Meet Benji York

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-07-31

Recently, Benji York joined Canonical’s Launchpad team. I asked him a little about himself and his work.

Matthew: What do you do on the Launchpad team?

Benji: I work on the Foundations team. Right now I’m concentrating on the web service APIs and improving the OpenID integration.

Matthew: Can we see something that you’ve worked on?

Benji: There’s not much to see yet. Most of my changes thus far have been bug fixes or purely internal.

Matthew: Where do you work?

Benji: I work from my home in Virginia, USA.

Matthew: What can you see from your office window?

Benji: Just the shrubs that border my lawn. Once the weather cools off a bit I want to try working from the wifi-covered park/beach near my house.

Matthew: What did you do before working at Canonical?

Benji: I worked at Zope Corporation for about 6 years, most of that time as the team lead for their main product. Before that I worked in the automotive industry, mostly writing supply chain and manufacturing software.

Matthew: How did you get into free software?

Benji: I think the first piece of open source software I used to any degree was Python 1.5. Since then open source software has slowly taken over almost every niche of my computing world.

Matthew: What’s more important? Principle or pragmatism?

Benji: Pragmatism. If a thing doesn’t do what it needs to do, it’s not worth much.

However, I believe that principles are there to help us be pragmatic in a scope larger than the immediate moment. It’s not pragmatic in the long term to skimp on good design or testing just to get something out the door. Any good principal is grounded in pragmatism.

Matthew: Do you/have you contribute(d) to any free software projects?

Benji: When I was in college the console (NES, SNES, Genesis, etc.) emulation scene exploded and I had a side project that let people connect console controllers to their PC. I was approached by one of the Linux input device guys about contributing some of that code. That was my first open source contribution.

Since then I’ve made large and small contributions to dozens of open source projects. Most of those have been in the Zope ecosystem.

Lately I’ve put most of my open source hacking time into Manuel, a system for writing better tested documentation and better documented tests — it’s sort of a spiritual successor to Python’s doctest.

Matthew: Tell us something really cool about Launchpad that not enough people know about.

Benji: I’m sure most readers of this blog will know, but I didn’t know that the Launchpad and Bazaar integration is as nice as it is. Being able to branch from LP, make changes, mark the branch as fixing a particular bug, push the branch to LP, view the diffs online and then generate a merge proposal that will be automatically emailed to reviewers is very convenient.

Matthew: Is there anything in particular that you want to change in Launchpad?

Benji: I’m not familiar enough with LP yet to have strong feelings about changing it. Give it a few months and I’ll be plenty opinionated.

[Discuss Benji York’s Interview on the Forum]

Originally posted by Matthew Revell here on Thursday, July 29th, 2010 at 12:44 pm

Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #203

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-07-28

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is Issue #203 for the week July 18th – July 24th and is available here.

In this issue we cover:

  • Last call for Maverick server papercuts
  • Ubuntu Maverick open for translation
  • Native readers: extending the Beta
  • MOTU Interview: Maia Kozheva (sikon / LucidFox)
  • An Interview With Silver Fox
  • Ubuntu Developer Week Re-Cap
  • Ubuntu Stats
  • Approval and Re Approval Process
  • LoCo Council July Meeting minutes
  • Delivering the Ubuntu Colombia Contact
  • Stepping Down from Ubuntu Bangladesh
  • Dun Laoghaire July Geeknic
  • Ubuntu-fr at Les Vieilles Charrues
  • Launchpad News
  • Ubuntu at Non-Technical Events
  • More cleansweep.
  • Discussion request: multilingual posts on Planet Ubuntu or not?
  • The Official Ubuntu Book – 5th Edition
  • This week in design – 23 July 2010
  • Getting Started with Ubuntu 10.04 is now available in Greek!
  • How to Ask Smart Questions by Martin Owens
  • Ubuntu One iphone client, source code released
  • Ubuntu Translation Teams Healthcheck
  • An invitation to join Ubuntu’s Q&A group on Shapado.com
  • Akademy 30 second interviews, Eben Moglen, Helsinki, Prague
  • “Blog about what you’re doing”
  • Bugs vs Blueprints
  • In The Press
  • In The Blogosphere
  • Windows or Ubuntu?
  • Linux Box To Market Ubuntu
  • Dell drops Ubuntu PCs from website… for now
  • Is Linux Too Much for One Mere Mortal to Handle?
  • Rackspace’s Risky Open Cloud Bet
  • Featured Podcasts
  • Weekly Ubuntu Development Team Meetings
  • Upcoming Meetings and Events
  • Updates and Security
  • and much much more!

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

    • Amber Graner
    • J Scott Gwin
    • Liraz Siri
    • Nathan Handler
    • Penelope Stowe
    • Daniel Calab
    • And many others

      • If you have a story idea for the Weekly Newsletter, 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 Party Weekend…

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-07-27

… also known as Ubuntu Global Jam is coming up swiftly, so make sure you put 27th-29th August into your calendar and talk your local Ubuntu friends into participating.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuGlobalJam

Ok, so it’s Ubuntu Global Jam. What does that mean? What’s going to happen?

Simple. It’s going to happen what you make happen. Whatever your team enjoys doing is great. The only requirements are: it needs to be fun and it should make Ubuntu better somehow.

Ok. What does that mean?

We had loads of different jams around the world already: events where people get together locally and make Ubuntu better by working on bugs, packaging, translations, documentation, testing, upgrading or whatever else they enjoy doing.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Jams

In the past we had events all around the globe, where new friends met for the first time, people learned from each other, people from other open source projects were invited and where everybody (most importantly) had a fantastic time.

If your LoCo team already knows when and where it’s going to happen, add the event to the LoCo Directory. We set up the event on loco.ubuntu.com already.

http://loco.ubuntu.com/events/global/195/detail/

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Jams has lots of information on how to to organise the event properly, and what kind of preparation your team mates should look into depending on what your team wants to do. Stay tuned for tuition sessions where you can ask all your questions. A good place for getting that information is of course loco-contacts or the ubuntu-event-planners mailing list.

If you’re part of a LoCo team, please bring it up with your team, talk to them, find out what they like, meet and make Ubuntu rock even harder.

[Discuss the Ubuntu Global Jam on the Forum]

Originally sent to the loco-contacts Mailing List by Daniel Holbach on Tue Jul 27 14:59:33 BST 2010

Maia Kozheva (sikon / LucidFox)

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-07-23

Age: 23
Location: Novosibirsk, Russia
IRC Nick: LucidFox

Maia Kozheva
Maia Kozheva

Desktop
Desktop

Desk
Desk

How long have you used Linux and what was your first distro?
My first attempt to use Linux was back in 2001 or 2002, called something like WinLinux 2000 – it was a version of Linux that ran from under Windows, with very old software like KDE1. But I prefer to count my Linux experience from 2004, when I first installed Debian Woody into a dual boot to test-build Colonization Too (an open source 2D video game I was contributing to, now dead).

By then, many of the distribution’s packages were very outdated, and, not knowing about testing and unstable releases, I started manually compiling and installing many core components. I ended up with quite a mishmash of a system, more LFS than Debian, with software from old .debs and manually from tarballs, and it was a pain trying to make the system do what I wanted, but I was so excited at having a working GUI environment that was not Windows, and having a working C/C++ compiler, that I was willing to forgive it many major flaws. Plus all the tweaking, up to and including building custom kernels, taught me a lot of knowledge about Linux internals that came very useful in the future.

How long have you been using Ubuntu?
Since late 2005. Ubuntu Breezy was my first Linux distribution to Just Work (although even it required a considerable amount of tweaking by modern Linux standards), so I never installed any other OS on my home machine except on virtual machines, and deleted Windows shortly thereafter.

When did you get involved with the MOTU team and how?
Like many open source involvements, it began with an attempt to scratch a personal itch, in August 2007. I wanted to update the Psi instant messenger, which was then outdated in Ubuntu. I was curious about the process of creating .deb packages to begin with, so I read the packaging guide, read about uploading to REVU, and uploaded my first package. (Don’t do this at home, kids – REVU is not for updating existing packages!) My first packaging attempts were really ugly, but quickly improved thanks to both the packaging guides and the feedback from MOTUs.

What helped you learn packaging and how Ubuntu teams work?
Mostly the packaging guides on the Debian and Ubuntu websites, and first-hand experience with contributing new and updated packages to Ubuntu. When I needed to learn about some obscure packaging features, I usually looked at packages where they were already implemented.

What’s your favorite part of working with the MOTU?
The knowledge that you have achieved something. Watching the changes land in the archive, and knowing that in the span of a few hours, they will be there on mirrors around the whole world, for the benefit of thousands of Ubuntu users.

Any advice for people wanting to help out MOTU?
Be bold. The developers aren’t a cabal cult worshiping the Dark God of Ubuntu, they’re friendly people willing to help. If you have questions and a web search doesn’t answer them, come to IRC and ask! Along the way, you can learn something new from the conversations that go there all the time.

Learn by example, learn the typical solutions to your problem and try to follow the conventions. Don’t forget that Ubuntu gets most of its packages from Debian, and consider also contributing to Debian so that your effort benefits two distributions at once.

Are you involved with any local Linux/Ubuntu groups?
So far, my involvement has been limited to one presentation I gave at Ubuntu Global Jam here in Novosibirsk, at the request of one of the LUG organizers. I explained how Ubuntu development worked, some technical details about packaging, then logged onto Launchpad, wrote and uploaded a bugfix for a package in front of the eyes of the interested ones.

What are you going to focus on in Maverick and Maverick+1?
In Maverick, I have been mostly focused on patching software to interoperate with the indicator menus, including the still-in-development global menu, and pushing my non-Ubuntu-specific changes into Debian. In Maverick+1… Well, I’d like to get Pinta into a condition when it can go into the default install, since I think it neatly fills the niche of a general-purpose image editor, a “GIMP for casual users”. The final decision is with the desktop team, though.

What do you do in your other spare time?
Watch movies with my sweetheart, contribute to other open source projects, try my hand at speculative fiction. Occasionally post bileful rants about $personal_annoyance in my blog. But that’s rare. Sort of.

[Discuss Maia Kozheva’s Interview on the Forum]

Originally posted by Daniel Holbach here on July 23, 2010 at 08:30 am

An Interview With Silver Fox

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-07-22

So, it is without further ado that I introduce my next victim guest. Silver Fox is generally a quiet member of the Ubuntu Beginners Team, but does good work within said team which goes – largely – unnoticed. I thought it would be appropriate to try and bring these to light for others to see.

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 a professional web developer and database administrator living and working in the UK. I don’t really have much family but I do have a good number of friends. My hobbies include running, badminton and just lately photography. I also keep a blog where I post pretty much anything on my mind.

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

The earliest computer I remember “playing” with was an acorn electron. I got fascinated by how what you typed somehow made sense to the computer (certainly didn’t to me). I got it into my head to try and work out how this all works. After much time and effort I had to give up, I just didn’t “get it”.

I can’t remember what I was doing after that but I picked up the computer interest sometime around windows 3.1. Again I was drawn to the programming side , with fond memories of writing applications in qbasic. This time I seemed to get on better with it and stuck the course. Years later I found myself with a ?BSc (Hons).

Linux was a bit of a background noise initially to me, I had heard people mention it but I was not sure what to make of it at all. I finally took a jump after some serious problems with Microsoft Vista. A colleague suggested I try Ubuntu (I believe I caught the end of 7.10). Since then I have tried many distros but a firm favourite would have to be Ubuntu (and those based on it).

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

I joined Ubuntu Forums in June 2008, though I lurked for a period before hand. Here is a link to my profile. I try to help anyone I can, even if its pointing them to a howto. I especially try to help those who post in Absolute Beginners Talk. These are the people I can relate to most, totally stuck and feeling lost. I consider myself a beginner at best but I would like to think I must have learnt something by now about Ubuntu ':)'

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. Here is a link to my wiki page. My main involvements are with the Ubuntu Beginners Team. I am in my second term of leading the IRC focus group. This group aims to provide real time support to those who require help. I have other activities listed on my wiki page for those who would like an in depth breakdown.

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

Currently I am mainly using Ubuntu and #! Crunchbang Linux at home. From time to time I boot into Fedora and Zenix.

My favourite application would probably be Firefox. Its usually one of the first application I run when I turn on my computer ':)'

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

My fondest memories on the forum are two little words, Thank You. I get great pleasure from knowing that I helped someone.

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

I have had some success in introducing people to Ubuntu. A few of my friends are now happily running the operating system with me serving as immediate source to help if it goes wrong (very little has ':)' )

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

?I would like to see awareness of Linux increase to the point where I can talk to “Joe Public” about Linux and to not get a blank look back.

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

Hello and welcome ':)' The community is fantastic. Never feel like you are alone when tackling a problem.

[Discuss Silver Fox’s Interview on the Forum]

Originally posted by Joe Barker here on Thursday, July 22nd, 2010