Announcing The 10.10 Ubuntu Developer Summit

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-03-02

I am tickled pink to announce the details of the next Ubuntu Developer Summit taking place at Dolce La Hulpe Hotel and Resort in Brussels, Belgium from the 10 – 14 May 2010.

The Ubuntu Developer Summit one of the most important events in the Ubuntu calendar and at it we discuss, debate and design the next version of Ubuntu. We bring together the entire Canonical development team and sponsor a large number of community members across the wide range of areas in which people contribute to Ubuntu. This includes packaging, translations, documentation, testing, LoCo teams and more. UDS is an incredible experience, filled with smart and enthusiastic people, fast paced and exhausting, but incredibly gratifying to be part of the process that builds the next Ubuntu.

It is important to note that UDS is not a conference. It is absolutely a participatory discussion-based summit in which we work together as a team to define what our next release will look like. If you are planning on attending or planning on applying for sponsorship, you should be prepared to participate in the sessions actively.

For every UDS, Canonical sponsors a number of community members to attend the event. We are looking for those who want to bring some real insight and expertise in their area of Ubuntu, be it development or community governance. If you feel you could offer this but can’t afford to cover your expenses of attending, you should apply for sponsorship.
How To Request Sponsorship

Luckily, requesting your sponsorship is pretty simple, and we a simple system to handle sponsorship requests. To apply for sponsorship, just follow these simple steps:

* Go to http://summit.ubuntu.com/uds-m/ and log in with OpenID. When you have logged in, click the Request Sponsorship link.
* On the first page, add your location and use the About yourself box to tell us why you should be sponsored and tell us about your work on Ubuntu – here you should tell us your vital stats – tell us your any 5-A-Day numbers, any work on the sponsorship queue, what you have uploaded, which teams you are in, your LoCo involvement, documentation you have written, any translation work and other work that you have been involved in. When you have done this, click the Next button.
* On the final page, answer the questions and then click Finish to finish your sponsorship request.

More details on requesting sponsorship are here.

PLEASE NOTE: we have a re-direction bug at the end of this process that affects some people. Don’t worry though, your application is still saved to the system. We are currently in the process of fixing this bug.

All done.

Everyone should get their sponsorship requests in by Fri 26th March 2010 to be considered. Good luck!

(Posted for Jono Bacon, 2010-3-2 at 20:18 UTC)

Interview With Melissa

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-03-02

Melissa Draper: I am Australian. I have lived my entire life in NSW, but I was born in Victoria.

Once upon a time I wanted to be an environmental scientist, but during one of the projects for a related course, I ended up with the task to create a website. I learned HTML one weekend, and realized I preferred computers to trees.

PS: How did you get involved with Ubuntu and free software in general?

MD: Whilst doing a web development diploma, a teacher, a BSD fanatic and probably the most influential teacher I ever had, was in the habit of interpreting syllabi modules such as "install an operating system" fairly openly. He taught his students how to install Linux and BSD as well as Windows (amusing aside: he also taught my mother to do the same!) and so began my obsession with Linux. I played around with live distributions for a while then installed Ubuntu on an old computer. I soon found I did not need XP any more.

Another teacher was was supposed to teach us ASP.net as per the whole web development thing, but was unable to teach for peanuts. Essentially the entire class taught ourselves PHP instead of ASP.net, and following the lead of the OS teacher argued that it was still valid under "dynamic websites". In the end I don't think I even got around to buying the ASP software. Free software is accessible like that, and php.net as a resource is awesome.

PS: Why Ubuntu?

MD: When I decided I wanted to use Linux I asked around. A friend had been using Ubuntu since Warty so I installed Hoary on an old computer. I've tried other distros, and despite using Fedora or CentOS for work, I've been with Ubuntu ever since.

PS: You've been around for several years in the Ubuntu community, what projects are you involved with or have you been involved with in the past?

MD: I was quite active on the marketing team for a while, writing for UWN etc. I also did a lot of coordination in laying the foundations for the LoCo ecosystem we have now. Now I do IRC management and Membership Board for Asia/Oceania.

PS: You've worked hard with Ubuntu Women, including applying for Ubuntu Women leadership. What would you like to see from the project?

MD: I'm hoping to have more visible initiatives to balance out the current focus on commentary. Commenting on bad behavior is a critical part of the aim and I'd rather not have the attitudes against it continue. I'd like to see folks within the team engaging more with aspects like enhancing the wiki pages and conference materials and contributing the attributes they do want from the team rather than dragging down the stuff that others put time and effort in to making happen.

PS: Are you involved in other activities outside Ubuntu relating to women in open source or computing?

MD: I'm involved in LinuxChix and used to organize the local chapter's pre-LUG meet-ups. I'm also my LUG's secretary. I was also on the Linux Australia Council (the group that oversees the organization of linux.conf.au every year and helps FOSS-based groups with grants etc) for 2 years, but I chose to not run for a third consecutive year as I felt I needed to take a break from that. I'm also running a Linux retail and web shop in Sydney, Australia called Everything Linux.

PS: Where do you see yourself going from here with Ubuntu and free software? What are your goals both personal and for Ubuntu/free software in general?

MD: There's some odd politics going on and I've been pushed away from a few things within Ubuntu lately. It's a complicated matter and I feel like I'm left holding loose ends. I'm still trying to figure how where I stand with things. At this point, I intend to continue with Ubuntu Women as it's an important part of the community, regardless of what others think.

Ideally I'd like to see the Free Software community in general set the tone for how online communities can be run.

PS; Do you have any other interests or activities you'd like to tell us about?

MD: Currently I'm rather infatuated with fountain pens and good paper. I think the act of hand-writing actual paper letters is something we ought to try keep relevant.

[Discuss Melissa Draper’s Interview on the Forum]

Originally posted by Penelope Stowe in Full Circle Magazine Issue #34 on February 27, 2010

Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #182

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-02-28

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is Issue #182 for the week February 21st – February 27th, 2010 and is available here.

In this issue we cover:

* Lucid Alpha 3 Released
* Rocking The Opportunistic Desktop
* Can you hear the Music?
* New Ubuntu Members: Americas Board Meeting
* Ubuntu Stats
* Ubuntu Libya LoCo at the Technology & Science Fair
* Help localization testing with the ISO tracker
* Translating software descriptions with Nightmonkey
* Attention Encrypted Home Users
* Server Bug Zapping – Call for Participation
* Ubuntu Women has a new IRC Channel
* In the Press & Blogosphere
* Full Circle Magazine #34
* 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
* Scott Gwin
* 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 Translations Meeting Minutes 2010-02-25

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-02-26

Here are the notes on yesterday’s Ubuntu Translations meeting. These minutes, along with the full log, are available here.

Agenda

  • Review of the Ubuntu Translations policies and best practices

Attendees

Summary

Review of the Ubuntu Translations policies and best practices

The meeting focused on discussing the new set of policies, as the Guidelines section still requires some work.

The idea behind these policies is to provide more structure to Ubuntu Translations as a project as outlined in the spec, and the aim is to keep the policies short and concise to cover the basic requirements, but at the same time to keep the entry barrier low and not to make the translations process more difficult.

Feedback:

  • Adi expressed the concern about having too much documentation, which might put new teams off. We agreed on using the existing StartingTeam page as the resource to point out to new teams. This document should be visible in the main Translations page, and the policies used as a reference in the Knowledge Base, which should be a source of reference for existing teams
  • David agreed to rework the front page at Translations to address these concerns
  • On the point of team communication, we all agreed on the requirement for all teams to have a communication channel, regardless of type.
  • We also agreed to add a section on each team’s page in Launchpad listing their resources for communication, and eventually deleting Tems contact page when all teams have added that information.

The general consensus was that the documented policies are useful in their current form, with the additional feedback given at the meeting.

The rest of the agenda items were postponed for the next meeting or for discussion at the mailing list.

The Grand App Writing Challenge

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-02-25

From Jono Bacon’s blog :

Yesterday I gave my talk on opportunistic developers on ustream.tv (which I plan on repeating next week). In that session I floated the idea of having a fun challenge next week when Ubuntu Opportunistic Developer Week happens. The idea was pretty popular, so I wanted to share it here.

The idea is simple:

Think of a fun program to write, and see how much you can get completed by the end of the week, Fri 5th March 2010. On Friday I will write a blog entry that showcases screenshots of your progress and (if possible) a PPA where people can download a package to try.

Getting Started

Getting started with this is simple. First think of something that would be fun to write. This could be a GUI front-end to a command line tool, a simple app that does something useful for you that will improve your life, a game or anything else. Pick something that isn’t too hard: something that is a good first step to dip your feet into development. Folks, do share ideas for apps in the comments here so those people who can’t think of something have a pool of ideas available. 🙂

When you have idea you can create your app really easily with Quickly. You can first install Quickly from the Ubuntu Software Center by clicking Applications -> Ubuntu Software Center and search for quickly.

When it is installed, just run:

quickly create ubuntu-project

As an example:

quickly create ubuntu-project mycoolapp

Now run:

quickly tutorial

This will explain how to get started working on your application. If you have questions related to using quickly, you can join #quickly on freenode. If you have general software development questions, you can join #ubuntu-app-devel on freenode.

Sharing Your Progress

When you have something you would like me to blog, send an email no later than the end of the day Pacific time on Thu 4th March 2010 to me at jono AT ubuntu DOT com and include:

  • The name of your program and a brief description of what it does.
  • A link to a screenshot online that shows your new app running.
  • If available, tell me the name of the Launchpad project where it is hosted and the PPA with the package. This is a great way for people to try your program and possibly join the project and contribute to it!

I will send a t-shirt out to the three app authors who made the most interesting apps with the most progress. 🙂

Start your engines folks, let’s see what we can do! I can’t wait to see how you folks get on! 🙂