UDS Paris: Ubunteros and Developers gathered in France

As time rolls on and the release of Edgy as Ubuntu 6.10 draws ever closer, discussion and planning of the next Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) has begun. At the summit, “Edgy+1” (the version of Ubuntu following 6.10) will be discussed, planned, debated and documented. We have been given sneak details of UDS Mountain View!

This Developer Summit will take place at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California, USA between Sunday 5th November 2006 and Friday 10th November 2006. As ever, this is not a conference with talks and panels, but a developer summit with discussions that debate and flesh out specific ideas and plans for Edgy+1. These discussions result in specifications that are planned for the next edition of the distribution. The specific areas that will be discussed at the summit will be announced closer to the time, and for more details as they happen, visit the Ubuntu Developer Summit Mountain View page

UDS Mountain View is open for anyone to attend, but remember it is very developer focused, so probably unsuitable for those without an interest in participating in Ubuntu. If you would like to attend, click here to add yourself to the attendees page. We also have limited sponsorship available. To apply for sponsorship, click here.

If you can’t make it to the summit in person, we are also working to make the summit as accessible as possible for external contributors. The collaborative ‘Gobby’ application will be in use for writing specifications, see the Participation page as more information becomes available. Start planning those flights, ferries, trains and ride-shares to reach California!

Mark Shuttleworth leading a session on improving the bug-tracker

At the ACHAT hotel in Wiesbaden, central Germany, twenty-three members of the Ubuntu development team have managed to get together for a small, fast-paced development conference known as a ‘sprint’.

The idea behind a sprint is to get as many of the right people in one place at once, for a concentrated week-long session. Time is divided between resolving issues in a face-to-face manner, planning how to manage the direction of future of work and down to earth actual development.

Behind the bug-fixing, a lot of developers are taking the opportunity to hack away on features for the next release of Ubuntu, currently under development with the codename “edgy eft” and due for final release in October 2006.

One of the successful advantages of Ubuntu is the distribution of Ubuntu developers across several countries and timezones around the world. There’s always somebody awake in Ubuntuland!

Because of being spread out, developers and Ubunteros mainly communicate online, via email, IRC chat and other forums. Even talking to the Ubuntu developers electronically every day, it’s often possible to only remember their online nickname—often a strange name, such as ‘keybuk’, ‘doko’, ‘kamion’ or ‘seb128‘—rather than their real names.

If you’ve seen reports, or been luckily enough to attend, one of the main Ubuntu Summits held at the start of each new release cycle, then this is different. The development team, managed by Matt Zimmerman are increasingly working as an tightly knit autonomous unit, concentrating on just getting work on Ubuntu done (to the extent that the unreliable hotel internet connection will allow…).

One of the noticable differences between a main Ubuntu conference and this sprint is that Ubuntu founder, Mark Shuttleworth, has only been at the hotel for two days during the whole five-day week.

SABDFL (aka Mark) tends to move around parts of Canonical and the Ubuntu project. There is a focus on getting each team up to speed and then allowing the group to continue to accelerate under its own momentum. However leadership, presence and guidance can be welcome from time to time.

On Wednesday night, the whole team in Wiesbaden stayed up working through an incident late into the night along with members of the Canonical team back in London and Canada. Everyone kept hacking away at their laptops, helping to ensure that after a problem with an update for the 6.06 LTS release, everyone’s machines kept on running!

If you have had problems with your Xorg (video driver) between Monday or Tuesday, be sure to check the notice above.

Photo Credit: Andrey Kuznetsov

With San Francisco LinuxWorld Expo barely having finished, the Ubuntu camp have picked up their bags and headed across town for the world-famous Ubucon.

Thanks to the brilliant directions (courtesy of SVLUG, the Silicon Valley Linux Users’ Group) everyone made it safely to their destination: The Googleplex HQ in the heart of Mountain View, Californa, west-coast USA.

Upon arrival thirsty people grabbed a snack and drinks, Google apparently have both Pepsi and Coke on tap amongst their other unlimited treats for staff. After refreshing themselves serious disscusion ensued, with those present all keen to see the new T-shirts. The floor apparently turned into “a mosh pit down there, when they opened the boxes up”, described one exhilarated attendee. Ubuntu is about equality and there were shapes size for both genders, it was pointed out that they were “T-shirts for human beings”! On the front they have our circular logo over the word Ubuntu, on a light-tan coloured material and around the back, the question “Do you Ubuntu?”. I think the people that didn’t get one are secretly holding out for real Goobuntu t-shirts, perhaps next year?

• Location:Paris, France
• Link: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperSummitParis

Videos of the lightning talks at the ongoing UBZ Developer Conference are now available (Ogg Theora encoded). A “lightning talk” is a quick presentation (typically under 5 minutes) that outlines one topic and is a good way to get updated on the large variety of work being done during the development process. Brief notes are also available.

While our readers debate as to what exactly a Dapper Drake is, developers from around the world have gathered in Montreal, Canada at the Ubuntu Below Zero conference to begin work on the next release.

Can’t make the trip? Don’t worry, there’s an easy way to track the development progress as it unfolds. This specification page on the Launchpad has the list of topics being discussed at the conference. These specifications will completed as the conference continues, and will eventually be the feature goals that will guide the development of Ubuntu 6.04. You can also follow along on the photo feeds from the event.

The UbuntuBelowZero developer summit will be keenly focused on planning for Ubuntu 6.04 (Dapper Drake), and mostly of interest to existing Ubuntu developers… So we’ve dedicated an entire day to users and hopeful contributors with lots of great presentations from Ubuntu dudes, and workshops to help you get involved!

Whether you’d like to join the developer team or figure out how to contribute in another way, Ubuntu Love Day is for you! Join us in Montreal on October 30th.

• Location:Boston, USA
• Link: http://live.gnome.org/Boston2005

What: Ubuntu Below Zero
Where: Montreal, Canada
When: Sunday 30 October - Thursday 10 November 2005
Who: Mainly for Ubuntu developers and community contributors, but open to the public