntu Community Council and the Ubuntu Technical Board?” you stated, “One thing this move will bring about is a clearer separation of the role of CEO of Canonical and the leader of the Ubuntu community. It will be two different people now, which I think will be helpful in both achieving their joint and individual goals more quickly.” Can you elaborate on what those joint goals of Canonical and Ubuntu are and what the individual goals are besides the obvious commercial differences?

JS: Canonical and Ubuntu have many common goals. First among those is to make Ubuntu the most widely adopted free software platform, and Canonical invests heavily in the development and marketing of Ubuntu to make that happen. Elsewhere, the goals diverge in places where something is of less interest or less suited to one than the other, rather than the goals being in conflict. For example, Canonical has a large team that works with OEMs to get emerging, pre-production hardware enabled for Ubuntu. The contractual and liability requirements for such work simply aren’t well suited to community work. In contrast, local advocacy (e.g., installfests, local events, etc) is much better suited to the LoCo teams in the Ubuntu community than to Canonical. There are areas where the we are exploring how Canonical and Ubuntu relate to each other, and breaking some new ground in the models. The Ubuntu One services are a good example of that. Fundamentally however, Canonical and Ubuntu have a symbiotic relationship in which both benefit from the other.

AG: Since you mention that the role of CEO and leader of the Ubuntu Community will now be separate and Mark stated that he will be able, thanks to you, to concentrate on product design and development and talking to partners and gathering feedback, does this mean Canonical now has and R&D team lead by Mark, being developed under your guidance?

JS: There isn’t a new R&D team being stood up, but we do continue to have a good amount of R&D work happening throughout Canonical. In some cases this is concentrated in a specific team, such as our Design and Desktop Experience teams, which are responsible for things like the notification infrastructure, the Ubuntu Netbook Edition launcher, and the revamped Software Center. In other cases this R&D-type work happens organically throughout the company, including the Ubuntu team itself. Prime examples of this are Scott James Remnant’s work on Upstart (http://upstart.ubuntu.com/) and Rick Spencer’s work on Quickly (https://edge.launchpad.net/quickly). So this move doesn’t signal a dramatic shift into the R&D world - we plan to continue what we’ve been doing. But rather than having product design and strategy receive a portion of Mark’s attention, my new role will allow him to dedicate nearly all of his attention in that area.

AG: When surveying what the transition of COO to CEO entails what do you see as the biggest challenge?

JS: My history at Canonical and close collaboration with Mark and the rest of the senior team over the years gives me a solid foundation on which to build. But there are clearly challenges ahead for Canonical and for me personally. My focus over the last couple years has been largely internal, and naturally the CEO role will add a more external, outward facing element. Additionally, while my current operations focus will remain, the CEO role will require a strategic leadership and decision-making capacity, where I have been in more of an strategic advisory role to date. The changes may seem subtle, but I think they will require something of a mind shift on my part.

AG: Just from some cursory searches on the web in referencing women CEO’s for OSVs (operating system vendors) I could not find a long or readily available list of women, it would seem you are blazing a trail and raising the bar, how does that feel?

JS: I am proud of my contributions to Canonical and Ubuntu to date, and look forward to the continuing to help make them successful. But I am by no means the trailblazer for women in open source or women in IT. You may be right about OSVs in particular, but in the open source world, Mitchell Baker (Mozilla) springs to mind and there are many examples in IT in general. The phrase “on the shoulders of giants” often gets used in the open source world, and I think it’s applicable here too. I’m proud to be part of the group of women executives, but I certainly am not the first.

AG: Speaking of blazing a trail, the news of you becoming the CEO of Canonical spread like wildfire throughout the community, especially the Ubuntu Women Community, do you see yourself as a role model for other women not only in the Ubuntu Project but in Open Source as a whole?

JS: I think that only an individual can decide who she or he thinks of as a role model, and the reasons for it. I.e., it doesn’t matter if you think of yourself as a role model or not - you are a role model only to the people who find that quality in you. If my new role as CEO provides a positive example or inspiration for someone, then that’s great. But for me personally, role models are people who have qualities that I aspire to or that I have to work at (as opposed to achievements or career successes). I am very aware of the impact of positive examples as role models and as learning opportunities, and I try to always be conscious of the impact of my actions and words. That’s true whether I am coming from the perspective of a woman in open source, or a manager, or a co-worker or friend.

AG: As a strong leader and role model within the Ubuntu Community do you now or have you ever participated in FOSS projects or groups specifically created to encourage women? If so can you tell us a little about them? If not can you elaborate on why?

JS: I joined the Ubuntu Women mailing list around the time it was created. And while I have followed the ups and downs of that group with interest, I haven’t taken an active role in the group. I recognise that due to my role at Canonical, my experience in the community as a woman is very different than others, and I thought it was important to provide the space for other women in the community to understand and articulate the issues from their perspective. I recognise the value of sharing experiences and having the support of people in a similar position, and I relied on women’s groups early in my career. In particular, when I was working as a software developer/researcher in Japan, I joined the Systers email community (started by Anita Borg, and now part of the Anita Borg Institute, http://www.anitaborg.org/initiatives/systers/). At a time when I felt I was an isolated minority (by gender, exacerbated by culture), the Systers list gave me real support. Knowing that I could find people with similar experiences and even solutions at times, was a real boon for me. I hope that the Ubuntu Women’s group can provide similar support within the Ubuntu community.

AG: As the transition to CEO should be complete by March 1st , 2010, does this mean you will be announcing the -M name or will that still come from Mark? You will be opening UDS-M as the new CEO, have you thought about how you will inspire and encourage and keep the excitement and energy levels from undulating and remain steady and constant during UDS?

JS: Good question! Mark and I haven’t discussed the -M name yet… maybe I’ll sneak that privilege into my new job description ;). With respect to UDS, I am always amazed at the excitement and energy levels on display there. But I think that is clearly due to the Ubuntu community - LoCo teams, developers, translators, documentation writers, advocates, etc. It’s my job to ensure that Canonical can
continue to provide the forum and infrastructure and opportunity for the UDS magic to happen, but it is the collection of people who participate in UDS, whether in person or remotely, that provide that energy.

AG: At UDS-L I had the opportunity to interview Mark about Canonical’s enterprise strategy, what is your strategy? I asked him specially when he named 10.04, Lucid Lynx, referring to a clear-minded, thoughtful, predator, I know wonder if that describes you and your plan of execution in taking on the enterprise market with this LTS release?

JS: Don’t expect a dramatic change in strategy as I take on this new role. Mark and I have had a very close partnership and are in agreement about our current strategy. We have different styles and experiences and this will inevitably result in different decisions, but the starting point for my tenure as CEO is building on Canonical’s successes and strategies to date, not cleaning house or changing direction.

AG: Jane, thank you again for taking time for the interview and congratulations on your new role as Canonical CEO.

[Discuss Jane Silber’s Interview on the Forum]

Originally posted by Amber Graner in Full Circle Magazine Issue #33 on January 30, 2010

Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #178

2010-01-31T23:24:08+00:00

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is Issue #178 for the week January 24th - January 30th, 2010 and is available here.

In this issue we cover:

* Contribute with Ubuntu One Bug Day
* Lucid changes to Firefox default search provider
* Announcement: Ubuntu Server update for Lucid Alpha3
* Interview With Ubuntu Manual Project Leader Ben Humphrey
* Ubuntu Stats
* Ubuntu Honduras
* Back up old sources from PPA’s
* Improved Bug Patch Notifications
* Getting your code into Launchpad
* The Planet
* In the Press & Blogosphere
* NZ school ditches Microsoft and goes totally open source
* Full Circle Magazine
* Upcoming Meetings & Events
* Updates & Security
* And much, much more!

This issue of The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

* John Crawford
* Dave Bush
* Craig A. Eddy
* Amber Graner
* And many others

If you have a story idea for the Weekly News, join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list and submit it. Ideas can also be added to the wiki!

Except where otherwise noted, content in this issue is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License BY SA Creative Commons License

Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #177

2010-01-24T23:09:31+00:00

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is Issue #177 for the week January 17th - January 23rd, 2010 and is available here.

In this issue we cover:

* Developer Membership Board election results
* Ubuntu User Days A Big Success
* Bugs and hugs
* Ubuntu Developer Week: January 25th – January 29th, 2010
* Canonical Blog: ISV support for Ubuntu Server Edition widens
* January 20th America’s Membership Review Board Meeting
* Ubuntu Stats
* Ubuntu LoCo Re-Approval Process
* LoCo Stories: the Ubuntu Honduras School Tour
* Launchpad 10.1 roll-out 09.00-11.30 27th January 2010
* Anonymous Access to the Launchpad Web Service API
* The Planet
* In the Press & Blogosphere
* Introducing Ubuntu Electronics Remix 9.10
* Upcoming Meetings & Events
* Updates & Security
* And much, much more!

This issue of The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

* John Crawford
* Dave Bush
* Craig A. Eddy
* Amber Graner
* And many others
* And many others

If you have a story idea for the Weekly News, join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list and submit it. Ideas can also be added to the wiki!

Except where otherwise noted, content in this issue is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License BY SA Creative Commons License

LoCo Stories: the Ubuntu Honduras School Tour

2010-01-22T15:09:16+00:00

This week we’re travelling to Central America to visit the Ubuntu Honduras team, a LoCo true to the Ubuntu ethos and a mission of their own: encourage and promote the use of free technology through Ubuntu in the Republic of Honduras.

One of the most special activities the Honduran team organises to pursue this noble goal are their Ubuntu School Tours, a series of events where they travel to schools around the country and talk to students about Ubuntu. The idea is to promote the use of Open Source and raise awareness on its significance among students and teachers in educational institutions.

In words of Diego Turcios, the team contact lead, the idea is that “more and more people in Honduras learn about Ubuntu and Free Software and see it as an excellent Operating System option for laptops, desktops and servers. We also want to show that with Ubuntu everyone, be it home users or companies, have all the applications they need, such as a web browser, word processor, spreadsheed editor, instant messaging and others.”

Despite the political unrest in the country, which forced them to cancel many presentations, they showed their strong determination and great team organization in running two School Tour events last year, both with great success. In particular, they were at the Master School and at the Tridentino Institute in San Pedro Sula, the second biggest city in Honduras, in which we’ll focus to learn more on the event.

It was in the morning on the last Saturday of September last year, and during that time, they managed to provide a very complete overview of the team, Ubuntu and Open source in general. They started with a brief introduction to the Honduran team, followed by a presentation about what Open Source is and why Ubuntu is the OS of their choice. Next up was a demonstration of free office suite applications, GNU/Linux distributions and the four Free Software freedoms, followed by a showcase of Compiz which left more than one with their mouths open. The grand finale was an installation workshop and Q&A session, after which they left Ubuntu installed in one of the school’s machines and gave them a LiveCD to share.

From the testimonials of those present it was a very interesting experience: 20 students attended, showing a lot of enthusiasm in the subject, and who were in the end invited to join the LoCo and to participate in future team activities, which was also received with great interest.

All in all, another great example of the Ubuntu LoCo culture and spirit!

Links

The Ubuntu Honduras Team
- Located in Honduras, Central America
- Wiki
- Website
- Team members
- Forum
- Mailing list (Archives and subscription)
- IRC chat at #ubuntu-hn on Freenode

Do you have an interesting LoCo Story to tell? If you have organized an event, performed some work/advocacy in your local community, have built some resources, performed meetings or installfests, please email David (david.planella AT ubuntu DOT com) or add it to the list of proposed stories. Do remember to send a picture to accompany the story!

Ubuntu LoCo Re Approval Process

2010-01-20T22:44:00+00:00

I’m writing to you from the Ubuntu LoCo Council. For the Lucid cycle we have undertaken to look at the re approving all approved Ubuntu LoCos. This was discussed at UDS Lucid in November.(https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/community-lucid-loco-council-plans)

We thought it best to publicise and inform everyone about the re approval process of a LoCo. It was decided back at UDS to start this process. It gives us a chance to see how LoCos are doing, if they need a hand in areas and to give you a chance to give us some feedback.

How it will work, for all teams which have been approved over 2 years, a member of the LoCo Council is selected to be the point of contact with the LoCo team for re-approval, they will contact your Team contact / leader.

They will attempt to contact you three times over one month. Once contact is made, you will then invite you to the next available IRC meeting. Using the method you were originally approved, https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoGettingApproved. We just want to see how you’ve progressed, your activity, and if you’ve had any issues, how you’ve handled them.

During this time, we may need to have more IRC meetings, but we will let you know when you are requested to attend. The re approval process is documented and the information is on the wiki https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoCouncil/LoCoTeamReApproval

The members of the current LoCo Council you will hear from are regarding this re approval process are

Laura Czajkowski (czajkowski)
Alan Pope (popey)
Jan Claeys (janc)
Efrain Valles (effie-jayx)
Christophe Sauthier (huats)
Chris Crisafulli (itnet7)

If you have any other queries about this, you can email us.
loco-councillists.ubuntu.com

[Discuss the Ubuntu LoCo Re Approval Process on the Forum]

Originally sent to the loco-contacts mailing list by Laura Czajkowski on Wed Jan 20 10:52:05 GMT 2010

Developer Membership Board election results

2010-01-20T22:34:12+00:00

As elected by the Ubuntu development team, the members of the Developer Membership Board are now:

Colin Watson
Emmet Hikory
Soren Hansen
Michael Bienia
Stéphane Graber
Richard Johnson
Cody Somerville

They will serve for a 1 year term, helping to welcome new Ubuntu developers into the project, after which we will hold another election.

Thanks to everyone who volunteered to serve on the board.

[Discuss the Developer Membership Board election results on the forum]

Originally sent to the ubuntu-devel-announce mailing list by Matt Zimmerman on Tue Jan 19 20:15:32 GMT 2010

Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #176

2010-01-19T04:30:51+00:00

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #176 for the week January 10th - January 16th, 2010 is available.

In this issue we cover:

* Ubuntu 10.4 Lucid Lynx Alpha 2
* Ubuntu Developer Week
* Ubuntu User Day
* New Ubuntu Women leadership
* Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase
* Kernel Bug Day
* Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha 2 Removes HAL
* Ubuntu Stats
* The Planet
* In the Press & Blogosphere
* Upcoming Meetings & Events
* Updates & Security
* And much, much more!

This issue of The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

* John Crawford
* Craig A. Eddy
* Dave Bush
* Amber Graner
* Liraz Siri
* And many others

If you have a story idea for the Weekly News, join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list and submit it. Ideas can also be added to the wiki!

Except where otherwise noted, content in this issue is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License BY SA Creative Commons LicenseAttribution 3.0 License

International Women's Day -- Competition!

2010-01-16T13:31:12+00:00

Firstly, some introductory reading for those who are not familiar with International Women’s Day:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Women%27s_Day and http://www.internationalwomensday.com/

Ubuntu-Women has tried in the past to find some way to celebrate this event, but as far as I can remember it has never really amounted to much other than some chattering on IRC. So let us try a bit harder for 2010!

We have all come to Ubuntu in our own special ways — every single one of us differently to the next. Yet one of the most common questions we get asked is "How can I get $woman to use Ubuntu?".

Obviously we cannot really answer that question, but we would dearly love to have a collection of stories by women about how they discovered Ubuntu. Such a repository would allow us to demonstrate that there’s no one definitive answer, and at the same time maybe provide the gift of inspiration to women who are interested — showing them that it’s really not so unusual to be Ubuntu fans after all.

We are not expecting any particular length, but do remember that these stories should be suited to perusal at leisure and not require someone to allocate hours of their day to read. Anywhere between a few paragraphs and a OO.o Write page is ideal.

There will be two (2) prizes up for grabs. One (1) prize pack will be given to the story that the community votes is their favourite. One (1) prize pack will be given to a randomly drawn entrant. Jono Bacon, the Ubuntu Community Manager will be drawing this entrant in a videocast, and announcing both winners to the world on March 8th.

Please email your stories to ubuntuwomen.competition at gmail.com by UTC 23:59 22nd February 2010.

By submitting a story, you acknowledge that it will be posted on the Ubuntu Women website under the Creative Commons Attribution No-Derivatives licence. If you prefer that your story be posted under a less restrictive licence such as Creative Commons Attribution or Public Domain, then feel free to let us know when you submit. All stories are to be non-fiction and of a family-friendly nature. The organisers also reserve the right to interview prospective winners over
the phone or other voice chat at their discretion.

We will celebrate International Women’s Day by announcing the winners, who will receive gift packs (which are still in negotiation — we will announce when it is confirmed!).

Good Luck!

p.s: Please pass this along to *any* women you know who *use* Ubuntu —
the more the merrier!

[Discuss the International Women’s Day Competition on the Forum]

Originally sent to the ubuntu-women mailing list by Melissa Draper on Sun Jan 10 04:32:16 GMT 2010

Announcing Ubuntu User Day - January 23, 2010

2010-01-14T04:15:26+00:00

The Ubuntu User Days Team would like to announce the first Ubuntu User Day, on January 23, 2010. This will be a very informative one day session geared towards beginner and intermediate Ubuntu users, as well as people who are interested in using Ubuntu. We have 14 classes covering topics ranging from installing Ubuntu, finding help, equivalent programs, using IRC, getting involved in the Ubuntu Community and more. We have enlisted the help of many talented people to lead these classes throughout the day.

These classes will be taught in #ubuntu-classroom with questions being asked in #ubuntu-classroom-chat on irc.freenode.net. Please visit http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UserDays for a complete class list and schedule of classes.

There is also a Spanish version of Ubuntu User Days being offered on January, 23, 2010. Please visit Día Del Usuario Ubuntu at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DiaDelUsuarioUbuntu for more information on the Spanish Ubuntu User Day!

Please take a few minutes over the next week or so to promote the Ubuntu User Day to people you know, in your LoCo Team, in your blog, or any other resources you may have access to.

[Discuss Ubuntu User Day on the Forum]

Originally sent to the ubuntu-learning mailing list by Chris Johnston on Thu Jan 14 04:13:09 GMT 2010

Announcing Ubuntu Developer Week

2010-01-13T12:12:45+00:00

Welcome to the Ubuntu Developer Week! We will have one week of action-packed sessions from Jan 25^th 2010 to Jan 29^th 2010!

Ubuntu Developer Week is a series of online workshops where you can:

learn about different packaging techniques
find out more about different development teams
check out the efforts of the world-wide Development Community
participate in open Q&A sessions with Ubuntu developers
much more…

All sessions will happen on IRC, and the best way to join is to use Lernid. (There are other ways too. :-))

If you’re not comfortable yet asking all your questions in English, we will have a couple of people helping to translate your questions and translating back the answers. Have a look at the Ubuntu Developer Week page to see how it works.

Like the sound of it? DIGG IT!

So let’s have a look at the schedule together, shall we? We have a number of sessions next week for all tastes and interests. Feel free to come to as few or as many sessions as you like. All of them are free and open to anyone.

Monday, 25th January 2010

16:00 UTC, Getting Started with UbuntuDevelopment — Daniel Holbach (dholbach): The first session of the week is going to get you started with Ubuntu development. It’ll give you an overview over how all things work, so at least you’ll have heard the most important vocabularly already and get your initial development environment set up.
17:00 UTC, Fixing small bugs in Ubuntu —Daniel Holbach (dholbach): So once we have our initial development environment set up, we’ll go ahead and fix a couple of small bugs… it’s going to be awesome and you’ll find out that it’s not really hard.
18:00 UTC, Django — Dave Walker (Daviey): Dave Walker, of Ubuntu UK fame will talk you through the first steps of using the Django framework to create a lean, understandable and scalable web application in python.
19.00 UTC, Working on the Bleeding Edge — Kees Cook (kees): Next up is Kees Cook, who will tell us how to best do both: 1) stay sane and 2) live on the bleeding edge. If you enjoy tracking development releases closely you should make sure not to miss this session. It’ll spare you a lot of pain.
20.00 UTC, Server oriented packages — Mathias Gug (mathiaz): Are you a server person? Would you like to get involved with the server team? Do you want to know what’s server-specific about packaging? Find out during the session: we have Mathias Gug here who’ll help you get started.

Tuesday, 26th January 2010

16:00 UTC, Java libraries packaging — Thierry Carrez (ttx): We have Thierry Carrez here who had the pleasure of working with Java Packaging extensively. Did you ever want to package a Java library or a Java application and struggled with your first steps? Don’t despair, we have an expert with us. Attend the session and learn Thierry’s tips and tricks.
17:00 UTC, Launchpad Translations under the hood — Adi Roiban (adiroiban) and Henning Eggers (henninge): Launchpad Translations is amazing. Millions of strings, thousand of translators, hundreds of languages and thousand of applications get together and make for an accessible and understandable great linux distribution. If you ever wondered how it works under the hood and how things get together, this is the perfect opportunity. Listen to what Henning and Adi have to say!
18:00 UTC, Internationalizing your application with quickly and Launchpad — David Planella (dpm) and Didier Roche (didrocks): quickly is a fantastic little application. It makes writing apps so much easier and comprehensible. There’s already a lot of apps written with quickly and already a bunch of instructions on how to use it. This session will specifically deal with how to get applications translatable and translated. Thanks a lot Didier and David.
19:00 UTC, Getting started with EC2 — Scott Moser (smoser): Next up is Scott Moser who will talk to us about how to use Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud. Ubuntu is a great platform to use in the cloud and this session will give you an overview and cover the best tools to make your cloud experience most enjoyable.
20:00 UTC, Automated server testing — SÃ¸ren Hansen (soren): Mr. SÃ¸ren Hansen wrapped his head around Automated Server Testing in the last few months and he has a lot of ideas to share. If you’re intererested in automating tests in general and testing servers specifically, this is exactly where you should be going.

Wednesday 27th January 2010

16:00 UTC, Writing good test-cases — John Arbash Meinel (jam): We all agree that encountering bugs in most cases is just not necessary. Sometimes it’s just a small typo that caused the problem or a wrong assumption. Enter test-cases. A lot of big open source projects have moved to test-driven development already or ask developers to add a test-case for bugs they fixed. The notion of making sure that bugs don’t happen again or that assumptions don’t suddenly change during some phase of re-design has prevented a lot of bugs. We have John Arbash Meinel here who will tell us how to cause less bugs by writing good test-cases.
17:00 UTC, Adding Ubuntu One support to your applications — Stuart Langridge (aquarius): You want your application to save data in a clever way? You want to get it synced across various computers? You want it in a place where it’s properly backed up? You have heard of Ubuntu One? Great, because Stuart Langridge will explain how to get this all done very very easily.
18:00 UTC, Getting your application in the panel — Ted Gould (ted): The status area in the panel has gone through some pretty fantastic changes in the karmic and lucid cycle. Ted Gould has been massively involved in the planning, design and coding. If you want to do some good work on the Desktop and make your favourite application benefit from the new indicators make sure you attend this session.
19:00 UTC, Developing and Testing in KVM —Dustin Kirkland (kirkland): Dustin Kirkland has been working a lot with KVM, a fantastic virtualisation technology, in the last few months. Once you learned all of Dustin’s tricks you will never going to miss them for developing and testing every again.
20:00 UTC, Python Applications Packaging — Luca Falavigna (DktrKranz): Your favourite application is writting in Python? That’s quite understandable. It’s not packaged yet? Looks like a small challenge ahead. Luckily we have Luca Falavigna who can help you with the task. He’ll talk about common pitfalls, how to avoid them and how to make the task as easy as possible.

Thursday 28th January 2010

16:00 UTC, Adopt-an-Upstream — Jorge Castro (jcastro) and Daniel Holbach (dholbach): Jorge Castro and Daniel Holbach will talk about the relationship between the Ubuntu project and Upstream projects in general and how you can help out. It’s not as hard as it sounds and if you are really fond of and passionate about a certain Upstream project, this is the perfect session for you!
17:00 UTC, Kernel patches — Leann Ogasawara (ogasawara): Kernel work is complicated? It can be… but there’s help! Leann Ogasawara is going to explain the workflow of the Kernel team and how we deal with patches there. You can get help from the team and Leann’s session will help you understand how to avoid the most common mistakes. Awesome.
18:00 UTC, Getting more detailed bug reports — Brian Murray (bdmurray): Brian Murray has looked thounsands of bug reports in his life. He knows how important it is to have all the important information right there without going through a feedback loop for weeks. Luckily there’s tools that can automate the process of getting us the right information right at the start. Brian will teach you how.
19:00 UTC, Bazaar and packaging — Jelmer Vernooij (jelmer): Jelmer Vernooij knows a lot about Bazaar and a lot about Packaging and he’s a great guy which will make this session great to fun to be in. Using a revision control system makes packaging and maintaining packages a lot more fun, especially if you start merging your work with others.
20:00 UTC, How to get started hacking Launchpad — Karl Fogel (kfogel): Launchpad is open source and it’s written in Python, which make it a perfect opportunity to get involved with and your personal pet peeve fixed easily. Karl Fogel will talk you through the first steps of hacking Launchpad. Awesome!

Friday, 29th January 2010

16:00 UTC, Writing Beautiful Code — Paul Hummer (rockstar): Paul Hummer is with us and he’ll show you how to write python code like a rock star. There’s a lot of worth in writing understandable, easily scanable code and there’s just a few conventions you have to follow to make yourself happier and your fellow contributors as well.
17:00 UTC, Doing merges right — Colin Watson (cjwatson): Merging is one of the inevitable things in open source development. We collaborate, we work together in the open and sometimes we decide to focus our attention on different things, so merges might be a bit more tricky afterwards. Colin Watson has been doing hundreds (if not thousands) of merges in his life, so he’s the perfect person to share a few tips to make the experience more seamless.
18:00 UTC, Meet launchpadlib — Jonathan Lange (jml): Ever found yourself in a position where you neede some data from Launchpad? Ever needed to automate a task that involved something in Launchpad somehow? There’s one answer to all these problems: Use python-launchpadlib. We’ll have Jonathan Lange there who will tell you how to use it efficiently and where best to start.
19:00 UTC, KDE/Kubuntu Junior Jobs/Papercuts — Celest Lyn Paul (seele): You’re a friend of the big K? You have a small usability bug you always wanted to fix? Always wanted to get involved with hacking on KDE somehow? Awesome. Celeste Lyn Paul knows how to do it and she’ll deliver a great session where we’ll talk about exactly that! Awesome!
20:00 UTC, Interpreting Stacktraces — Emmet Hikory (persia): Ever found yourself faced with a crashing application and you were told to decipher some kind of stacktrace? It’s definitely one of the proficiencies that are incredibly helpful and will help you fix a lot of problems. Emmet Hikory will deliver a great session about getting the most information our of stacktraces with the least amount of hassle.

This weeks is going to be fantastic and if you ever thought of joining the ranks of Ubuntu developers, this is the best time ever.

Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #175

2010-01-10T22:47:18+00:00

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #175 for the week January 3rd - January 9th, 2010 is available.

In this issue we cover:

* Edubuntu bug day on Tuesday, January 12th
* 2nd call for votes: Ubuntu Developer Membership Board Election
* Simplified Main Inclusion Request process
* New MOTU members
* Ubuntu Manual Project
* 2010: Your Year for Ubuntu Membership
* Ubuntu Stats
* Ubuntu Florida Team and the “Youth Build Day”
* Lanuchpad - Jonathan Lange: The Road Ahead
* The Planet
* In the Press & Blogosphere
* Community and Ubuntu Live Videocast
* Ubuntu Women project growing in Strength
* Upcoming Meetings & Events
* Updates & Security
* And much, much more!

This issue of The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

* John Crawford
* Craig A. Eddy
* Dave Bush
* Amber Graner
* Liraz Siri
* And many others

If you have a story idea for the Weekly News, join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list and submit it. Ideas can also be added to the wiki!

Except where otherwise noted, content in this issue is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License BY SA Creative Commons LicenseAttribution 3.0 License

LoCo stories: the Ubuntu Florida team and the Youth Build Day

2010-01-07T14:24:35+00:00

This week’s story takes us to the United States, in
Florida, where a group of remarkable individuals have taken up the lofty goal of making the world a better place by way of Open Source. Let’s learn some more about our heroes.

Meet the Florida LoCo: a group of over 250 enthusiasts with a broad scope of interests, ranging from DJ’ing to System Administration, united by the Ubuntu spirit and a common master plan.

QuinnCo, a non-profit organisation located in Central Florida run by Michael and Michelle Hall, also members of the Florida LoCo. They take donated second-hand computers, fix them if necessary, put Ubuntu or Qimo (their own distro for children) on them and give them out to kids and families in need.

Last but not least, the other rockstars in this story: the members of local LUGs, in particular the Lakeland Linux Enthusiasts, and the children from the Florida Baptist Children’s Home themselves.

It was last summer in Florida, when Michael and Michelle started planning to run a Youth Build Day in a local children’s home. The idea was to have a computer build day, where they’d bring in disadvantaged youth and mentor them through building machines. QuinnCo, being known from their impressive work and regular collaboration with the Florida LoCo, made other members not to think twice and to quickly get on board.

After careful preparation, thoughtful organization, meetings, and several calls for participation the big day finally came: the Youth Build Day on the 15th of August. LoCo members were driving from one end of the state to the other to turn out and help, while several people from local meetup.com groups also came over. On top of that, there were about 30 of the kids from the children’s home helping, learning about computers and installing Ubuntu and Qimo on the machines they had fixed up.

Not only were they building computers for the kids, they were teaching them about computers, both hardware and software, and also about Linux and Open Source.

All in all, it was an incredible success: by the end of the day there had been about 75 participants, who managed to process 47 computers. Of those, about 40 were working and the rest had to be used for parts. Seven of them were placed at the children’s home itself and the rest were given out to local children and child-care facilities in the community.

Some of the most memorable experiences recollected from the participants were the great time they had meeting new Ubuntu people and the kids, how encouraging was to see how everyone was working together as a team and how the adults took the kids under wing, mentoring them through all of the stages of computer repair and installation.

This demonstrates the essence of the LoCo teams at the very heart of the Ubuntu community: individuals sharing the familiar “humanity to others” ideals and working together as a team to accomplish their goals. One can only be proud of being part of such a community.

Links

Do you have an interesting LoCo story to tell? If you have organized an event, performed some work/advocacy in your local community, have built some resources, performed meetings or installfests, please email David (david.planella AT ubuntu DOT com). Do remember to send a picture to accompany the story!