jonobacon@home

Archive for October, 2009


Posted on October 29, 2009 - by jono

Karmic Released and London Release Party Tonight

Just a quick message to those of you based in Blighty. I and many other Ubuntu folks will be partying tonight to celebrate the release of Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala at:

Salvador & Amanda,
8 Great Newport Street,
London,
WC2H 7JA.

+44 (0) 20 7240 1551

I hope to see you there! Should be there at around 7pm.


Posted on October 29, 2009 - by jono

1000 Reasons To Be Excited

Earlier I blogged about us trying to get 1000 people in #ubuntu-release-party. Today we release Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, and traditionally we all celebrate there. Well, it happened:


Thanks to Pete ’snugglemonster’ Graner for the image.

Of all the people, lool aka, Loïc Minier, was the 1000th member. Folks, come and join us there!


Posted on October 29, 2009 - by jono

And Today, We Party

Today we release Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala.

You all need to come and party with us, right from your web browser.

Let’s try and get over 1000 people in there. :-)


Posted on October 22, 2009 - by jono

Wild And Wicked Wolverhampton Weekend

Tomorrow I fly to England back to Wolverhampton for LugRadio Live 2009. I have been over in California now for over a year and it will be the first time I have got to see many of my friends since I moved. It will also be the final re-union of the LugRadio team for the last ever live show and last ever LugRadio Live. It is going to be a blast!

Although LugRadio Live is entirely sold out of tickets, there is going to be one hell of a party on the Friday night at The Hogshead, 186 Stafford Street, Wolverhampton, WV1 1NA from 7.30pm and also on the Saturday night at the The Connaught Hotel, 40-50 Tettenhall Rd, Wolverhampton, WV1 4SW from 8pm. On the Saturday there will be Karaoke. Oh yes. Everyone is welcome to both parties, and I would love to see you all there! :-)

The fun doesn’t end there though, oh no! On the Sunday, the first ever OggCamp is going to take place at The Connaught Hotel in Wolverhampton, and it is shaping up to be an incredible event. The organizers behind it, the venerable Ubuntu UK and Linux Outlaws podcasts, have worked hard to make it a rocking event and I can’t wait for it! I really hope it becomes a staple in the UK Open Source event calendar. So, good people, get your delicate arses over to OggCamp too. :-)

What a rollicking weekend of Open Source goodness, firmly seated in the great British heartlands:

  • Friday 23rd October – Party at The Hogs Head in Wolverhampton.
  • Saturday 24th October – LugRadio Live 2009 and party at The Connaught Hotel in Wolverhampton.
  • Sunday 25th October – OggCamp at The Connaught Hotel in Wolverhampton.

I look forward to seeing you all there!


Posted on October 21, 2009 - by jono

Keeping Ubuntu CDs Available

One of the ways in which many people have been able to experience Ubuntu is via Canonical’s ShipIt program, which has shipped millions of CDs to new users. This has provided a valuable opportunity for new users to try Ubuntu and for our community teams to obtain CDs as part of their advocacy efforts.

Due to the sheer growth of Ubuntu, we are making a few changes to ShipIt which I wanted to ensure I share with you. For the details, I am going to turn the mic over to everyone’s favorite Canonical COO, Jane Silber who updated us on the Canonical blog:

The ShipIt program has been at the core of the Ubuntu project since its inception. The goal was to make sure that there are no restrictions, as far as was possible, to people having access to Ubuntu. In the last five years we have shipped millions of CDs and seen Ubuntu’s popularity and reach grow in ways that would be impossible without ShipIt.

And that aim continues. We need to make Ubuntu available to as many people who need it, particularly those for whom the download options are limited. The goal has not been to supply a CD to every Ubuntu user of every version of Ubuntu. Remember, one of the coolest things about Ubuntu is the way you can upgrade from one version of Ubuntu to another – without the need for a CD!

While these CDs are often referred to as “free CDs”, they are of course not free of cost to Canonical. We want to continue this programme, but Ubuntu’s growth means that some changes are necessary. Therefore we are adjusting how we handle CD requests to try to find the right balance between availability of CDs and the continued viability of the ShipIt programme.

We will continue to supply CDs to LoCo teams and Ubuntu members. And we hope to make CDs available to everyone who is just discovering Ubuntu. And we continue to search for additional ways to make Ubuntu and Ubuntu materials available to everyone. But we are limiting shipments to people that we think have alternative paths of getting Ubuntu. For instance,

We will change the language on the ShipIt site to make it clearer what we are doing. We hope that you support this effort and realise that the intent is to continue to make Ubuntu available on CD to everyone who needs it.

Jane Silber, Canonical

Thanks for the update, Jane. :-)


Posted on October 21, 2009 - by jono

System76 Continue To Bring The Awesome

System76 who are the makers of this:

…have also proven themselves to be incredibly supportive of Ubuntu and growing our community.

I just wanted to point you all at their 76er Program where Ubuntu LoCo Teams can get laptop stickers and printed flyers for release parties. Thanks to the always amazing Carl Richell for providing such an fantastic resource for our community!


Posted on October 20, 2009 - by jono

Humanity To Others: Five Years Later

Five years ago today, the first ever Ubuntu (Warty Warthog) was released. Back then I was an Open Source Consultant working for the government-funded OpenAdvantage and had a (more) stupid beard. Five years later, I am working on my seventh release since I joined Canonical three years ago, and a more refined beard. :-)

I really believe Ubuntu has been a force for change, and I am hugely proud that I have had the chance to be involved in this rollercoaster of opportunity. When Warty was released, what excited me was not only it’s technically adventurous approach and it’s commitment to simplicity and usability, but also that the Ubuntu community was forged in a way that I felt got it right. At the time Linux was already in the sights of the industry but many organizations were merely tolerating community as opposed to embracing it. I admired that the Ubuntu community had an open governance model, a code of conduct and a real meritocratic approach complete with commercial sponsor. This was brave for a commercial sponsor, and credit Benjamin Mako Hill and Mark Shuttleworth for this commitment to community. Both have been an inspiration to me before I joined Canonical and since. Thankyou, guys.

We have made tremendous progress since Warty, but we are still only at the beginning of a long and fruitful journey for us all. As we work feverishly to add the finishing touches to Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, everyone in our community, be it developers, translators, documentation writers, LoCo teams, governers or otherwise, should step back for a moment and breathe in what we have all accomplished. Karmic is shaping up to be a rocking release, and speaking personally, even though I am seven releases in, I have never been so passionate and committed to the journey. The future holds incredible promise, and I feel privilaged to work with such a devoted and inspiring community and so many wonderful people at Canonical. Tonight I will be grabbing a glass of something sparkling and toasting to another five years!


Posted on October 20, 2009 - by jono

Ubuntu One Rocking The House

I have a crazy-busy day today, so I am going to keep this short. I just wanted to share how cool Ubuntu One is working out for me, and how it can rock your world too as it ships in the upcoming Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, released next week! There are two particularly cool things that Ubuntu One has enabled me to do, which I wanted to share.

I use TomBoy to manage my world. I manage my TODO list there, I track each member of my team’s work there, and I use it as a means to note down ideas and other bits of information. If I lost my notes, I would be devastated: I can replace software, but I can’t replace information. For some time now TomBoy has supported syncing, but it was a faff to set up. To do so required SSH keys and my own server. In Karmic, you can sync your TomBoy notes to Ubuntu One, and not only that, but I can also go to the Ubuntu One web interface and browse and edit my notes there, and changes will be synced back to my desktop. Awesome does not sufficiently convey how tip top this is.

Secondly, with the freshly announced Shot Of Jaq out there in the open, when Aq and I recorded our first few shows, we used Ubuntu One file sharing to move the content around. Aq, based in England, and myself, based in California, would record our respective side of the conversation locally and then Aq shared a folder with me and he would drop his recording in there and it would appear on my desktop. Simple as that. Wickeed.

Karmic is rocking, and Ubuntu One is just another great reason why. Good work, Ubuntu One folks!


Posted on October 19, 2009 - by jono

Failure as a Springboard to Success

Those lovely people at ZDNet have let me write a guest post about community, and I have contributed an article called Failure as a springboard to success.

The article talks about how if we embrace our failures in our communities, it can help us become better community members, and provides a model for doing so. This is particularly important for leaders. In a nutshell (from the article):

Failure should [also] be embraced in your communities. We admire leaders who are humble, honest and frank, and we grumble about leaders who are defensive and abrasive. Be the former, and your community will love you for it.

If you are involved in a community, I recommend you give it a read. :-)


Posted on October 19, 2009 - by jono

Announcing Shot Of Jaq

Some of you will know Stuart ‘Aq’ Langridge. He was one of my fellow presenters on LugRadio, a show that we did that took a loose, informal and irreverent take on Open Source and Technology. He was the other longest standing presenter on the show which lasted four years and had over 2million downloads. We wrapped the show up in the middle of 2008.

LugRadio was a huge fun, but we wrapped it up because we felt that it had reached the end of it’s natural life. All four of us were conscious to not flog the ‘ol proverbial dead horse, so we wanted to go out while we felt show was on a high. While none of us have looked back, Aq and I have both talked about how LugRadio has left a gaping vacuum in our lives, but we were conscious to not resurrect the show for all the reasons I have just shared.

So, today Aq and I are announcing our new podcast Shot Of Jaq, and we are both rather excited about it. Many of you are likely to draw parallels to it and LugRadio, and while there is undoubtedly a LugRadio vibe there with us both being on the show, I wanted to clarify that it is not LugRadio 2.0 due to some key differences.

Shot Of Jaq is going to be something of an experiment. It is a new type of show, at least for us, and the first time we have both done a format such as this.

This is how it works. Aq and I are going to record a series of bite-sized shows which we are referring to as shots. Each shot will be about 10 minutes long and cover a given topic. We will release each shot at www.shotofjaq.org where you can listen to the juicy nugget of fun right from your web browser or alternatively, download the show in MP3 and Ogg format. We will also have podcast feeds.

A key part of Shot Of Jaq will be encouraging discussion when a show is released. With LugRadio we did this by releasing a show and creating a thread on the LugRadio Forums, and the community would discuss the topics there. With Shot Of Jaq, the discussion takes place right there on the website where you can listen to and download the show. This makes it a doddle to listen to the show and get involved in the discussion.

We have already recorded a few shots and aside from the different format, Shot Of Jaq differs to LugRadio a little in terms of feel too. It still focuses on frank, honest and entertainment-infused content, but it feels fuller in terms of material and focus. When we did LugRadio it was based on the kind of the discussions we had in the pub, and Shot Of Jaq is a bit more journalistic. As I said earlier, this is still something of an experiment and if you compare and contrast LugRadio Season 1 Episode 1 with the last studio show we did, we did a lot of learning and made a lot of changes to refine the show. This is almost certainly going to happen with Shot Of Jaq, and who knows what kind of changes we will make. Then again, friends, that there, is the nature of experimentation. :-)

The countdown has begun at www.shotofjaq.org and you will be able to hear our pilot show on Tuesday 3rd November 2009.

In the meantime, follow the show on Twitter and identi.ca and join the #shotofjaq IRC channel on irc.freenode.net.