LoCo stories: the Ubuntu New Mexico team helps the Endorphine Power Company

By boredandblogging | Published: 2009-09-24

We’re kicking off the regular series of LoCo stories with a great one which truly encompasses the spirit of Ubuntu.

It all began in October 2007, and the players are the New Mexico Loco Team and the Endorphine Power Company. Let’s introduce them:

The Endorphin Power Company, or EPC in short, is a non-profit organization “dedicated to improving the lives of people, with special focus on the substance-dependent and homeless, thus alleviating many of the challenges faced by current emergency medical systems. Additional purposes are the promotion of mental and physical health through exercise, energy consciousness and volunteerism.”

The New Mexico LoCo team is a group of Ubuntu and Linux enthusiasts active in a state in the US in which they live and breathe computing history (Altair and Microsoft were founded there). As such, one of their main goals is to live up to and continue that tradition by actively cultivating and spreading the ideals behind Ubuntu, Linux and Open Source.

Not being known for sitting on their thumbs, one fine day some of their members, with Dave Thomas and Eric Krieger in the front, started thinking what they could do as a community to bring “Humanity to others”. It was only an idea, but they thought the natural step would be to use their computing expertise to help their equals.

Said and done, Eric spoke to his boss at Charter Bank of Albuquerque asking him if the company would be interested in donating some used computing equipment to a local non-profit organization. The New Mexico LoCo would then take care of administrating this material and helping with the installation.

Charter Bank agreed and generously donated 25 computers, a server and several network switches for the project. With the equipment sorted out, discussion started taking place in the LoCo’s mailing list to determine which organization would receive the donation, in which it was agreed that the EPC would be the worthy candidate.

Working as a true team, the New Mexico folks set up a page for the project in the Ubuntu wiki, defining milestones and getting organized through their mailing list. The first big milestone in the culmination of this amazing effort came in February 2008, where they met to install and set up some of the workstations in the EPC computer lab. Of course, with the operating system we all know and love. That installation was a success, and provided a solid foundation to base the subsequent efforts on.

Fast forward 2009: a functional Ubuntu network at EPC, wi-fi, a wealth of side-projects, ideas for other initiatives, regular updates on the project, negotiation of a support and training agreement, and the satisfaction of doing a good job while having fun and helping others.

This really is an example of what we are and what we can do as a community sharing the Ubuntu spirit. It is more than the operating system we use, promote and support. It is the ethos we share, what moves us to get involved and help other people in real-world projects to make the world a better place.

Links

Sources

Do you have an interesting LoCo story to tell? If you have organized an event, performed some work/advocacy in your local community, have built some resources, performed meetings or installfests, please email David (david.planella AT ubuntu DOT com). Do remember to send a picture to accompany the story!

New LoCo Council Members Sought

By boredandblogging | Published: 2009-09-23

A little while ago Nick Ali stepped down from the LoCo Council. We were of course very sad to see this happen, and would like to thank Nick for his great work on the Council. However, we are now down one person, and need to find a new member. I'm writing this mail to ask for volunteers to step forward and nominate themselves or another willing person for this position. There is only one position available, so if more than one person steps forward, there will be a
vote to decide on the successful candidate.

The LoCo Council is defined on the wiki. We meet up once a month over IRC to go through items on the team agenda. This typically involves approving new LoCo teams, resolving issues within teams, approving LoCo team mailing list requests, and anything else that comes along.

The process by which a new member of the Council is selected is defined by the Community Council is outlined on the wiki.

The first stage is for people to nominate themselves, or be nominated by someone else. We will confirm with each person whether they actually want to be put forward or not. We will give ~2 weeks for this process. Please pass this mail back to your own LoCo team so everyone is aware of the process. We welcome nominations from anywhere in the world, and from any LoCo team. Nominees do not need to be a LoCo Team Leader to be nominated for this post. We are however looking for people who are active in their LoCo Team.

** Please send nominations to loco-council at lists.ubuntu.com which is a private mailing list only for the LoCo Council members. **

The above mailing list is moderated, however all nomination mails will be approved before the end of the nomination period

If you'd like to ask any of the LoCo Council members questions privately then you contact us individually or use the above mailing list address.

** The nomination process starts now, and ends at 00:01 UTC on 7th October 2009. **

Once this period is over the LoCo Council will collate the nominations and double check that each person nominated is still happy to stand. We will then pass this list to the CC as per the process.

[Discuss New LoCo Council Members Sought on the Forums]

Originally sent to the loco-contacts mailing list by Alan Pope on Wed Sep 23 11:26:04 BST 2009

Ubuntu Community Council Elections 2009

By boredandblogging | Published: 2009-09-22

The 2009 Community Council is up for election, and all members of Ubuntu are entitled to vote. The nominees for this round are below, together with links to their wiki pages which document their interests, experience, skills and goals.

The Council is responsible for community governance. They are the ultimate arbiter of community disputes, and they nominate candidates for leadership in key positions across the entire project. In selecting your candidates, please consider their ability to act in an independent fashion and exercise good judgement of character, values and tone. We have an enormous community now that spans many different media, regions, technologies and interests. The CC cannot include a representative of every constituency, so members of the CC need to be able to represent the interests of many different groups.

We are electing 7 members. Our amazing candidates are:

Thank you for taking the time to participate in this election! The winning candidates will form the core of the CC for two years. We may have other votes to add candidates during that time if we need to expand the CC, but it's likely that this will be the primary team for 2009-2011.

[Discuss the Ubuntu Community Council Elections 2009 on the Forums]

Announcing Ubuntu 10.04 LTS: The Lucid Lynx

By boredandblogging | Published: 2009-09-22

With Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 6 now out the door and momentum building towards a rocking Karmic Koala release, it is time to name and share the direction and focus for the next step in the Ubuntu evolution that follows Karmic.

Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of the Ubuntu project has announced the next version of Ubuntu:

Two years ago we announced the second LTS release, and what we hoped would become a standard practice of making LTS releases on a predictable two-year schedule, overlayed on our existing six-month schedule of desktop and server releases.

We are now giving a name to the next Ubuntu LTS: The Lucid Lynx.

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS will ship in April 2010 and is the culmination of significant work in Ubuntu, in Debian and across the free software ecosystem. LTS releases are maintained for five years on the server and three years on the desktop, so they are designed for those who are making larger deployments or who otherwise prefer to have a common platform for an extended period.

Lucid will continue our tradition of focusing an LTS on a quality, stable and consistent experience and will require a number of adjustments to the usual plan. Those are documented at http://wiki.ubuntu.com/LucidLynxSchedule, the Lucid Lynx release schedule. In summary, we will be more conservative in the new code we bring into Ubuntu during the development cycle, and we will run a longer test period. Our focus will be stabilisation and bug-fixing across the platform with additional refinements in quality in key areas such as user interface improvements, boot experience, browsing and installing the incredible catalogue of software available for Ubuntu, and continuing our tradition of best-of-breed hardware support. We will maintain the health and security of our lynx with point releases.

The Lynx is a predator that depends on very considered tactical positioning for success. It’s a small cat, which fits nicely with the lean nature of Ubuntu on both the desktop and the server. It’s stylish and sleek, the bow-tie-adorned James Bond of the feline set, so you can bet we’ll make sure it’s dressed for the occasion. The lynx likes to keep things in perspective, sticking to high ground. So do we. And it’s the national animal of Macedonia, a country that has deployed tens of thousands of Ubuntu desktops in schools.

Speed is an essential ingredient in the attack of a lynx, and speed remains our goal. We have improved the boot time in each of the releases during this era of Ubuntu, and expect to complete some of the major improvements required for 10 second booting with Lucid. Fully harnessing Upstart, in collaboration with Debian, will get us even closer to the goal.

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS will be a round dozen Ubuntu releases. 12 great cycles, from a great community that continues to devote itself to the goal of bringing the best stable free software to an audience of people who don’t think of themselves as computer specialists – and shouldn’t have to, either. It’s a wonderful privilege to be part of making it happen. That should put a tuft on your ears.

Mark Shuttleworth Announces via video Ubuntu 10.04: Lucid Lynx

By boredandblogging | Published: 2009-09-21

Mark Shuttleworth spoke via video to UbuCon at the Atlanta Linux Fest 2009 and announced the name of the next Ubuntu release. Ubuntu 10.04 will be code named “Lucid Lynx” and will be an LTS release with support for the desktop for 3 years and for the server for 5 years.