Archive for May, 2008

Posted on May 23, 2008 - by jono

Holbach, Flash Hugged

You know what, a strong part of every Ubuntu Developer Summit is making everyone feel like a big, happy family. A good example of this is the jam night that we had a few nights back ready for the legendary Ubuntu Allstars gig tonight (in which various musicians at UDS are playing some music for everyone) – we all came together here on the 3rd floor, had a few drinks, pulled up some lyrics and chords from the Internet and just played music and had a great time. Looking forward to tonight.

Well, ogre had the great idea of making chief hugger, the lovable Daniel Holbach, feel wanted and fuzzy by organising a flash hug. So, we got the word out across the UDS, let people know while he wasn’t around, and at the first break everyone was congregated ready for action. Of course, we ensured Tony was there, camera in hand to catch it:

Can’t see it? Click here.

That video really does sum up the spirit of Ubuntu.

Posted on May 23, 2008 - by jono

Coming soon…

The time to stir things up is soon…

I am not ready to announce this yet, but a few things to clarify from some comments from some people:

• It is not just a band.
• It is not just political.
• It is not just designed to change things.
• I am not leaving Ubuntu.

June 9th 2008. Keep your eyes peeled.

Posted on May 21, 2008 - by jono

Half way through UDS

Well, we are half way through the Ubuntu Developer Summit, and the week is going very, very well. We have been having some excellent, productive discussions, and are having a lot of fun in the evenings. This UDS has felt more complete, more organised and more productive, and the feedback seems to generally fit this.

I am not going to summarise the discussions quite yet, as we hope to do this when UDS is complete, but just on the community track we have been discussion bug jams, the example content showcase, upstream bug workflow, the LoCo council, communication, burnout, the Kubuntu council, the Ubuntu Java team, Brainstorm, local language teams, community marketing and more.

I am also really pleased to see that the Ubuntu Developer Channel has been getting a lot of attention and today it is #5 Most Viewed in the United Kingdom – go and check out the videos and lets get even more attention. Also, remember that you can subscribe to the videos – over 130 people have done so in the last few days, so why not get in on the action and get new Ubuntu videos delivered to you. I have been running around UDS lining people up for Tony to video, and we have got some great interviews in the pipeline.

Just before I finish, most people have not uploaded their photos yet, but here are a few photos from UDS so far:

Distro collaboration at work

Horsemen in dancing shocker

Crew and community at one

Daniel and Nitya talk MOTU in the lobby

Working together to kick arse and take names

More later…

Posted on May 20, 2008 - by jono

Ubuntu Developer Channel

I am pleased to announce that the Ubuntu Developer Channel on YouTube has gone live – a site that will be stuffed full of videos about Ubuntu development. To kick off the channel this week we have brought over Tony Whitmore to do a load of interviews throughout UDS. The first couple are with James Westby of bzr fame and myself:

Keep your eyes on the Ubuntu Developer Channel as this week continues to watch more videos that are added.

Posted on May 18, 2008 - by jono

Beware False Prophets

twitter.com/jonobacon is lies. Don’t believe it. Another vicious act at the hands of Alan Pope and Dave Walker. Another victim of identity theft…

UPDATE: The twitter account has been retrieved! Another glorious victory over Alan Pope.

Posted on May 17, 2008 - by jono

Life ain’t dull

Right now I am over in beautiful Prague for FossCamp and the Ubuntu Developer Summit. Running and attending these events is always a real treat – there is always a genuine feeling of free software in action; a real meeting of minds coming together with a common ethos. Part of why I love the FossCamp/UDS trip is that it involves a huge amount of diversity. Here at FossCamp we have people from a tonne of projects, including Ubuntu, Jokosher, Sun, EFL, Terminator, Strigi, Xesam, Ubuntu Brainstorm, Linux User Groups, GNOME, Glom, gtkmm, Campware, KDE, Amarok, KOffice, Edubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, Tango, Novell, Red Hat, Inkscape, freedesktop.org, OpenSuSE, OpenChange, Samba, Debian, MOTU, swfdec, gvfs, OpenOffice.org, eBox, LKSCTP, Elisa, HAL, dbus…

Its been a busy time recently and I have been out on my travels over in San Francisco, Boston, Cambridge, Detroit and London. Its been a hugely fun time, and I got to meet some incredible people – thanks to everyone who made me feel exceptionally welcome. I also want to give a quick shout out to the folks at ubuntu-ma, PenguiCon, CommunityOne, Creative Commons, Mako, Matt Lee, Barton, and my friends over in Lexington who are making Ubuntu work on things that live in your pocket.

Oh, and as a slight postscript, I have finally fulfilled one of life’s little ambitions – to not only meet, but a share a photo with the venerable tron guy:

Not only did I have a photo taken with tron guy – he came looking for me to deliver a parcel with a fake beard in it. While it was happening I felt like I was in some kind of acid trip. We then had a serious and detailed conversation about MOTU, while he was stood there in full tron regalia. Just when I thought my world crazy, it got a little crazier…

I was going to finish this entry here, but sod it, here are a few other things living in my brain right now:

• The Severed Fifth machine continues to roll – the server is up, the mailing lists are on their way, the announcement is written, the logo ideas are flowing in, the photo-shoot is in post-processing, and the content is nearly there in terms of initial work. Thanks to that group of amazing people that are making it happen.
• You know, gyms never really had an appeal to me, but I have been a few times recently – I had a really good session in there a while back and figured it would be fun to repeat.
• Wow, it seems this post of mine caused a bit of a stir over what is considered music. Always amazes me when people accuse creativity that does not meet their taste as being unintelligent or just noise. I am not expecting people to like the music I like, but I am expecting people to understand and respect the work that goes into any art-form, irrespective of their taste. Everything is worth listening to, even Cannibal Corpse, lounge style or flute beatboxing.
• Someone should invent an “anti-mint”, something you put in your mouth to take away the taste of mint. Imagine those situations when you wake up in the morning, brush your teeth and then want to drink orange juice. Personally, I want both clean teeth and orange juice and to not sacrifice one or the other. Someone…the anti-mint…lets make it a reality.
• I bought GTA4 and it rocks. It also drove me to be involved in a police chase, but that’s a story for another time.
• While in video game news, I got totally whipped at Guitar Hero III, and while despite fervent denial, I got completely annihilated. Mind you, I spent more time posing and prancing around the living room at my competitors apartment than focusing on the game in hand. Well, that’s my excuse and I am sticking to it.
• Recently jonobacon.org seems to have been picked up in some of these “top blog” listings. You are as surprised as I am, but for my regular readers, thanks for helping to push my little chunk of randomness up in the blog ranks. It really does go to show how many bored people are populating the Internet.
• You know, Cancun is an amazing looking place, would love to get over there sometime.
• Thinking of a new phone – Nokia N95 8GB or a Blackberry? Any thoughts? It should be good for email, have a decent camera, preferably have a GPS and preferably have an alpha-numeric keypad.

I think that’s enough for now.

Posted on May 12, 2008 - by jono

Destroy Everything

You know what, every so often you see something and it directly equates to your dream for a particular part of your life. In terms of my musical ambitions, the video to Destroy Everything by Hatebreed perfectly sums up perfectly what I would love to do with my music, and not only that, but I utterly love this crunchy, fat, grindy, anthemic song:

Can’t see it? Click here.

Wicked.

Posted on May 1, 2008 - by jono

Severed Fifth

Recently I have mentioned a new project of mine called Severed Fifth. Although I can’t announce it yet, things are really coming along together nicely with it. The team is largely assembled, and we are getting the website together. The announcement is largely written, and the content is largely written.

I want to clarify that this is a spare-time project, not something that is replacing my work with Ubuntu and working at Canonical – it is something I am doing, and have wanted to do for a long time. All being well, I can announce it in the next few weeks.