Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #205

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-08-09

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is Issue #205 for the week August 1st – August 7th, 2010 and is available here.

In this issue we cover:

  • Maverick Alpha-3 Released
  • Desktop Testing Team
  • Request For Candidates: Application Review Board
  • Making room in the sound indicator
  • Interview with Isabell Long
  • Mark Shuttleworth apologises for alleged sexist comment
  • Xubuntu Maverick Meerkat Artwork
  • Ubuntu Stats
  • Free Books For Approved LoCo Teams
  • Ubuntu Global Jam: We Need Your Events!
  • Global Jam Nicaragua
  • Thanks Ubuntu-fr!?
  • Contribute to Ubuntu in your own language
  • Bangladesh LoCo team rockin’ it at Bontu Mintur Adda
  • Launchpad News
  • Healing Old Wounds
  • The increased cloud focus in Ubuntu Server
  • The Hebrew translation team needs your help
  • Alpha 3 ISO Tracker New Features
  • Ubuntu Global Jam… slowly getting there
  • Introducing new Ubuntista (and Ubuntu Trap author) Philip Kneitinger
  • Interviewed by SearchEnterpriseLinux.com
  • Integrating Zeitgeist into GNOME (and some GAJ stuff)
  • Multilingual Ubuntu Planet??
  • Ubuntu Stack Exchange opened for public beta
  • Celebrating the Big 3-0
  • In The Press
  • In The Blogosphere
  • Linaro Alpha-3 Released
  • 5 Linux powered e-book readers
  • MeeGo Conference 2010: call for participation
  • Featured Podcasts
  • Weekly Ubuntu Development Team Meetings
  • Upcoming Meetings and Events
  • And much much more!

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

    • Amber Graner
    • J Scott Gwin
    • Liraz Siri
    • Penelope Stowe
    • Mike Holstein
    • Jonathan Carter
    • 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

Desktop Testing Team

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-08-06

Today, one day after reaching the third Maverick milestone, Alpha 3, I am happy to announce the birth of a new testing project and team in Ubuntu: the Desktop Testing Team.

Every time we release a new Ubuntu milestone, testers are encouraged to install the new milestone and play around with it, filing bugs as they go. We want to go a bit further and use a more methodological approach for those people that love testing and want to help improving Ubuntu that way.

How will it work?

For every milestone of the development release of Ubuntu, we will be providing a series of testcases for you to run in that milestone. As soon as the milestone is officially released, you will be able to complete the tests in the following two weeks (although we encourage you to run them as soon as possible, to allow enough time for developers to fix the bugs).

One of the good things about this program is that you, as testers, will be able to know every time what to test, you will be able to check the new features before anybody else, and you will gain experience on the Ubuntu development process. Also, there will be a mailing list to share your experiences, bugs and to have direct feedback from the developers.

We will we using a test tracker to track your results and positive feedback (a test passed correctly) will be also really helpful. Right now, if things are working correctly, the developers need to guess it from the lack of test reports.

When will it start?

Just now! Although we don’t have a lot of testcases yet, we wanted to start the program just after the release of Maverick Alpha 3. The first weeks of the program are going to be busy and fun. Apart from testing and updating results, we are going to be introducing ourselves in the mailing list, commenting what testcases need updates and what applications we need to add when we reach Maverick Beta.

How can I participate?

Start by joining the Launchpad team and subscribe to the mailing list. Introduce yourself in the mailing list, tell us about you and what applications are you mostly interested in. Create an account in the tracker (if you already have an account at iso.qa.ubuntu.com it will work as well). Blog about it, tell your friends, tweet it. And, of course, start testing Maverick Alpha 3. We are going to make Ubuntu better. And GNOME. And many other applications that are part of Ubuntu.

You can find the full documentation on how to test on the Desktop Testing wiki page

[Discuss Desktop Testing Team on the Forums]

Originally posted here by Ara Pulido on August 6, 2010

Interview with Isabell Long

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-08-06

Isabell Long

Penelope Stowe: Tell us a bit about yourself

Isabell Long: My name is Isabell Long, I’m 16, and I now live in England – after spending four years living in France. I have an extensive interest in technology and open-source software. I am a community coordinator for the freenode IRC network and a proud official Ubuntu community member, amongst other things.

PS: How did you get involved in Ubuntu?

IL: I think it was about two years ago when I made friends with someone who used Ubuntu. I then started using it on and off for about a year, then I got my own computer and got rid of Windows completely. I now have Ubuntu on both my computers, and no Windows in sight! With regard to my involvement in the Ubuntu community, however, I became an official Ubuntu community member in March this year. It has made me very happy!

PS: What do you do with Ubuntu?

IL: At present, I help Penelope with these interviews for Full Circle Magazine (yeah, it’s weird being “the other side” on this occasion!); I do British English and French translation on Launchpad; I help people with their problems in the Answers section of Launchpad; I am involved in Ubuntu UK and Ubuntu Women; and that’s about it for now! Not much really, eh?

PS: What would you like to o that you’re not already doing?

IL: Go to more events, and learn to triage bugs, in a sentence.

PS: I know you’re still a student; has working with Ubuntu helped this at all?

IL: Not really, in fact I prefer to keep my school life separate from what I do online outside of school. I do have a faint hope that my school (or any school!) will recognize Ubuntu, or even open-source software in general, but they are firmly stuck to Microsoft. It is a great shame. To properly answer the question, it has helped me personally by giving me a broader outlook, teaching me things that I would never have learned if I had just stayed within the confines of normal education (not that my education has been that normal having moved countries and having to learn French from scratch, but that’s a totally different story!), and I have got to know some amazing people thanks to all that I’m involved in online.

PS: How do you think the Ubuntu community could reach out more to get more younger women (so teenaged-ish) involved? What are we already doing right?

IL: Younger women? Maybe we shouldn’t focus so much on the female differentiation side of things, and just concentrate on getting more young people in general, either male or female involved? Ubuntu Youth could (and should) definitely be revived (I hang out in the IRC channel and not very much happens) and the “getting Ubuntu in schools” road could be continued upon, but no doubt people will agree with me here that that road is an extremely long and difficult one!

PS: When you’re not working on Ubuntu or schoolwork what are your interests?

IL: I love music as well as technology, and I have a passion to learn things. Learning to code is one of my goals, hence why I’m currently learning Python. I also love data, statistics, and making cool stuff out of freely available data and statistics, which also fuels my great desire to learn. Everything I do is great fun. You can find out even more about me in general at http://issyl0.co.uk/

[Discuss Isabell Long’s Interview on the Forum]

Originally posted by Penelope Stowe in Full Circle Magazine Issue #39 on July 30, 2010

Request For Candidates: Application Review Board

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-08-06

In Belgium at the last Ubuntu Developer Summit, we had a fantastic set of discussions about how we could create a process that empowers application developers to bring their applications into the Ubuntu Software Center much easier. Today our developer and packaging processes are more designed for a contributor who wishes to contribute to the Ubuntu Platform as opposed to an application developer who wants to get exposure for her specific application in Ubuntu. As such, if you are an application developer and want to get your app in the software center, the process is probably too complex and involved.

We identified this disconnect at UDS and Rick Spencer and I proposed a process in which application developers can propose an application for approval by a community-driven review board, and when approval is granted their application will appear in the Ubuntu Software Center. This review board will assess the application for technical merit, packaging quality, perform a code review and ensure it is safe.

Since UDS I have been working on a proposed process (which you can read here) and first engaged in a series of discussions with some community members and then proposed the process to the Ubuntu Technical Board (Matt Zimmerman, Colin Watson, Kees Cook, Mark Shuttleworth, and Martin Pitt); our governance body that discusses and evaluates technical policy in the Ubuntu project. I am pleased to report that after a series of modifications and clarifications, the Ubuntu Technical Board have approved the process. ':-)'

It is important to stress, and I know the Technical Board would like to ensure this is clearly communicated too, that this process is very much a first cut. While a mature and well-discussed process, we fully expect it to refine and change, and at the next Ubuntu Developer Summit we plan on reviewing the process and improving how it works.

Finding Our Application Review Board

With the process approved, the goal now is to find members to join the new Application Review Board. We are going to be looking for 5 – 7 members who exhibit the following skills:

  • Strong technical experience.
  • Strong experience of the Ubuntu platform and the desktop.
  • Knowledge of packaging to effectively assess other people’s packaging work for quality.
  • Enough free time to commit to reviewing the applications and providing timely feedback.

As a bonus:

  • You would be a core-dev or MOTU.
  • A knowledge of programming, so as to perform a code review.

Anyone and everyone who satisfies the above criteria is welcome to apply. There are no specific requirements for location; you can be based anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in applying, head to this page and follow the instructions. The Ubuntu Technical Board will ultimately assess the applications and decide who the final board will be. For full details of the expectations of a position on the board, read the codified charter.

The deadline for applications is 31st August 2010.

[Discuss the Request for Candidates for the Application Review Board on the Forum]

Originally posted here by Jono Bacon on Friday, August 6th, 2010 at 1:39 am

Free Books For Approved LoCo Teams

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-08-06

Once again we have some wonderful free books to give away from Prentice Hall, the rather spanky-awesome publishers of The Official Ubuntu Book by Mako, Matthew Helmke and Corey Burger, and the brand new Official Ubuntu Server Book by our friend and yours, Kyle Rankin and Mako. These books were commissioned by Debra Williams-Cauley who has been awesome getting them on the shelves, and her sidekick is one Heather Fox who I have been chatting with recently to see if we can score some free copies for our rather fantastic Ubuntu LoCo Teams. Fortunately, Heather has been able to make the magic happen.

Prentice Hall are happy to send each and every approved LoCo team one free copy of The Official Ubuntu Book and one free copy of The Official Ubuntu Server book. To be entirely clear: this is one copy of each book per team. This will be a great addition to each team’s library of Ubuntu books!

To keep this as simple as possible, you can request your books by following these steps:

  1. The team contact shown on our LoCo Team List (and only the team contact) should send an email to usergroups AT informit DOT com and include the following details:
    • Your full name.
    • Which team you are from.
    • Your full address (including zip/postal code, region and country).
    • Your phone number, including country and area code.
  2. Heather will process your application and let you know if it is approved.
  3. If approved, she will get your books in the post.

A few notes:

  • Only approved teams are eligible for the free copies of the books.
  • Only the team contact for each team (shown on this page) can make the request for the book.
  • There is a limit of one copy of each book per approved team.
  • Prentice Hall will cover postage, but not any import tax or other shipping fees.
  • When you have the books, it is up to you what you do with them. We recommend you share them between members of the team. LoCo Leaders: please don’t hog them for yourselves!
  • The deadline for getting your requests in Sun August 15, 2010.

If you have any questions or queries, don’t contact me or Canonical, contact Heather Fox at heather DOT fox AT pearson DOT com.

Also, for those teams who are not approved or yet to approved, you can still score a rather nice 35% discount on the books by registering your LoCo with the Prentice Hall User Groups Program.

All in all a pretty sweet deal, methinks. Enjoy!

[Discuss Free Books for Approved LoCo Teams on the Forums]

Originally posted here by Jono Bacon on Thu Aug 5, 2010