Posted on November 7, 2006 - by jono

UDS so far

Well, I have been at the UDS for a few days, and there is lots of stuff going on around many different parts of Ubuntu and the community. Prepare for one of my rather ugly bullet-points-lists-of-ultimate-doom:

• The UDS spec process seems pretty decent. People register specs, session timetables are generated, discussions happen, drafts get…er…drafted, things get done. It is nice and open and based around doing things instead of just discussing things.
• Community has a really strong presence here. Lots of community specs and and huge amounts of awesome, constructive, pro-active discussion.
• It has been great to meet the core team, and great to see they are a fun bunch of people.
• It has also been great to meet the community, and they are as equally fun. I have met lots of different parts of the free software community, and they often differ radically in their technical and social skills. The Ubuntu crowd seem focused and technically sound during the day, and also able to let their hair down in the evening.
• LoCo teams have been a strong presence, and there been some awesome input from many of the attendees. We now have a bunch of specs and key action points to make this stuff happen.
• Governance has been another key topic, and Team Councils are a key point of discussion here. Large teams in the community will have their own councils who can preside over that sub-community, and this should help scale the community as our community grows.
• One thing I was keen to get accepted was the concept of a Leadership CoC that council members will adhere to. This is an extension to the CoC that identifies key leadership qualities. Everyone seemed happy with this.
• MOTU has been another core topic, and growing the MOTU rockstars is essential. MOTU is such a hugely important area for Ubuntu, and I would love to see some of these plans pull off. There was also some discussion of a MOTU Council (codenamed Council Grey Skull). Can we all call Daniel Holbach Prince Adam Holbach too? Nice.
• A session discussing methods of reducing noise on ubuntu-devel was interesting, and mdz and I had some discussion about this a few weeks ago. It is likely there will be a moderated list (ubuntu-devel) with the core team on it, and a separate open list. I suggested ubuntu-thundercats as the name in jest, but it seems some people are thinking a bit too hard about it. Well, its not as if stupid names haven’t been used in the project before.
• Google have done an awesome job here – great venue, amazing food, and a nice friendly atmosphere. They have just left us to our devices, which has been great. Special props to Leslie for her sterling efforts.
• Any rumours about a “bottle dance” are untrue. Don’t believe anything Joey Stanford says.

More later.