New IRC Council Members

By pleia2 | Published: 2011-02-01

First off, on behalf of the Community Council, thanks to everyone who participated in voting in the first poll for the two open positions on the IRC Council. And to the sitting Council, your patience is appreciated as we worked through this initial poll.

The results of the poll are as follows:

1. Jussi Schultink – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JussiSchultink (Condorcet winner: wins contests with all other choices)
2. Tied:
Ben Rubin – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BenjaminRubin loses to Jussi Schultink – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JussiSchultink by 29–20
Melissa Draper – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MelissaDraper loses to Jussi Schultink – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JussiSchultink by 37–25

Full results can be viewed here:

http://www.cs.cornell.edu/w8/~andru/cgi-perl/civs/results.pl?id=E_6753d86bd0b619e3

This tie caused us to use the instant runoff option (Condorcet-IRV):

1. Jussi Schultink – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JussiSchultink (Condorcet winner: wins contests with all other choices)
2. Melissa Draper – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MelissaDraper loses to Jussi Schultink – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JussiSchultink by 37–25

Full results can be viewed here:

http://www.cs.cornell.edu/w8/~andru/cgi-perl/civs/results.pl?num_winners=2&id=E_6753d86bd0b619e3&algorithm=runoff

So congratulations to both Jussi Schultink and Melissa Draper! Both have now been added to the https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-irc-council team.

And thanks to everyone who stood for spots during this election, in particular to the incumbent Ben Rubin whose work on the IRC Council has clearly been appreciated by the community (the Community Council).

Originally sent by Elizabeth Krumbach to the ubuntu-irc mailing list on Tue Feb 1 18:12:18 UTC 2011

Improving Diversity at UDS

By pleia2 | Published: 2011-02-01

The Ubuntu Developer Summit is our twice-yearly event in which the Ubuntu community gets together to discuss, design, and plan the work for the next release of Ubuntu. It is an important staple in the Ubuntu calendar, and we meet next in May in Budapest, Hungary.

We always try to make UDS a welcome and inviting environment to meet people, engage in enjoyable discussions, and work together to improve Free Software. We also try to make UDS a diverse environment, and welcoming to everyone. This diversity has formed in a rather ad-hoc way though – we have not explicitly tried to reach out and encourage diversity and we can do better. As such, I just wanted to share some work that is going on and encourage those of you who are interested in this topic to participate.

These include:

  • We now have an anti-harassment policy. This work was led by Charles Profitt and thanks to Matt Zimmerman and Valerie Aurora for their skillful guidance. We still have some event-specific contact details still to add there, but Marianna is getting this information and it will be updated soon.
  • Matt Zimmerman is also working on a diversity statement. While this will encompass the wider Ubuntu project, it will also be added to the UDS website.
  • A few weeks ago I reached out to the Ubuntu Women team to ask for their guidance on how we can encourage a more diverse environment at UDS. A number of interesting efforts are going on in this area:
    • Elizabeth Krumbach posted that she has created a page on the Ubuntu Women site for UDS which provides some basic information and the beginning of a FAQ. More feedback and content is welcome.
    • Elizabeth also created a UDS stories page which which provides some useful context for prospective women attendees interested to learn more about the event.
    • The team is also discussing how to provide support and guidance for filling sponsorship requests and including all the relevant information. I think this is a wonderful idea. :-)
    • We are keen to work on a big outreach campaign to use these resources to raise the visibility of diversity at UDS and encourage more women to apply for sponsorship and participate. This is going to be the next phase of the discussion.

I just want to say a huge thankyou to the Ubuntu Women team for their contributions and guidance in this project, and I would like to encourage you to join in the discussion. I think we have a fantastic opportunity here to help UDS be wonderful example of how diversity should be core to the values of the event and offer a more reflective experience of great community working on interesting problems together.

Originally posted by Jono Bacon here on Tuesday, February 1st, 2011 at 1:40

Regional Membership Boards: Restaffing

By pleia2 | Published: 2011-01-30

In the past several months all three of the Regional Membership Boards had members step down.

Asia and Oceania: Requires nominations for 1 position available for meetings at 9:00 UTC +/-1hr and nominations for 3 positions available for meetings run at 1400 UTC +/-1hr. (Note: if you applied during the call in September and are still interested – please apply again!)

Europe, Middle East and Africa: Requires nominations for 2 positions available at their standard meeting time of the first Tuesday of the month at 20:00 UTC

Americas: Requires a nomination for 1 position available at their standard meeting time of the Friday following the third Thursday of the month at 01:00 UTC (this is Thursday evening in Americas)

You can either nominate yourself or somebody else (please confirm they want the nomination). Please add some information about yourself to the mail.

We have the following requirements for nominees:

  • be an Ubuntu member
  • be confident that you can judge contributions to various parts of our community
  • be available during typical meeting times of the board in question
  • insight into the culture(s) and typical activities within a geographic region covered by the board is a plus

Here a slightly longer version that explains a bit better what kind of community members we are looking for: Those sitting on membership boards are people who are insightful. They are current Ubuntu Members with a proven track record of activity in the community. They have shown themselves over time to be able to work well with others and display the positive aspects of the Ubuntu Code of Conduct. They should be people who can discern character and judge contribution quality without emotion while engaging in an interview/discussion that communicates interest, a welcoming atmosphere, and which is marked by humanity, gentleness, and kindness. Even when they must deny applications, they should do so in such a way that applicants walk away with a sense of hopefulness and a desire to return with a more complete application rather than feeling discouraged or hurt.

To nominate yourself or somebody else, please send a mail to the board you are nominating yourself for (ubuntu-membership-board-emea, ubuntu-membership-board-asia-oceania or ubuntu-membership-board-americas at lists.ubuntu.com). Try to explain your nomination. There is still time for nominations until Mon 21st February 2011 12 UTC. All nominations will be forwarded to the Community Council who will make the final decision.

Thanks in advance to you and thanks a lot also to the dedication everybody put into their jobs as board members.

Originally sent by Elizabeth Krumbach to the ubuntu-news-team mailing list on Sat Jan 29 20:33:58 UTC 2011

Xubuntu Project Lead approved

By pleia2 | Published: 2011-01-27

In a Xubuntu Community Meeting attended by nine people, a vote was taken to confirm Charlie Kravetz as Xubuntu Project Lead. This was the culmination of many months of Xubuntu operating with an interim leader. The vote has confirmed Charlie Kravetz as the Xubuntu Project Lead.

Thanks to all of the attendees and to the Xubuntu Project. I will do my best to make this a great distribution.

The full meeting minutes and logs are available. For those interested, the minutes of the meeting pertaining to the vote for Project Lead are also available.

Originally sent by Charlie Kravetz to the xubuntu-devel mailing list on Thu Jan 27 22:06:35 UTC 2011

Becoming an Ubuntu Developer: a short guide

By nhandler | Published: 2011-01-27

I’ve heard and/or read a number of complaints over the past while about how the process of becoming an Ubuntu Developer is difficult, so I thought I’d write up a short guide to one of the many paths to becoming a developer. I send this to the Ubuntu Developers list for maximum distribution, although I realise that many of you are already developers, so won’t find this as useful: please skip past it, or pass it on to those you know that are currently interested in becoming Ubuntu Developers (or extending the set of packages to which they have been granted upload rights).

Step 1: Membership
While it’s not required to be an Ubuntu Member before applying to be a developer, it is required that the criteria of Membership be met to be approved as a developer. In short, this means being actively involved with and contributing to Ubuntu for some time (usually about a development cycle, although it can be shorter for those with very strong contributions). Spend time interacting with other members of the community, and learn as much about how Ubuntu works and how it is created as possible. Those with a specific interest in development may find that the Masters of the Unseeded or the Bug Squad are good places to start, if there is no other team with whom they have a natural affinity. Those of more general involvement may obtain membership through any number of other sorts of contributions. More information on the requirements for Membership are available on the wiki at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Membership

Step 2: Start working in the area for which you want upload rights
We have an increasing number of packagesets, each targeting a specific area of development, and the negative space of all packagesets, where we tend to focus mostly on archive quality. Find an area that interests you, and get to know the developers actively working in that area. Start working on things that fit within your area of interest, building both expertise with the work you have selected and close relationships with others working in the same area. For example, if you wish to be a server developer, start working to fix bugs in packages in the server packageset, working closely with the Ubuntu Server team. Alternately, if you wish to be a core developer, start working to fix bugs in packages in the core packageset, working closely with other core developers. Your goal in this step is to become a peer to the other members of the relevant team. You may find it useful to review https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDevelopers to see some of the descriptions of the various sorts of developers.

Step 3: Prepare an application
Follow https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DeveloperMembershipBoard/ApplicationProcess to create your application. Clearly document your work in the areas of interest. Be especially sure to provide links to work done upstream (including in Debian) on packages in the target area, and any work where you were one of several contributing to a single uploaded revision, as the automated upload tracker in launchpad only reports those packages for which you have sole changelog credit. Documenting a few different types of work, or work in different parts of the release cycle (where different choices were required) can help show a broader understanding. The more specific you can be in every section of your application, the better: for example, a future plan to ensure Ubuntu provides the best possible turnkey PBX solution for the next LTS will often receive more credence than a short listing of "more of the same" for someone previously working on the VoIP stack, especially if it includes some details. If you are working on blueprints, listing your outstanding blueprint-related tasks here (with links) is a great way to provide detail. When seeking endorsements for your application, a good strategy is to ask anyone who suggests you should apply to endorse your application, and ask anyone sponsoring your work to endorse you (best to ask at the time they are sponsoring it). If someone says they haven’t seen enough of your work to endorse you, ask them for a task or two: helping folk with their work is nearly guaranteed to get you good endorsements.

Step 4: Apply
Check https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DeveloperMembershipBoard for upcoming meeting dates and times, and send a notification of your application to the mailing list at least a week before the meeting you wish to attend. Be prepared to answer a few questions: these are usually related to your prior work, other information on your application, or Ubuntu development policies and procedures. If your application is deferred for some reason, contact the DMB members who were not yet convinced, and ask them to help you develop a plan to meet their expectations: many current Ubuntu Developers were deferred at first pass, but it is a rare case that someone actively involved was unable to complete the expectations within a few months, and for some it is possible to address the outstanding issues in time for the following meeting.

Good luck. If you’re feeling stuck along the way, feel free to ask other developers with whom you work regularly for guidance or suggestions. Failing that, ask generally in #ubuntu-devel at freenode, or contact a member of the DMB.

Originally sent by Emmet Hikory to the ubuntu-devel mailing list on Thu Jan 27 05:01:01 UTC 2011