Archive for January, 2009

Posted on January 30, 2009 - by jono

Aqy Birthday

^ that kind of comedy is a rare treat.

I just want to say happy birthday to my best pal, Aq, who turns 33 today.

If my memory serves me right, I first met Aq when he was 24. We became good friends right away: I really enjoyed his cantankerous, opinionated and shouty personality. Many an evening we spend discussing every Open Source and wider social topic under the sun. Since then, he has become a brother to me. He has always been there as a friend, as a fierce debating companion (that many of you will have experienced on LugRadio, but he has also become someone who has always inspired me with his enthusiasm and his happy-go-lucky approach to life. I do miss you, my friend.

Unfortunately, I can’t be there to take you to the vodka bar and buy you a cheese and onion pasty, so you will have to settle with an evening with your daughter. Do send on my apologies to her.

Posted on January 29, 2009 - by jono

Joining The Identi.ca Revolution

Just to let you folks know, I have signed up for identi.ca with the username jonobacon. I am posting to both identi.ca and Twitter using the glorious Gwibber, originally from my friend and yours, Ryan Paul.

Posted on January 28, 2009 - by jono

Writing a Book With Free Software

Some of you have emailed to ask what I am using to write the Art Of Community, and some of my Free Software friends out there have been asking if Free Software tools were used when writing the content. Oh yes.

I am writing the book on an Ubuntu laptop and using OpenOffice.org version 3.0. Inside OpenOffice.org I am using a special O’Reilly toolbar in a template which helps me format the content in a way that will make typesetting easier later in the process. When I have completed writing content it gets saved to my disk and I then commit my revisions to a Subversion repository at O’Reilly. This allows my editors and I to all have access to the same content.

In terms of editing, it is also performed in OpenOffice.org, making use of its change tracking and notes features. This functionality is more than suitable for working on a book. I am also pleased to see this is being further refined in OpenOffice.org 3.1 with the ability to reply to notes. Interestingly, one of my editors uses Microsoft Word to edit. This means that my original .odt file is converted to a .doc file, edits are made in Word (using change tracking and notes) and then saved back in .odt format. It all works flawlessly, with the exception of having to re-import the O’Reilly toolbar. Pretty nifty, eh?

I am also making extensive use of Tomboy to store notes throughout the book development. I use it to have my book outline (which I regularly add new ideas to as I write), as well as other general notes, TODO items and more. Finally, I use the GIMP for imagery, diagrams and screenshots.

Posted on January 28, 2009 - by jono

Week Off

Just a quick message to everyone that I have taken this week as vacation to spend it working on the Art Of Community.

Its been a busy few days so far and I am making some good progress. Details, as usual, are on the blog. I am also pretty excited that Ryan Paul (Ars Technica) is helping to proof it, and content is coming in from Jeremy Allison (Samba), Paul Hudson (Linux Format), Mike Linksvayer (Creative Commons) with many more to announce soon. Rock and roll.

Posted on January 22, 2009 - by jono

Attending SCALE

Where are you going to be at 1.30pm on Sat 21st Feb 2009?

I know where I will be. I will be speaking at the always excellent SoCal Linux Expo in Los Angeles. There I will be delivering my talk Building Belonging, exploring the underlying recipe behind behind what makes great community and babbling on about many of the concepts that my team have used as part of the Ubuntu community. The presentation takes a fun and anecdote laden tour-de-force of community in a way that any community can implement. Be there or be square!

SCALE is a fantastic conference and well worth the trip to the city of angels. I am looking forward to seeing everyone there again!

Posted on January 21, 2009 - by jono

Chill Pill

Many of you will know my general policy for not getting involved in flame-wars and I was not going to comment on this story, but I just wanted to share a few words.

Of course, the story is saddening: a woman bought a computer to do her classwork, it contained Ubuntu, and her expectations were not matched. Thus developed frustration and annoyance with the things that she wanted to do that she couldn’t do. That is both frustrating for her and for us. Fortunately, as we continue to work hard to improve Ubuntu, these problems will be resolved in time, but you know what…life happens…and Ubuntu doesn’t always work for everyone. We just need to learn, move on and improve in that area in the future. Problems are merely opportunities to do better next time: our OS is young, and there is plenty of time for us to rub off the rough edges. These may not be rough technical edges: in this story the problem seems to have been in the hands of setting expectations around the technology, be it in Ubuntu or with the hardware provider.

What saddens me more is the attitude of some members of our community. Some were rude, derogatory and in some cases offensive to the woman in question. Unfortunately, in some cases vitriol replaced reason in some commentators.

Our community is one built on communication. It is how we share ideas and problems and their respective implementations and solution. Communication is the river that flows inside our own community and out to our users. When we compromise our communication, we compromise our community.

There is simply no excuse to be rude and offensive, and when someone paints Ubuntu in a bad light, it doesn’t justify it This is not about “unbelievers” or “freedom haters”, it is about basic respect. Sure, it is annoying when people rag on Ubuntu, and in some cases even inaccurate. What is worse is to insult our users: irrespective of their actions. Not everyone is well versed in Ubuntu, its capabilities and what it can provide. Not everyone knows how to navigate our desktop, and people are going to make mistakes that many of us would be embarrassed to make. Irrespective of the criticism or carping, we are made of strong stuff. Lets take the criticism and instead use our efforts to fix problems and make Ubuntu better for everyone.

I am so proud of everything we are doing in our community, but these kinds of situations let the side down. We all get frustrated, but lets keep the positive energy flowing, and continue to kick arse and take names at every possible opportunity.

Posted on January 20, 2009 - by jono

A Good Day

Strange, everywhere I look today, everyone is smiling. Something going on?

Posted on January 19, 2009 - by jono

Art Of Community Update

I just wanted to throw a quick update your way regarding the Art Of Community book that I am feverishly working on.

On Tuesday last week I threw out a deliberately cryptic announcement about a new project. In the announcement I displayed a motion blurred screenshot of what we now know as the Art Of Community site. Amusingly, the announcement turned into a bit of a technical challenge for some, who tried to unblur it. Most failed, but one clever bugger in the form of Kyran managed to sharpen it, revealing the name of the site which he then Googled and added the URL. Great work, Kyran! This happened about 30mins before I was due to announce while I was writing up the main announcement text.

Anyway, up went the main announcement and the response has been fantastic. It also picked up rather nice press over at Ars Technica and OSTATIC and across a bunch of blogs. There was also a great write up at the Creative Commons who are obviously rather happy with the fact that the book is under a CC-NC-SA license. Thanks to everyone for your kind words. Oh, and Facebook fans, go and be a fan of the Art Of Community Page. 93 fans at the moment. Rock and Roll.

I am also really pleased to see that the Art Of Community website has been building a community. Each post has been getting a nice amount of discussion kicking off, and I am looking forward to the community continuing to prosper. Thanks to this first generation of community members in Florian, JoshPanter, amaneiro, Marco and Blaise Alleyne!

Work on the book has been progressing well. Today I finished up Chapter 5 and sent it off for editing. I have been interview content from Ton Roosendaal of Blender and Cristina Verduzco of the East Bay SPCA with more on the way. Now it is onto Chapter 6.

Stay tuned, folks!

Posted on January 16, 2009 - by jono

Mumbach

It turns out that my mum and Daniel Holbach are very different people. I doubt that my mum is deft at bustin’ out Balkan Beats. Daniel Holbach probably never saw me naked when I was two. I am fairly confident that mum is not familiar with dpkg, and I am certain that Daniel does not love my dad.

They do though have one important thing in common. Today is their birthday!! Woo!

With such an important day before us, I just wanted to share a few words about each of them.

Lets start with my mum. OK, let me cut to the chase: I love my mum. A while back I wrote about how proud I am of my dad. Fortunately I have also been blessed with mum that fills me with pride and joy too. A remarkable woman with a heart of gold and a wicked sense of humour, her selfless persona always puts her family and friends first. Not only this, but she is the perfect companion to my dad. 29 years after they tied the knot they are still hopelessly in love. Having recently got married, they are my inspiration to provide my family with the kind of love and support that I received. Over the years my mum has taught me many things, but of all, I have sought to take her light-hearted approach to life and an always present conciousness of remembering who you are and where you came from. Happy birthday mum, I love you.

Now to Mr Holbach. I first got to really know Daniel when he joined my team at Canonical. Since then not only has he become a great colleague, but a real brother too. Daniel has the attributes that I really admire in person: he is a passionate, funny and entirely down to earth. He always a sense of fun, a sense of excitement and at times, a strangely British sense of sarcasm. That actually caught me of guard when I first got to know him: his German undertones perfectly masked his natural talent as a sarky bugger. You know what, I love my job, and a big reason is that I get to work with such a great team: Daniel brings so much to it. Happy birthday pal, have a great day, and I look forward to catching up with you soon.

What a great day: a day that celebrates two great people.

Posted on January 16, 2009 - by jono

Dutch LoCo Bringing It Home

Just wanted to share a little story about the Dutch Ubuntu LoCo Team.

A while back I had an email from Jan Stedehouder about asking for help with a Dutch computer fair, the HCC dagen. Jan was attending to advocate Ubuntu and spread the word like the rock star that he is. I arranged to send the Dutch LoCo 400 Ubuntu CDs and it was a roaring success: the team not only kicked arse, but took names too. Jan informed me that all the CDs were gone in a few hours.

Jan and the team explained Linux to visitors of the stand, identifying the nuances of our ethos and benefits we have baked into Ubuntu. Aside from the buzz of sharing Ubuntu, Jan and co were also inspired by the diversity of their audience:

“It was good to see people of all ages and nationalities, constantly flocking the various computers with Ubuntu”.

Great work folks! Everyone should give the Dutch LoCo a quick hi-five via the Internet.

I was personally ticked pink that Jan used The Ubuntu Ethos to ask his audience in his presentation to share their own ethos. I can feel the Ubuntu ethos growing. It is fantastic to see LoCo teams driving this ethos forward.

Jan also shared with me how Ubuntu is rocking in Holland. He has just released his first book “Probleemloos overstappen op Linux” (Migrating without problems to Linux). This book is based on Ubuntu 8.04. A second book is also released in a few days and called “Basiscursus Ubuntu” (Ubuntu Basics course). This book targets average Windows users who want to try out Ubuntu. Jan tells me it is a pretty straight-forward, step-by-step introduction on how to install Ubuntu, add software and users, fine tune hardware and deal with administrative tasks.

Great work, folks!