Archive for March 23rd, 2010

Posted on March 23, 2010 - by jono

Planning for 10.10: Improving How We Review Patches

This is the first article in a series of posts where I will be outlining some of the goals for my team for the Ubuntu 10.10 cycle which I am in the process of planning for.

At the heart of Ubuntu development are gifts. People join our community and contribute in a diverse range of ways. This includes documentation, translations, advocacy and many other efforts. Every day we are afforded with many of these fantastic contributions, and if people take the time to contribute a gifts, we should work hard as a community to do the right thing and review and utilize it in Ubuntu if it meets our quality needs.

Fortunately, we have a rather incredible problem to solve: we have many gifts in the form of patches and not enough hands to open them, review them and apply them. This is something I am keen for us to make progress on in 10.10, and I have assigned Daniel Holbach from my team to work on this.

I am a firm believer that the first step in solving a problem is to optimize your visibility on the problem to understand it better, and with this in mind in the Lucid cycle Jorge and the Launchpad team performed some excellent work in putting together a patch view which provides a better and more accessible means of viewing all unreviewed patches for a given project. Beforehand these patches were scattered about Launchpad attached to bugs: now they are in a single view, providing an awesome TODO list for those who are keen to review patches and apply them. It looks like this:

In the 10.10 cycle I have asked Daniel to build a plan for how we can raise awareness of the importance of reviewing patches and how many of our tools and resources can help. We already have a lot of documentation and resources but I believe we need to optimize them for more people contributing and then go and encourage people to join the effort.

This is very much a community project that I have asked Daniel to drive: I think this is good and important work and we would love to hear your ideas about what can be done to improve how we (a) review these gifts (b) encourage more people to get involved and (c) ensure that patches can flow upstream easily. Thoughts?

Posted on March 23, 2010 - by jono

UDS 10.10 Sponsorship Deadline Drawing Close

Just a quick note to everyone: Friday 26th March 2010 is the deadline for applications for sponsorship to the Ubuntu Developer Summit happening from 10 – 14 May 2010 in Belgium.

For more details of how to apply, see this post!

Posted on March 23, 2010 - by jono

Ubuntu Community Team Opportunities: Second Draft

Last week I posted a blog entry highlighting two internship opportunities on my team at Canonical, one for a Ubuntu Community Documentation Author and one for a Ubuntu Community Web Developer. After the announcement went out there was a little flame and fire surrounding the opportunities, particularly surrounding the rules and regulations about internships in different parts of the world. Thank you to those of you who shared constructive feedback about the opportunities.

I was really keen to make sure we do the right thing regarding these opportunities, so today I had a call with our head of Human Resources and HR rockstar Alice Paul, and we discussed the feedback and what amendments to the opportunities that we needed to make. We made a few mistakes I am keen to rectify. Firstly, we referred to these roles as internships, whereas they are more accurately volunteer opportunities and not internships. Secondly, they were too rigidly defined (more like normal job roles). Finally, they were written with the UK in mind (this is where our HR department is based). While the absolute best intentions were at heart (to provide a great opportunity for two smart and enthusiastic folks to get some experience working with my team), some of these mistakes made it sound too rigid. Well, let’s fix these mistakes, get these opportunities in shape, and get this train back on the road again.

So, let’s give this another shot. I am keen to provide an opportunity for two folks to come and spend some time with my team, work on some community projects, and get some experience. They are:

• Ubuntu Community Documentation Author – produce a series of well-written and clear materials about a range of different topics in the Ubuntu community surrounding how to participate.
• Ubuntu Community Web Developer – in conjunction with the team and the community, design new features and solutions for some of our community websites.

All of the projects these two opportunities would focus on are Ubuntu community projects and free and Open Source.

Unlike the previous post, there is no fixed time engagement period or hours for these opportunities: we can discuss these and figure out something that works well for you with your other commitments. As before, these opportunities are entirely optional and unpaid volunteer opportunities for those of you who are keen to get some experience working with my team ; this could be a great addition for your resume.

If you are interested in this, contact Alice Paul at alice.paul AT canonical DOT com and use the subject Community Team Opportunities – please include an up to date resume with your experience and skills.