Archive for the ‘Community’ Category
Posted on August 30, 2010 - by jono
Incredible Stories Of Free Software and Open Source
A little while back I blogged about wanting to reconnect with our ethos. In a continuation of that theme I am keen to talk about stories.
I have talked about stories quite a bit in my writings on community management (particularly so in my book The Art of Community). Stories are important entities in communities – they are vessels in which we share ideas, lessons we have learned, our experience and more. Many stories come laced with these underlining nuggets of wisdom that we then take aware and help us to refine and improve how we interface with the world and the people around us.
Stories though encompass another significant benefit: they allow us to inspire and encourage others via real-world practical examples of our ethos being put into practice.
A story I share at every Ubuntu Developer Summit is that when I started working as the Ubuntu Community Manager I got a lovely email from a kid in Africa who would walk two hours to his local town where he would spend his own money to buy Internet time in an Internet cafe to contribute to Ubuntu and then walk two hours back home. This story was powerful to me. It told me that my job is to help that guy get the most out of his hour, to justify his investment of energy and expense to just get involved in the first place. His story was inspiring, encouraging, and an impressive example of commitment. I always share this story at UDS as an inspiration for us to get the most out of each one-hour session.
These stories benefit us all, and in the continued theme of reconnecting with our ethos, I wanted to ask you folks what are the most inspiring and encouraging stories of Free Software and community that you have heard? Which story have made those little hairs on the back of your neck stand on end?
Posted on August 26, 2010 - by jono
This Friday: Rockridge Ubuntu Global Jam In Berkeley
Just a quick reminder: as part of our awesome Ubuntu Global Jam I am organizing the Ubuntu California Rockridge Jam at A’cuppa Tea, College Ave, Berkeley. The jam is from 10am – 6pm – I hope to see you there!
Don’t live near me? Go and find your nearest jam or organize your own!
Posted on August 25, 2010 - by jono
Rocking The Application Indicators
Some time back the Ayatana project introduced the Application Indicator Framework, based upon technology created by the KDE project. We have been shipping this technology in Ubuntu for a few releases now and it makes the top-right part of the desktop a smooth, efficient, and pleasant experience, getting over the inconsistent and limiting notification area we had before.
To help build integration in the GNOME panel for this indicator work we had Ted Gould, Cody Somerville, and Jason Smith produce an implementation complete with C, Python and C# bindings, had Aurélien Gâteau continue to perform his excellent work with KDE, and Jorge Castro to help spread awareness of this work. In addition to this we contracted some developers to port apps with notification indicators that we ship in Ubuntu to the new framework, and this included apps such as Brasero, GNOME Bluetooth, GNOME Power Manager, Gnome Settings Daemon, XChat-GNOME, iBus, Nautilus, Policykit GNOME, Empathy, Gwibber and more. All of these patches are publicly available if other distros would like to use them.
The community has really got involved with the technology too, with community patches for Lernid, Banshee, LottaNZB, and DejaDup, and System Monitor, Weather, Screenshotting, Workspaces, Device Mounting indicators, support for the indicator framework built into AWN and Lubuntu, and more. I am absolutely delighted to see so much interest from application developers in the technology.
Posted on August 24, 2010 - by jono
Articulating IRC Contributions Concisely
Today I had a call with Jussi from the Ubuntu IRC Council. We spent some time discussing a range of different topics, but then Jussi raised an important question which I think could benefit from some community discussion.
Today we have many methods of providing free support for our users – the Ubuntu Forums, Launchpad Answers, Ubuntu StackExchange and of course IRC. With each of the web resources there is a method of identifying those who are providing a significant and sustained contribution when providing support by checking their account profiles.
Unfortunately we don’t have this today for IRC. The simple reality is that there are many community members who use IRC every day and provide fantastically valuable support for our community, but there is no way of sufficiently articulating their contributions in a way that could, for example, be assessed for Ubuntu Membership.
The outcome I would like to achieve here is that someone in the IRC community who provides support could apply for Ubuntu Membership and the Ubuntu Membership Board could take a look at a profile that accurately and concisely summarizes their contributions, thus identifying that such contributions are significant and sustained, and therefore suitable for membership.
One option I was thinking could be something that I am thinking of as a ‘thankbot’. Imagine this context
<jono> hey, how do I do X, Y, and Z on Ubuntu?
<erica> hi jono, all you do is click on the frizometer and select babang.
<jono> ahh, that is it, thanks so much!
<erica> jono, it would be
<jono> thankbot erica
<thankbot> erica got thanked by jono - erica has been thanked: 28 times
We could then provide a means for others to check how many times a given person has been thanked, and it could be even cooler to have IRC client plug-ins that shows the number of thanks next to the persons nick.
Of course, the bot would want to be armed with the ability to not be gamed (such as limiting the number of thanks from the same person, to avoid spamming the bot), but these would all be details.
Could this work, and if not, is there a better idea out there to solve the problem of providing better visibility on our contributors who provide great support?
Posted on August 24, 2010 - by jono
Revisiting Ethos
When I first heard about Free Software in 1998 I was mesmerized by it’s potential. Sure, back then the software was complex and some would argue ugly, but underneath the rough edges was a thing of beauty — the opportunity for people to come together to make new things, and anyone with the inclination and energy could take part. Back then our community was small and intimate. Most people seemed to know each other, and there was a tremendous sense of family within Free Software.
Things are quite different today: while the ethos has remained unchanged, Free Software and Open Source are popular concepts and terms, we have many comprehensive Free Software platforms, and our small community has now become a huge, sprawling, global community that has diversified; inspiring everyone to bring their gifts and their talents to the community.
So, why am I talking about this? I think these days it is easy for us to purely focus on the ones and zeros, the bugs and patches, the squabbles, the emails, and the challenges that face Free Software. While these things are part and parcel of our community, I worry sometimes that we forget the very human reasons why many of us got involved.
I was reminded of this last week. I was having a pretty shitty day, I had spent most of the day on the phone, I had oodles of email and TODO items to get though, and I was just feeling a bit tired and worn out. As my day came to end I saw a tweet show up on my desktop from someone who had just used Linux for the first time and was expressing how excited they were at exploring their new system. When I read it it took me right back to 1998 when I felt exactly the same way.
My take away from that day was that I think it is healthy for us to remind each other why we got involved in Free Software and Open Source, and I wanted to ask you all what attracted you, and what still attracts you to our community. To be frank — I don’t care which community you are in, whether it is Ubuntu, Red Hat, Solaris, GNOME, KDE, X, OpenStreetMap, whatever — I am more interested in the ethos which transcends the borders if these different communities.
So, why are you passionate about Free Software and Open Source?
Posted on August 23, 2010 - by jono
11.04 Ubuntu Developer Summit Announced
Hot on the heels of the announcement of the Natty Narwhal, I am tickled pink to announce the details of the next Ubuntu Developer Summit taking place in Orlando, USA from 25th – 29th October 2010. We also have a brand new Ubuntu Developer Summit website which provides all the details about how to get there and why UDS is interesting if you are in our community, if you are an upstream, and if you are a vendor.
The Ubuntu Developer Summit one of the most important events in the Ubuntu calendar and at it we discuss, debate and design the next version of Ubuntu. We bring together the entire Canonical development team and sponsor a large number of community members across the wide range of areas in which people contribute to Ubuntu. This includes packaging, translations, documentation, testing, LoCo teams and more. UDS is an incredible experience, filled with smart and enthusiastic people, fast paced and exhausting, but incredibly gratifying to be part of the process that builds the next Ubuntu.
For every UDS, Canonical sponsors a number of community members to attend the event. We are looking for those who want to bring some real insight and expertise in their area of Ubuntu, be it development or community governance. If you feel you could offer this but can’t afford to cover your expenses of attending, you should apply for sponsorship. The deadline for sponsorship is 8th September 2010.
Posted on August 20, 2010 - by jono
On Visibility And Change
OK, before I begin, this is going to be a terribly presented ramble. I have written it, proof read it, and proof read it again, and it still sounds like a child with a crayon wrote it. This is because my thoughts are unstructured, but I am keen to share them anyway. Patience is appreciated, friends…
Recently I have been thinking about how my work as Ubuntu Community Manager balances out between the work I perform with volunteers in the community, and employees of Canonical who contribute to the community as well as other business units. The reason for these thoughts is that recently I have been feeling that I could do a better job of spending more time with our volunteers and supporting them with their goals. We have a tremendous, inspiring, hard-working and excitable community…and I have just been feeling like I could improve in how much “face time” I have with our active contributors.
So, I have been evaluating methods in which I can do this. As I thought more about it, I came to the realization that part of the limitations on my time these days is because my responsibilities today compared to my responsibilities when I started this role are two quite different places.
Just under four years ago when I joined Canonical as the Ubuntu Community Manager, life was a lot easier. Back then it was just me, I had no team, the company was a lot smaller, and not only were there no direct reports for me to manage, but there were far fewer other departments, units, teams, and other entities that needed input from me. When I started I had three primary high-level responsibilities:
- Provide leadership and guidance in a core set of community projects.
- Help to resolve and unblock issues and problems across the community.
- Provide inspiration and encouragement for the community to feel passionate about the problems we are trying to solve and the opportunities that we are seeking together.
The majority of time working on these goals was working with our volunteers. I certainly did have tasks and objectives within the company, but by and large the majority of my focus was with our volunteers. One might suggest I was “foot loose and fancy free”, if you can say that about someone who plays in a thrash metal band…
Today things are quite different. I now have four employees who report to me, I am now a platform manager (this means I am one of the managers on the Ubuntu team), and the company has grown significantly in size, which means far more departments, units, teams, projects, and other entities who have subsequently requested input and assistance from me. Of course, I myself have experienced this change and growth first-hand, and so have my colleagues, but I have also realized I have not done a very good job talking about this change with our community.
Today my role has evolved to include an additional three high-level sets of requirements:
- Provide leadership and guidance in a core set of community projects.
- Help to resolve and unblock issues and problems across the community.
- Provide inspiration and encouragement for the community to feel passionate about the problems we are trying to solve and the opportunities that we are seeking together.
- Manage a team to help them be successful in their own work and bring value to the community.
- Provide guidance to other teams and units inside Canonical.
- Provide a public face and representation for Ubuntu (and increasingly, Canonical).
The challenge that I have faced is that these latter three additions require a significant amount of work. As one such example, my team is very distributed — I am based in California, Jorge is in Detroit, Daniel is in Berlin, David is in València, and Ahmed is in Cairo. With us being so distributed, I consider 1-on-1 time with the guys as very important in helping them to be successful in their roles and feel a strong sense of team spirit and morale. As such, it is important to me that I have an hour each week with them on a voice call for 1-on-1 time. When we take those four hour-long calls and also add our team call, that already sucks up half a work day just for the team. When we then factor in all the other interaction between the team and the guidance the team rightly expects from me, “managing the team” takes up a significant amount of time. Of course, it is valuable time, and time well spent and important for our team, but it is also time in which I am primarily working with my colleagues as opposed to volunteers.
Another element has been the sheer growth of Canonical. We are much bigger than we were, and I see a core responsibility of my role and my team’s role is in helping those who join us, particularly those who don’t come from an Open Source background, to get a strong sense of our community values and commitments. This not only involves helping to on-board new team members, but with six times as many employees than when I started, it also significantly raises the number of instances in which such team members are looking for help and guidance to ensure that such community relations, which are so important to the company, are well executed. Again, this is important and valuable time well spent, but again time in which I am primarily working with the company and not volunteers.
Finally, Ubuntu has become a global phenomenon. It has become increasingly a house-hold name, a common sight in coffee shops and trains, and with this success has developed (a) a lot of press interest and requests for comment, and (b) an increasing level of critique and expectations from a wider demographic of users. As one of the more public personas associated with Ubuntu and Canonical, I am therefore often expected to provide input and commentary to the press and elsewhere, particularly with anything community-related (which is a pretty wide spectrum of content both actually within and often outside my domain). Again, important and valuable work, but time handling company responsibilities as opposed to working with volunteers.
Of course, while the scope of responsibility has increased with these additional three areas, my time available has not really increased (it increased a little as I work longer days now and I travel a lot less ever since I got married), and as such the additional areas of responsibility have naturally cut into the time that was originally devoted to the first three areas I outlined which were primarily volunteer-targeted. This is why some of you who have been following my work for a long time may have picked up that I am spending a little less time collaborating with our volunteers than I used to – I am basically knee deep in these other responsibilities.
Now, this is to be expected. I now have a team, and priority is my team and their success. Part and parcel of having a team grow up around you is that you end up spending more and more time being a manager and helping your team to enjoy a structured, safe, and enjoyable work environment. In traditional management, this is common and the manager becomes a little less visible to the team as she is focused on managing the team and the expectations of the team from key stakeholders in the company (and in our case, the community).
The problem is, I don’t want to be less visible.
I believe that having a close and hands-on relationship with the Ubuntu contributor community is important, and irrespective of whether it is “important” or not, I just enjoy spending time with our community; they are my friends, my peers, my colleagues, and in many cases people who inspire me.
So, after all this rambling I wanted this blog post to achieve two primary goals. Firstly, for those of you who have not seen me as much as you did a few years back, I hope this explains a little about why that is. Secondly, if you have any ideas and suggestions about techniques and approaches that I can use to continue to fulfill my expectations to my team and peers, but squeeze in more “face-time” time with our volunteers, I would love to hear. Oh, and before some smart arse suggests it…spending more hours in front of a computer is not really an option; I don’t want solve one problem (trying to find smarter ways of working to spend more time with our volunteers) and replace it with another (my wife get the hump that I am working too much).
Thanks for reading.
Posted on August 17, 2010 - by jono
Thankyou, Debian
Debian is awesome. You know that, I know that, we all know that, and 17 years ago Debian entered into our lives. Before I joined the Ubuntu project I was an avid Debian user, and still am. Ubuntu owes a huge amount of thanks to Debian and it’s global family of contributors for all of their incredible work.
If you would like to find out more about Debian, here are some links:
You can download the latest Debian release from here, and be sure to go and thank Debian here.
Thankyou, Debian, and long may you prosper! 
Posted on August 6, 2010 - by jono
Request For Candidates: Application Review Board
In Belgium at the last Ubuntu Developer Summit, we had a fantastic set of discussions about how we could create a process that empowers application developers to bring their applications into the Ubuntu Software Center much easier. Today our developer and packaging processes are more designed for a contributor who wishes to contribute to the Ubuntu Platform as opposed to an application developer who wants to get exposure for her specific application in Ubuntu. As such, if you are an application developer and want to get your app in the software center, the process is probably too complex and involved.
We identified this disconnect at UDS and Rick Spencer and I proposed a process in which application developers can propose an application for approval by a community-driven review board, and when approval is granted their application will appear in the Ubuntu Software Center. This review board will assess the application for technical merit, packaging quality, perform a code review and ensure it is safe.
Since UDS I have been working on a proposed process (which you can read here) and first engaged in a series of discussions with some community members and then proposed the process to the Ubuntu Technical Board (Matt Zimmerman, Colin Watson, Kees Cook, Mark Shuttleworth, and Martin Pitt); our governance body that discusses and evaluates technical policy in the Ubuntu project. I am pleased to report that after a series of modifications and clarifications, the Ubuntu Technical Board have approved the process.
It is important to stress, and I know the Technical Board would like to ensure this is clearly communicated too, that this process is very much a first cut. While a mature and well-discussed process, we fully expect it to refine and change, and at the next Ubuntu Developer Summit we plan on reviewing the process and improving how it works.
Finding Our Application Review Board
With the process approved, the goal now is to find members to join the new Application Review Board. We are going to be looking for 5 – 7 members who exhibit the following skills:
- Strong technical experience.
- Strong experience of the Ubuntu platform and the desktop.
- Knowledge of packaging to effectively assess other people’s packaging work for quality.
- Enough free time to commit to reviewing the applications and providing timely feedback.
As a bonus:
- You would be a core-dev or MOTU.
- A knowledge of programming, so as to perform a code review.
Anyone and everyone who satisfies the above criteria is welcome to apply. There are no specific requirements for location; you can be based anywhere in the world.
If you are interested in applying, head to this page and follow the instructions. The Ubuntu Technical Board will ultimately assess the applications and decide who the final board will be. For full details of the expectations of a position on the board, read the codified charter.
The deadline for applications is 31st August 2010.
Posted on August 4, 2010 - by jono
At Home With Jono Bacon
Just a quick FYI: tomorrow (Wed 4th Aug) I will be hosting my weekly At Home with Jono Bacon videocast at 11am Pacific / 2pm Eastern / 6pm UTC and I will be covering the following topics:
- CALL FOR EVENTS: Ubuntu Global Jam
- HOWTO: Team Reporting
- LoCo Council
- Q+A
I hope to see you all there at the live recording!
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