Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #167 for the week
November 1st - November 7th, 2009. In this issue we cover: Lucid open
for development, Ubuntu Open Week review, Updating the Ubuntu Code of
Conduct, Ubuntu Marketing Team revival and SpreadUbuntu, LoCo News:
Tunisia, Norway, New York State, Massachusetts, Ubuntu Forums Tutorial
of the Week, Ubuntu Hits Italian National TV (again), Canonical Matching
Creative Commons Donations, LugRadio Documentary – Now Available Online,
Team Meeting Summaries: October 2009, and much, much more!
== UWN Translations ==
* Note to translators and our readers: We are trying a new way of
linking to our translations pages. Please follow the link below for the
information you need.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Translations== In This Issue ==
* Lucid open for development
* Ubuntu Open Week review
* Updating the Ubuntu Code of Conduct
* Ubuntu Marketing Team revival and SpreadUbuntu
* Ubuntu Stats
* LoCo News: Tunisia, Norway, New York State, Massachusetts
* Ubuntu Forums Tutorial of the Week
* Ubuntu Hits Italian National TV (again)
* In the Press & Blogosphere
* Canonical Matching Creative Commons Donations
* LugRadio Documentary – Now Available Online
* Team Meeting Summaries: October 2009
* Upcoming Meetings & Events
* Updates & Security
== General Community News ==
=== Lucid open for development ===
Lucid Lynx is now open for uploads.
We do not recommend that users upgrade to Lucid at this time; it is
likely to be in very considerable flux until the initial round of merges
is complete. As ever, any developers wishing to take the plunge at this
early stage should ensure that they are comfortable with recovering from
anything up to complete system failure.
Automatic syncs from Debian will begin shortly. Because Lucid is an LTS,
autosyncing will track the Debian testing series for this cycle, rather
than Debian unstable as we normally do.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTSWe expect this more conservative policy for package syncing will enable
us to prepare a more stable long-term support release. The cost of this
approach is that not only regressions will be delayed from reaching
Lucid - bugfixes uploaded to Debian unstable will be delayed too
(packages uploaded to Debian unstable normally don’t reach Debian
testing for at least 10 days). If you believe a newer package version
from unstable is needed for any reason, please don’t hesitate to request
a sync using the normal process:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SyncRequestProcessLikewise, package merges from either testing or unstable are perfectly
ok, as needed. Merge-o-Matic (https://merges.ubuntu.com/) currently
points at Debian unstable; we hope to be able to provide merge data for
Debian testing in a week or so, in the meantime please be aware of this
fact when preparing any merges.
As usual, the release schedule for Lucid is available at:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LucidReleaseSchedule. This year, the first
milestone will come in mid-December, well after UDS, and the end of
automatic Debian package syncs is not planned until February - shortly
before feature freeze itself. Since this cycle’s schedule includes a
significant number of changes compared with respect to past releases,
there’s been a lot of feedback, some of which is still being incorporated.
This may still result in some fine-tuning of the more specific freezes
on the timeline; you can expect this to all be finalized by the end of
this week.
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2009-November/000636.html=== Ubuntu Open Week review ===
With the community on a high from the newest Ubuntu release, Karmic
Koala, Ubuntu Open Week was just what the doctor ordered to help
introduce everyone to all the different facets of the work that goes on
every week to make Ubuntu the top notch Linux distribution that it is.
Every year, the number of participants grows and the presentations get
better. This years open week was no exception and was a huge success. If
you missed any of the sessions, you can catch up on the fun by visiting
the Ubuntu Open Week wiki page here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek There you can click on each
presenters title link to see the logs of the sessions.
Thanks to Nathan Handler and Amber Graner, you can also get a brief
overview of each days talks at the following links:
* Day One:
http://nhandler.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/uow-summary-day-1-outlook-day-2/* Day Two:
http://amber.redvoodoo.org/2009/11/ubuntu-open-week-summary-day-2-outlook.html* Day Three:
http://amber.redvoodoo.org/2009/11/ubuntu-open-week-summary-day-3-outlook.html* Day Four:
http://amber.redvoodoo.org/2009/11/ubuntu-open-week-summary-day-4-outlook_06.html* Day Five:
http://amber.redvoodoo.org/2009/11/ubuntu-open-week-summary-day-5.htmlA big hand goes out to all the presenters, and to all the participants
for their attention and the great questions asked. Everyone learned a
lot about our rockin' Ubuntu community and what goes on behind the
scenes to make Ubuntu the great distribution that it is today!
* You should also check out the review of the new Ubuntu Open Week for
Spanish speaking folks here:
http://huayra.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/ubuntu-marketing-resurrection-and-spreadubuntu-karmic-release-in-norway-ubuntu-open-week-in-spanish-update/=== Updating the Ubuntu Code of Conduct (Benjamin Mako Hill) ===
The Ubuntu Code of Conduct is one of the most surprisingly successful
projects Benjamin has ever had the privilege of working on. On his first
day working for the company that would become Canonical, he talked with
Mark Shuttleworth about some ideas for community governance. Partially
in reaction to some harsh behavior in other free software projects he'd
worked on, Mark and he agreed that some sort of explicit standard for
behavior in Ubuntu would be a good thing. Over lunch of what was my
literally first day working on Ubuntu, he wrote a draft of code of
conduct that was essentially the version that Ubuntu has used until
today. Shuttleworth made a series of modification to my draft but I
don't think either of us took it too seriously. They figured it would be
easy to update it later.
http://www.ubuntu.com/community/conductOver time, that code has become a central piece of the Ubuntu community.
Every new Ubuntu member cryptographically signs the code. When
conversation in any Ubuntu forums, channels, or lists becomes
disrespectful, users almost instinctively remind each other of the code.
Through this process, the code has become a sort of constitution of our
community and a widely enforced standard. People treat the code as a
reflection of what "ubuntu" --- both the concept and our project ---
stands for.
Over time, the original code has spawned a Leadership Code of Conduct
(which Benjamin also worked to draft), and has been modified and
employed by scores of free software projects and by many projects that
have nothing to do with free software at all. This is all wonderful, but
a side effect has been that updating the code has become a more a
difficult process that they originally imagined.
http://www.ubuntu.com/community/leadership-conductDespite its success, the code remains a text written in an afternoon in
Mark's flat. At times, this fact shows. For example, the code contains
some off-hand humor that now seems a little awkward and the text was a
bit too developer centric at points. And there was a lot that, quite
simply, they would have done better if they had realized that the code
would be so important. So this summer, Daniel Holbach and Benjamin spent
another afternoon in Berlin discussing and crafting a new version of the
code along with a detailed rationale document that describes all the
things we'd changed and why.
They believe that what they've created is fully in the spirit of the
original code. They've made efforts to minimize the delta in terms of
text as possible. Daniel and Benjamin realize that changing the code out
from under our community is a dangerous game, and they've make
exceptional efforts to make sure that the new code doesn't say anything
substantively different than the old code --- but that it does say it
better.
After being posted since early June and after incorporating a series of
revisions with members of the Ubuntu Community Council, the new draft
was approved at the latest council meeting.
Of course, they are continuing to think about how they might improve the
text going forward. One important goal they've thrown around, for
example, is the creation of a code that is no longer Ubuntu specific and
that can be employed by a wide range of different groups and different
free and open source software projects.
http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/20091020-00=== Ubuntu Marketing Team revival and SpreadUbuntu ===
The Ubuntu Marketing team has existed for ages but has been a little
unstructured, lacked a vision with a path of action and thus its
potential has not been reached this far. Some good projects have been
created there (The Fridge and the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter being the
greatest examples) but it’s been a long time since some palpable
progress has been made. And that’s just sad, because we can make this
team better.
Now, as the Ubuntu Community matures, the team seems to be gaining
traction again and people, oldies and newcomers, are all excited about it!
As a sign of frustration with the lack of productivity of the team,
Ruben Romero decided to put his time, sweat and tears where his mouth is
and took upon himself to make a reality one of the oldest projects the
Marketing team has had in mind: Spread Ubuntu. But in this, as with
everything in life, wishes are not enough and his lack of time,
technical know-how and Drupal/PHP knowledge could take him only so far.
He had to get a hardcore web guru to join him. One of them, my man
echowarp, aka now Ubuntu Member Evan Boldt, got really into the idea of
Spread Ubuntu. His Drupal ability, technical insight and innovation help
make the Spread Ubuntu site a reality.
http://spreadubuntu.neomenlo.org/With the rise of SpreadUbuntu as a Marketing Team project and its
potential as a central marketing tool for LoCos and newcomers alike the
marketing team seems to finally have aligned itself with the spirit of
the global Ubuntu community and has now gained a place in its awareness.
Things are moving along fast this time and ideas, contributions and
initiatives are flourishing like they never before have!
So, if you are interested in fixing Ubuntu’s bug #1 reported by Mark
Shuttleworth or have a deep desire to see the whole planet (as in Earth
and the SpreadUbuntu logo) Ubuntized here and now is the time to get
yourself involved and get things rolling!
To stay updated join the Marketing Team list and the SpreadUbuntu team
and mailist. You can read more about the team reorganization (sign
yourself up to the list) and come to our meeting starting the 12th of
November at 2400 UTC (1900 EST), follow the Marketing Team Round Table
under the Lucid UDS and join the meeting the week after (Date and time TBD).
These are exciting times!
* Marketing Team List:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-marketing* Spread Ubuntu Team:
https://launchpad.net/~spreadubuntu* Registration:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MarketingTeam/Reorganization* Marketing Team Round Table (Lucid UDS):
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/community-marketing-revivehttp://huayra.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/ubuntu-marketing-resurrection-and-spreadubuntu-karmic-release-in-norway-ubuntu-open-week-in-spanish-update/== Ubuntu Stats ==
=== Bug Stats ===
* Open (73074) +2834 # over last week
* Critical (28) +3 # over last week
* Unconfirmed (37416) +2370 # over last week
* Unassigned (63937) +2640 # over last week
* All bugs ever reported (343795) +6794 # over last week
As always, the Bug Squad needs more help. If you want to get started,
please see
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BugSquad=== Translation Stats Karmic ===
1. Spanish (14367) -304 # over last week
2. Brazilian Portuguese (49156) +5 # over last week
3. French (50673) -51 # over last week
4. Swedish (68583) 0 # over last week
5. English (United Kingdom) (77438) -785 # over last week
Remaining strings to translate in Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala", see more
at:
https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/karmic/=== Ubuntu Brainstorm Top 5 this week ===
* Manage the Grub menu is a bit complicated -
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/22223/* Can't preview .xcf files without Gimp -
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/22297/* Show download rate and add pause option in software center -
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/22197/* When i add an application i have to manually add the correct icon for
the app -
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/22228/* Provide a manager for upstart -
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/22204/Ubuntu Brainstorm is a community site geared toward letting you add your
ideas for Ubuntu. You can submit your own idea, or vote for or against
another idea.
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/== LoCo News ==
=== Ubuntu Tunisia: Software Freedom Day Tunisia 2009 ===
For the third consecutive time our LoCo was present, on October 31th
2009, in the biggest celebration of free software in Tunisia, the
Software Freedom Day 2009. This year the LoCo was directly involved in
organizing this event as our friends Wajih and Mohamed were active
members in the organizing committee.
As usual our LoCo took the opportunity to speak about the ubuntu
distribution, about our community and to distribute dozens of ubuntu
9.04 CDs and disk images of the latest ubuntu 9.10. Two members of our
LoCo ensured the animation of two workshops. The first workshop, led by
Rached, was a presentation of free CMS Drupal. The second workshop, led
by Mohamed, took place around a presentation of WaveMaker tool.
When visiting the different workshops and booths of FOSS clubs, the team
was pleasantly surprised to see that the majority of members PCs were
powered by Ubuntu. To these people they offered, on behalf of the LoCo,
the stickers “Powered by Ubuntu” to replace their obsolete stickers.
During this day two competitions was held for Tunisian FOSS clubs and
communities. The first contest for “the best work of promoting FOSS in
Tunisia” and the second for “the best idea for promoting FOSS in
Tunisia”. At the last minute the organizing committee decided to cancel
the first contest as our LoCo was the unique candidate. But we won,
brilliantly, the first prize in the second competition with our idea
that we have implemented since our approval in 2008 which is: visiting
academic and educational institutions in different Tunisian cities to
promote FOSS alternatives and provide assistance for migration projects
like the one we made at the Engineers National School of Sfax.
* The photo album:
http://ubuntu.nizarus.org/v/sfd09/http://blog.nizarus.org/2009/11/ubuntu-tn-in-the-software-freedom-day-tunisia-2009=== Karmic Release in Norway ===
The Ubuntu 9.10 release got so much attention in the Norwegian IT media
that you could say the phenomenon was unprecedented! See a compilation
of media links in the wiki of the Norwegian LoCo team:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NorwegianTeam/PR#KarmicAs if that was not enough: Ubunter ( -at -) s in Norway are starting to get
involved in the development of the team like never before and they are
right now working on a reorganization of the Team itself, and also
revamping their web presence!
To follow the development of these discussions join the Norwegian LoCo
[Security Announce] [ MDVSA-2009:295 ] apache
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