Archive for October 29th, 2008

Posted on October 29, 2008 - by jono

Ubuntu Open Week for Jaunty. Rock On.

Folks, we are really pleased to announce…Ubuntu Open Week!

Ubuntu Open Week is a week of IRC tuition and Q+A sessions all about getting involved in the rock-and-roll world that is the Ubuntu community. We organise this week for the beginning of a new release cycle to help new contributors get involved. Thanks to Jorge for helping to get the week together and for everyone who is helping to run sessions. Its going to be a fun week!

So, the most important details first – Ubuntu Open Week happens from Mon 3 Nov – Fri 7 Nov and takes place in #ubuntu-classroom on the Freenode IRC network. You can use a program such as XChat-GNOME in Ubuntu to connect and get involved.

So which sessions are scheduled? Well, the timetable is available here and the sessions include:

Monday

• Introduction and Welcome – Jono Bacon, the Ubuntu Community manager, will kick off the week with a short welcome and give you a quick tour of what to expect during OpenWeek.
• Ubuntu behind the Scenes – You have some ideas and want to see them included in Ubuntu but don’t know how or just wondered how the ubuntu developers make this awesome distro, this is the right place to know what happens under the hood.
• Reporting and Fixing Kernel Bugs – Leann Ogasawara will touch on kernel bug reporting best practices and getting fixes incorporated into the Ubuntu kernel.
• Ubuntu on Ultra Mobile PCs – Oliver Grawert will explain the ins and outs of getting Ubuntu on UMPCs
• Version Control with Bazaar – The very basics of using Bazaar. Learn how to take “snapshots” of your most important code and files..and how to roll back time to undo those changes.
• Bazaar: Beyond The Basics – Following on from Emma Jane Hogbin’s Bzr basics, DavidFutcher guides you through some of the more “advanced” Bzr topics.

Tuesday

• Edubuntu – Overview of the Edubuntu project, its purpose, and how you can get involved with this small, but vital community. “Do it for the kids”
• Packaging 101 – Daniel Holbach, who is very interested in the growth of the Ubuntu Development Community, will talk you through the bare bone essentials of Ubuntu’s source packages.
• Debian and Ubuntu – What is Debian? What is the importance of Debian to Ubuntu? How you can contribute to Debian?
• An Intrepid journey in Ubuntu Server land – a retrospective of the features that the Ubuntu Server team worked on during the last release cycle and an outlook on what will follow.
• Media Prodution on Ubuntu – A look at how Ubuntu can be used for all sorts of media, including photo processing and management, video capture and editing and audio recording and processing. This session will include a Q&A.

Wednesday

• Polishing a Package – Lots of packages in Ubuntu have outstanding bugs, and outstanding available patches. Emmet Hikory will demonstrate the process of ensuring that a package is the best it can be, including a review of available resources for package improvements.
• Ubuntu Netbook Remix Overview – Learn about Ubuntu’s offering for netbooks, with UNR Product Manager Pete Goodall and Engineers Bill Filler and Neil Patel.
• Upstreaming Bugs – Ubuntu is a collection of software from a multitude of upstream projects (Like GNOME, KDE, Linux, Xorg) that is put together and released every 6 months. In this talk I will talk about how you can help be a bridge between Ubuntu and these projects by ensuring that bugs, patches, and feedback gets from Ubuntu to them.
• Ubuntu Brainstorm Q+A, becoming moderator – You have some question about Ubuntu Brainstorm? You want to become moderator? This will be the right time to ask!

Thursday

• sabdfl Question and Answer – Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu will take questions from attendees in this two hour block.
• Wine – How to help with Wine, converting Windows applications into packages, Integrating Wine into the desktop.
• Verifying Stable Update (SRU) bugfixes – Walking through the process of verifying an update for released versions of packages.
• Cruft. What is it and why it sucks – An overview of cruft, how its made, how it is handled, what NBS is, how to do a removal
• Cruft Removal 101 Workshop – A crash course in removing cruft with actual packages staged in a PPA. Learn how to do from the pros.

Friday

• Fixing a bug in Ubuntu – it’s easier than you think – You want to get involved in Ubuntu, you’d like to fix a few bugs? Excellent, Daniel Holbach will show you how push the right buttons, talk to the right people and be part of the team.
• REVU Q+A – Open Q&A about http://revu.ubuntuwire.com (the website where new packages are reviewed for inclusion into Ubuntu).
• Translations and Internationalization with Launchpad – MikeRooney – A guide from start (an English-only application) to finish (a translated localized application) using Launchpad to coordinate and gather community translations.
• Kernel: From Intrepid to Jaunty – Ben Collins – A review of what the kernel team did different during intrepid’s development cycle, what we learned and what we plan to change in jaunty.
• Open Week Questions and Feedback – Jorge Castro – In this session we will get feedback from attendees on things you’d like to see in OpenWeek; what types of topics you would like to see next time and recommendations on how to make OpenWeek better.

I look forward to seeing you all there!

Posted on October 29, 2008 - by jono

San Francisco Events This Week

Just wanted to mention a few events I will be at this week in San Francisco:

• Wed 29th Oct – Larry Lessig’s book party – W Hotel, 181 Third Street, San Francisco, CA – 6.30pm – I will be there to celebrate the release of Larry’s new book, and meet other Creative Commons people.
• Thu 30th Oct – Ubuntu Release Party – The lower bar as you walk in on the left, The Thirsty Bear, 661 Howard St, San Francisco, CA 94105 – come along and hang out with at least Tom Haddon and myself for a few pints to celebrate the release of Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex.

Hope to see a bunch of you there.