Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #183

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-03-07

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is Issue #183 for the week February 28th – March 6th, 2010 and is available here.

In this issue we cover:

* Mark Shuttleworth: “Light” the new look of Ubuntu
* Announcing the 10.10 Ubuntu Developer Summit
* UI Freeze in place for Lucid
* Developer Membership Board meeting
* International Women's Day Vote
* Ubuntu Stats
* Getting Patches Upstream
* The Grand App Writing Challenge Submissions!
* Server Bug Zapping results
* Ubuntu Classroom Team presents “ClassBot”
* In the Press & Blogosphere
* February 2010 Team Reports
* Upcoming 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
* Nathan Handler
* 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

Refreshing the Ubuntu Brand

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-03-03

Ubuntu has seen a tremendous amount of growth and change since it was conceived in 2004. Back then it was a small project with strong ambitions and a handful of developers passionate about delivering a world class Linux Operating System that can compete on every level with Microsoft and Apple. We adopted a style based on the tagline “Linux for Human Beings”, and called it “Human”. Six years on we have made incredible progress. Ubuntu is a global phenomenon: we have carved out a pervasive culture of quality and design, thoughtful usability and great technology all fused together in a project that maintains the same commitment to community and collaborative development that we embraced back in 2004.

In 2009, a small team lead by Mark Shuttleworth, conducted a review of our key brand values and identity. Based on that work, a set of visual treatments were produced, and shared with key members of the Ubuntu Art community, spanning the core distributions, derivatives, and aligned efforts like the Forums. Representatives from Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Xubuntu, Mythbuntu, SpreadUbuntu and more came to London and worked with the Canonical design team to refine the designs and work together. The results of that work are presented here.

This collection of community representatives worked with the design team and created some great work. Some examples:

In addition to this we also worked with our key governance boards: the Community Council, Technical Board, Forums Council, LoCo Council and others around this work to ensure that our community can use it to it’s best advantage.

Brand Values

The key values we believe are reflected in the Ubuntu project are:

  • Precision. We ship high quality software, and we ship it exactly on schedule. Our Debian heritage means that the individual components of our platform are tightly defined and neatly arranged. There is no excess, no fat, and no waste in Ubuntu. We are a community that thrives on delivery.

  • Reliability. We are building Ubuntu for serious use. Whether it is being deployed on the desktop or in the cloud, we care that Ubuntu is secure, reliable and predictable. We deliver updates to Ubuntu that are rigorously tested. When we make a mistake, we learn from it and put in place good processes to ensure that it does not happen again.

  • Collaboration. Ubuntu is the result of collaborative work between thousands of people, and it is both the beneficiary and the public face of the collaborative work of tens of thousands of free software developers who build individual upstream components, or aggregate them in Debian. We go to great lengths to ensure that anybody, anywhere, who is passionate about Ubuntu and competent to participate, can do so. We enable virtual participation in our physical Ubuntu Developer Summits, we use mailing lists and IRC in preference to over-the-cubicle-wall communications, and we welcome contributions from both companies and individuals. Our governance bodies reflect the diversity of that participation, and leadership or permissions are based on proven merit, not corporate employment.

  • Freedom. We strive to deliver the very best free software platform. Our highest mission is to accelerate the adoption and spread of free software, to make it the de facto standard way that people build and consume software. We celebrate the work of other groups committed to collaborative content development, and open content licensing. While we are pragmatic about this (we ship proprietary drivers when we believe they are a requirement to get free software working well on PC’s) we expressly do not include any proprietary applications in the default installation of Ubuntu. We want people to love and appreciate free software, and even though we work to make sure that Ubuntu is compatible with, certified with and iteroperable with popular proprietary software, we do so to facilitate the adoption of free alternatives to proprietary solutions.

While the branding has changed, the freedoms and rights have not: our global community will still maintain access to the resources needed to construct logos that use the branding. We will be providing the new font, images, colour specs, and a set of recommendations for creating branding for websites, t-shirts and the other needs of our community. As before we will protect the integrity of the Ubuntu brand with the Ubuntu Trademark Policy.

Light: Ubuntu is Lightware

The new style in Ubuntu is inspired by the idea of “Light”.

We’re drawn to Light because it denotes both warmth and clarity, and intrigued by the idea that “light” is a good value in software. Good software is “light” in the sense that it uses your resources efficiently, runs quickly, and can easily be reshaped as needed. Ubuntu represents a break with the bloatware of proprietary operating systems and an opportunity to delight to those who use computers for work and play. More and more of our communications are powered by light, and in future, our processing power will depend on our ability to work with light, too.

Visually, light is beautiful, light is ethereal, light brings clarity and comfort.

Historical perspective: From 2004-2010, the theme in Ubuntu was “Human”. Our tagline was “Linux for Human Beings” and we used a palette reflective of the full range of humanity. Our focus as a project was bringing Linux from the data center into the lives of our friends and global family.

Go and see the full details of the brand refresh here, with more images.

International Women's Day Vote

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-03-03

Back in January some of the Ubuntu Women members launched a competition to gather stories about women and girls discovering Ubuntu. The aim of the competition was to counteract the invisibility of women and girls in the community and demonstrate that their path is really no different than any other.

Entries for this competition closed last week, and the voting has now opened on the 15 wonderful entries received. Everyone can have their say in which are their favourite stories; so please take a moment to read these tales of discovery and cast your votes.

The Community Manager, Jono Bacon, will announce the most popular story winner and draw a random winner on March 8th, 2010 to celebrate International Women’s Day, 2010.

[Discuss the International Ubuntu Women’s Day Vote on the Forum]

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