We are pleased to announce that this cycle’s Ubuntu Open Week will be held the week after Ubuntu 9.10’s release, from 2 November to 6 November in #ubuntu-classroom on Freenode. The sessions take place from 1500UTC to 2200UTC.

Ubuntu Open Week is a week full of IRC tutorial sessions on a range of subjects, designed to help people get involved in the Ubuntu community. It is given by many of the brightest, most capable members of the Ubuntu community, and covers a range of subjects including packaging, bug triage, translations, accessibility, automated testing, loco teams, mentoring, Launchpad, desktop team, training team and much more.

There will also be the always popular “Ask Mark” session (Wednesday 4 Nov @ 15.00UTC) in which you have an hour to ask Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu, your burning questions. Jono will also be providing an Introduction and Community Q+A session (Mon 2 Nov @ 15.00UTC) in which you can ask your questions about the community, Ubuntu, Canonical and anything else.

For the very first time we’re going to have a week of IRC sessions in Spanish in order to motivate community members from Spanish speaking countries to get involved in the Ubuntu community. More info here. Visita el vínculo y súmate para aprender más acerca de Ubuntu, la comunidad, como usarlo y aportar. Hay charlas para principiantes, usuarios avanzados y expertos https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek_ES

The schedule is up, so let’s get started! (A few slots left open, if you want them, holler at Jorge [jcastro])

Per: Jorge Castro, 10-13-2009

Thanks to all Ubuntu members who participated in the CC ballot, which was completed today. The new community council takes office immediately, and (in alphabetical order) comprises:

Alan Pope
Benjamin Mako Hill
Daniel Holbach
Elizabeth Krumbach
Matthew East
Mike Basinger
Richard Johnson

We had several additional candidates, and the ballot was richer for their willingness to stand. I’d like to thank all of them, and in addition would like to thank James Troup who steps down from the CC after 5 years as a founding member.

Welcome to the new faces, I look forward to two wonderful years of good governance in the Ubuntu community!

The structures by which we organise tens of thousands of participants have matured substantially in the past years. We have a deeper and richer LoCo structure today than ever before (thanks to those who lead there). The Forums Council has matured in its role and sets the example for delegated leadership from the CC. The Tech Board has lead the restructuring of the developer community, and so we are merging the excellend MOTU Council into the new Developer Membership Board, providing a more granular view of developer participation across the huge Ubuntu archive. Ubuntu Translations are now more formally lead. All in all, I’m proud of the commitment this community continues to show towards effective leadership, and the willingness of members of the community to step up and participate in that way. Thank you all!

[Discuss the 2009 Community Council vote on the Forums]

Originally sent to the ubuntu-devel-announce mailing list by Mark Shuttleworth on Tue Oct 6 16:06:50 BST 2009

The 2009 Community Council is up for election, and all members of Ubuntu are entitled to vote. The nominees for this round are below, together with links to their wiki pages which document their interests, experience, skills and goals.

The Council is responsible for community governance. They are the ultimate arbiter of community disputes, and they nominate candidates for leadership in key positions across the entire project. In selecting your candidates, please consider their ability to act in an independent fashion and exercise good judgement of character, values and tone. We have an enormous community now that spans many different media, regions, technologies and interests. The CC cannot include a representative of every constituency, so members of the CC need to be able to represent the interests of many different groups.

We are electing 7 members. Our amazing candidates are:

• James Troup
• Paul Sladen
• Christophe Sauthier
• Alan Pope
• Elizabeth Krumbach
• Richard Johnson
• Daniel Holbach
• Benjamin Mako Hill
• Emmet Hikory
• Nathan Handler
• Matthew East
• Mike Basinger

Thank you for taking the time to participate in this election! The winning candidates will form the core of the CC for two years. We may have other votes to add candidates during that time if we need to expand the CC, but it’s likely that this will be the primary team for 2009-2011.

[Discuss the Ubuntu Community Council Elections 2009 on the Forums]

Atlanta Linux Fest 2009 will be Saturday, September 19th 2009, in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The event is being organized by the Ubuntu Georgia US Team.

The event is distribution-agnostic. There will be presentations on Fedora’s remixing capabilities and openSUSE’s build service. General topics important to the open source community will also be presented like the need to encourage more women in open source, building businesses around open source, and GPLv3. Well known open source applications will be showcased: SugarCRM, Drupal, Zenoss, and Blender. Red Hat and Google will discuss how to encourage contributors to join open source projects.

UbuCon Atlanta 2009 will be held with Atlanta Linux Fest. UbuCon will cover what is going on within the Ubuntu community and how to improve the Ubuntu community. Part unconference, part scheduled sessions, the Ubuntu Kernel Team will be on hand to test laptops for the upcoming Karmic Koala release. The Kernel Team will also teach the basics of hacking drivers. Presentations on audio in Ubuntu, Ubuntu server, and Ubuntu in the cloud will be discussed. Sessions talking about burnout, triaging bugs, and LoCo leadership are already planned. Attendees are encouraged to sign up to discuss any aspect of the community they are interested in.

Registration is free for the event (required to use WiFi).

To find out more about Atlanta Linux Fest 2009, visit http://atlantalinuxfest.org.

In order to get the Community Council from four to eight members again, we are going to have an election in a few weeks. All Ubuntu members are eligible to vote.

I will announce the details of the election soon. What we want from you now is nominations.

If you know somebody in the Ubuntu community, who

• has been an Ubuntu member for a while
• is dedicated to the project
• is well-respected and known for balanced views and good leadership
• has a good overview over various aspects of the project
• is organised and has some organisation talent

(or you know that this all applies to you), please send an email to me (daniel.holbach at ubuntu dot com) with the subject “[CC Nomination]” until July 17th, 12:00 UTC. (I’ll be on vacation afterwards.) If you can confirm that the person is willing to stand for election, please do so.

[Discuss the Community Council Nominations on the Forums]

Originally posted by Daniel Holbach (dholbach) here on July 8th, 2009 at 11:47 am

In the last few cycles we have organized and run an event called the Ubuntu Global Bug Jam. The idea was simple: encourage our awesome global Ubuntu community to get together in the same room to find, triage and fix bugs. And they did, all over the world, as can be seen here.

Well, at the recent Ubuntu Developer Summit we were having a good ‘ol chinwag about the Ubuntu Global Bug Jam and we came to an important and sage conclusion:

Why limit the event to just bugs?

As such, we are proud to announce Ubuntu Global Jam - more jam but with the same great taste!.

Based upon all the feedback from the UDS session we have scheduled the Ubuntu Global Jam from the 2nd - 4th October 2009. To make the event as simple and accessible as possible, we have picked four topic areas and we are encouraging you lovely people to organize an event with one or more of them:

• Bugs - finding, triaging and fixing bugs.
• Testing - testing the new release and reporting your feedback.
• Documentation - writing documentation about how to use Ubuntu and how to join the community.
• Translations - translating Ubuntu and helping to make it available in everyone’s local language.

With four primary methods of getting involved, there is something for everyone in this rocking global event.

One thing that everyone remembers: you don’t have to be an official developer, packager or programmer to take part in the Ubuntu Global Jam. Also, lets not forget that Ubuntu Global Bug Jam events are a fantastic place to learn and improve your skills: you can sit next to someone who can show you how to do something or explain something in more detail.

To get this campaign off on the right foot, there is an IRC meeting to discuss the event and how can get as many people involved as possible. Here’s the skinny:

• WHEN - Third Thursday of every month (next meeting is 18:00 UTC Thurs 18th June 2009)
• WHERE - #ubuntu-meeting on Freenode

If this is all sounding right up your street and you fancy organizing an event, go and read this page and then add your event to this page.

We are pleased to announce that this cycle’s Ubuntu Open Week will be held the week after Ubuntu 9.04’s release, from 27 April to 1 May on #ubuntu-classroom on Freenode. The sessions take place from 1500UTC to 2100UTC (With a special session on Monday night after-hours)

Ubuntu Open Week is a week full of IRC tutorial sessions on a range of subjects, designed to help people get involved in the Ubuntu community. It is given by many of the brightest, most capable members of the Ubuntu community, and covers a range of subjects including packaging, bug triage, translations, accessibility, automated testing, loco teams, mentoring, Launchpad, desktop team, training team and much more.

There will also be the always popular “sabdfl Q+A” session (Thu 30 Apr @ 15.00UTC) in which you have two hours to ask Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu, your burning questions. Jono and Jorge will also be providing an Introduction and Community Q+A session (Mon 27 Apr @ 15.00UTC) in which you can ask your questions about the community, Ubuntu, Canonical and anything else.

New to this Open Week is nearly an entire day of Documentation team sessions, so now is the time to get involved. The schedule is up, so let’s get started! (A few slots left open, if you want them, holler at Jorge [jcastro])

Today Canonical is announcing that it is contributing a new benefit to Ubuntu Membership: a complimentary subscription to Linux Weekly News. Our friends in Debian have been doing this for a while, and Canonical thought this could be an excellent gesture too.

To enjoy this benefit you need to be a member of the Ubuntu project. You can then switch on your free subscription like this:

• Apply for an account at LWN by clicking here.
• Send an email to Rachael at rachael.tripp (at) canonical dot com (preferably using your ubuntu.com address) asking for a subscription sponsorship. This email MUST contain:
• Your LWN username
• Your Launchpad username.
• Rachael will then go and double check you are a member and not telling porkies.
• You will receive an email when the subscription has been accepted and is ready to roll (or read).

Enjoy!

This is the competition in which creative types can submit their work for inclusion in the Examples/ folder of the next edition of Ubuntu. In this competition we expanded the Audio and Video categories to also include a Graphic/Photo category too. We netted a fantastic range of entries and many great submissions!

Our submissions list was then assessed by our esteemed community judging panel and they made selections from each category. This final set of selections was then voted on by the Ubuntu Community Council to find our winners. We would like to thank everyone for participating and congratulate each of the winners for having their work about to be delivered to millions of Jaunty desktops.

Without further ado, onto the winners!

Audio: Jean Francois Marais

• WINNING ENTRY: Invocation

South African bred and Taiwan based sound jeweler MoShang polishes rough audio diamonds and melds them with traditional Asian instruments and laid-back beats. In addition to his commercial releases, MoShang has made a remix album available for free download (Asian Variations – 2007) and was heavily involved as musician and producer with the free CABACA album by the CC Asia Band (2008). He has won a South African award for his music to the short film Angels in a Cage (2000) and his music has been featured in the HDTV Discovery Channel production Fantastic Festivals Of The World.

About the entry:

“I started the track Invocation early in 2008 with an eye to expanding my usual Chinese-based sonic palette with the addition of traditional Japanese instruments. I kicked it around some, but was only inspired to finish it after my first visit to Japan to attend the 2008 iCommons Summit in Sapporo and released the track on the Stone Bell EP towards the end of 2008. It opens with a tribal feel thanks to hira-daiko and shime-daiko drumming, and also features shakuhachi and male vocals in the Esashi Oiwake style of Hokkaido island”.

Video Category: Robbie Ferguson

• WINNING ENTRY: Spirit Of Ubuntu

Former radio announcer, Robbie Ferguson hosts Category5 Technology TV; a live, weekly TV-style broadcast that answers technology questions for a global audience. With roughly 50,000 viewers per week through their video podcast alone, the show has quickly (albeit unofficially) become a popular resource for both seasoned and rookie Ubuntu users. Robbie is happily married with two young children. He has been a respected professional in the technology field for many years, and is currently a senior web developer at an IT firm, where he spends his professional time coding advanced PHP applications and wooing other employees toward Ubuntu.

About the entry:

“When good friend Alan Pope (Ubuntu UK Podcast) suggested I post an entry in the Free Culture Showcase, I thought it was a great idea. I did wonder what I could possibly give to such a project? After all, my show is a live question-and-answer broadcast with no “production,” and no script. So when it came down to sitting in front of the cameras to put something together, I decided to just “be myself,” and speak candidly on my thoughts about the Ubuntu community; because when it comes down to it, I am really just another Ubuntu user”.

Graphic/Photo: William J McKee Jr

• WINNING ENTRY: Canadian Clouds

William considers himself your typical down to earth guy, fascinated with technology, nature, and how the two can meet sometimes with beautiful results. He has lived most of his life on the east coast, traveled a little, enough to appreciate the beauty we live in. Photography is still just a secondary hobby for him, but has always interested him.

About the shot:

“I snapped this, just over the border into Canada from NY. My wife was driving, and I happened to notice the clouds in one area were about to cut some light off, this usually looks good if you are fortunate enough to be in the right place/time. I took out our Canon Powershot Pro 1, and zoomed in, through the windshield of the car, and snapped a couple off. I got lucky with this one, although some editing of contrast was done, which brought out the color nicely. Even almost ruined shots can look good some of the time!”

Thanks also to Keith Worrell and Endolith for some of the patches and branches involved in the Example Content package.

Feb 14th, was LoCo Docs Day for the Ubuntu LoCo Community, and it was a Rockin’ event. The LoCo Community came together to work on expanding and improving the LoCo Documentation on the Wiki. It was great to see folks from all the different LoCo’s coming together to tweak the already excellent documentation.

Here is a list of the work done:

Daniel Holbach:
* added CategoryLoCoTeams in a bunch of places
* linked Jam information on LoCoTeamKnowledgeBase
* fixed LoCoActivism to redirect to the right page
* fixed a bunch of links on LoCoComputerFairHowto
* added some more content to LoCoTeamJoining
Damokles (a.k.a. “ccm”):
* extended LoCoWorkingWithOtherGroups
* extended LoCoRunningInstallfest
* added comment on calendar apps on LoCoCreatingWebsite
Nathan Handler:
* Added note about Launchpad supporting team maps to LoCoCreatingMap
* Corrected minor grammatical error in LoCoFAQ
Craig A. Eddy:
* Added positives about lugs to LoCoWorkingWithOtherGroups
* Add points to “What LoCo Teams Can Provide” in LoCoWorkingWithOtherGroups
John Crawford:
* added link to LoCoTeamKnowledgeBase on available event speakers LoCoTeamSpeakers
* added link to LoCoTeamKnowledgeBase on working with area LUGs LoCoWorkingWithOtherGroups
* added a sub-header section on getting your team involved with the area LUGs to LoCoTeamHowto
Efrain Valles:
* added Team Reports to the “Running the Team” section of LoCoTeamHowto
* added LoCoRunningReleaseParty (redirect from BuildingCommunity/RunningReleaseParty) to LoCoTeamKnowledgeBase
* added Release Party information and references for other activities in the LoCoTeamKnowledgeBase in LoCoTeamHowto under Advocacy.
JonoBacon:
* added icons to the main menu items.
* updated LoCoTeamContacts
* restructured the front page, added a side bar and logo.
* updated LoCoTeamMeeting with new meeting.
Jorge Castro
* Edited the FAQ
* Syntax fixes on LoCoCreatingPlanet
Elizabeth Krumbach:
* Fix up gender unfriendly language and assumptions on LoCoComputerFairHowto
Nick Ali
* reference LoCoHosting in LoCoCreatingWebsite
* clean up LoCoHosting

Thanks to everyone for getting involved and contributing your time. Of course, today is just one day and we need to continue to work hard to keep our documentation as up to date and authoritative as possible. Jono is planning on organizing more LoCo Doc Days in the future. LoCoDocDay