* \sh press his thumbs for dholbach :) bring glory to ubuntu :) |
@dholbach | hehe :) |
@dholbach | MJesus: do i have the stage? |
@ThomasWal | sure |
@dholbach | cool |
@dholbach | I'm going to talk a bit about "Helping Develop Ubuntu". |
@dholbach | My name is Daniel Holbach and I started using Ubuntu in the no-name-yet.com days, became a maintainer for Universe |
@dholbach | (the term MOTU was just forged back then) |
@MJesus | Daniel are introduce itself: |
@dholbach | today I work for Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu). I help Sébastien (magic seb) Bacher maintaining GNOME and i'm responsible for community related matters. |
@dholbach | First of all, I think the Ubuntu community is very special among the Open Source communities. |
@dholbach | They have formed around the term Ubuntu. |
@dholbach | "Ubuntu" is an ancient African word, meaning "humanity to others". Ubuntu also means "I am what I am because of who we all are". The Ubuntu Linux distribution brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the software world. |
@dholbach | although some folks say it's an ancient word for "I don't like compiling Gentoo packages." |
@dholbach | but anyways. |
@dholbach | In the Ubuntu world, everybody respects the Code of Conduct. |
@dholbach | you can read about it here: http://www.ubuntulinux.org/community/conduct |
@dholbach | it's not an official rulebook, but everybody talks respectfully to each other, which creates a nice atmosphere. |
@dholbach | the general spirit when talking to people is "we get something done" |
@dholbach | "we make things juts work" and everybody stays quite focussed. |
@dholbach | Ubuntu is organized in a very open way. |
@dholbach | everything is discussed on mailing lists, on the wiki or on IRC |
@dholbach | (#ubuntu-devel on irc.freenode.net is a good start) |
@dholbach | we have open processes and we discuss the general direction together with the community. |
@dholbach | there are no closed curtains. |
@dholbach | we have very important organs in making this work. |
@dholbach | The Community Council. |
@dholbach | there are CC meetings on Irc every two weeks where community related matters are discussed |
@dholbach | as granting membership (which means you have contributed to Ubuntu, you get a @ubuntu.com mail address, your blog can be aggregated on Planet Ubuntu, and so on) |
@dholbach | as well as problems, which occur on the forums or discussing leadership roles |
@dholbach | changes in general processes are discussed there as well. |
@dholbach | these meetings are public and you can join every time (#ubuntu-meeting) |
@dholbach | the other organ is the Technical Board |
@dholbach | which discusses more technical matters, like having different default applications or approaches we take in the distribution |
@dholbach | for the record: not only company members are in these organs, but community members as well. |
@dholbach | additionally, upload rights and the status of maintainers are discussed here. |
@dholbach | so if you plan to become a maintainer, you'll talk to the CC and to the TB as well. :-) |
@dholbach | If you want to hear more about the general rustle and bustle in Ubuntu, you might want to read http://fridge.ubuntu.com and http://planet.ubuntu.com - these contain a lot of information about what's going on in the Ubuntu community |
@dholbach | ok, so much for the organisational part. |
@dholbach | Oh yeah, good point \sh. :-) |
@dholbach | despite all open processes, we have one leader: the sabdfl. |
@dholbach | sabdfl is the "self appointed benevolent dictator for life", which is Mark Shuttleworth |
@dholbach | Ubuntu's founder. |
@dholbach | Despite being just 1,5 years old, there has been a lot of enthusiasm and things going on. |
@dholbach | We already formed a lot of teams: |
@dholbach | MOTU - taking care of the Ubuntu Universe |
@dholbach | the Desktop team: bringing you the delights of the GNOME world |
@dholbach | the Kubuntu and Xubuntu team - bringing your KDE and Xfce up to scratch |
@dholbach | the Edubuntu team, which Oliver Grawert talked about some days ago |
@dholbach | an Artwork team |
@dholbach | the Docteam, the Accessibility team |
@dholbach | our Bug Squashers |
@dholbach | the Translators in Rosetta |
@dholbach | and a lot of LoCo Teams, which make sure that Ubuntu is present in your neighbourhood too |
@dholbach | As I told you, I started off as a MOTU, a maintainer of Ubuntu Universe. |
@dholbach | If you're interested in maintaining software in Ubuntu, this is where you usually start. |
@dholbach | To understand: Ubuntu is divided into 4 sections: main (the officially supported packages), restricted (non-free kernel drivers), Universe (community supported packages), Multiverse (general non-free stuff). |
@dholbach | Universe is by far the biggest of them all. |
@dholbach | Universe contains around 15000 packages. |
@dholbach | (oh btw: MOTU means Master of the Universe) :-) |
@dholbach | Our current team has around 40 members, but 30 MOTU wannabes are just getting the hang out of packaging. |
@dholbach | Our job is to get in new stuff, fix the packages we currently have and do the big transitions. |
@dholbach | we started from scratch and formed our processes as we needed them. |
@dholbach | I think this is a very important "feature". We're quite dynamic, so if we see things that don't work out, we don't have "the holy rulebook", but we adapt. |
@dholbach | Unlike other distributions, in Ubuntu, especially Universe we do team maintenance. |
@dholbach | this enables us to do the big transitions, like python 2,3 -> python 2.4 or the GCC4 transition in just some weeks. |
@dholbach | Of course, we respect everybody's area of expertise. |
@dholbach | That's why we started a bunch of subteams, like the Mono team, a Media team, and teams for Science, Java, Games, ... |
@dholbach | the process for becoming a maintainer is fairly easy |
@dholbach | if you want to package new software (our users place their requests on http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UniverseCandidates), you will try to package it (with help from the motu mailing list or the MOTU channel on irc) and upload it to REVU |
@dholbach | REVU is our next-generation review tool, where it's easy for us maintainers (who have upload rights), to have a look at packages, make suggestions and finally approve them. |
@dholbach | it's the same for existing packages: if you have a fix, you can either add the patch to our bug tracker or upload the package to REVU |
@dholbach | if we're happy with your contributions, you will talk to the Community Council, where you become an Ubuntu member |
@dholbach | and after we're ok with your technical skills, you will talk to the Technical Board, who will make you a MOTU and grant you upload privileges to muliverse and universe |
@dholbach | just to put this into perspective: we had MOTUs who made it in 2 weeks |
@dholbach | All I want to say is: You can make the change, today! :-) |
@dholbach | of course we get a huge momentum from Debian, where we get our packages from (in source form), but we contribute our patches back and merge their changes in regularly. |
@dholbach | we have our own Meetings, and our own plans for work |
@dholbach | If you're technically interested, this is a good place to start. |
@dholbach | Some of the MOTUs have been granted with 'main' upload rights for their good contributions and they change not only the additional software in the archive, but also what you receive on CD. |
@dholbach | another team, I'm happy to talk about is the Desktop Team |
@dholbach | this is the part of the Ubuntu project, taking care not only of GNOME |
@dholbach | but everything related to it, so the libraries, printing, automounting of your USB sticks, ... |
@dholbach | we have good relationships to upstream and a lot of people are interested in the way their desktop looks like |
@dholbach | all the shiny things you see mentioned in Blogs make their way in quickly, so if you have ideas of what we should do, just write to our mailing list |
@dholbach | We also do regular Bug days and we're happy that we had so many contributors last time. |
@dholbach | This brings me to our next team, the bug squashers. |
@dholbach | not only GNOME has bugs, but KDE too, our applications in Universe and so on. |
@dholbach | If you're less interested in coding, the Bug Team looks for people joining it and this is a task where everybody can help out easily. |
@dholbach | vuntz likes to refer to those bug days as HUG days |
@dholbach | because everybody get hugged for a closed bug :-) |
@dholbach | this really matters to us, because bug reports are a way our users communicate to us. |
@dholbach | at this point, i'd like to talk a bit about Maloine |
@dholbach | Malone, sorry |
@dholbach | Malone is part of Launchpad, which is another big project of Canonical |
@dholbach | you can find Malone here: https://launchpad.net/malone - it's a next generation bug tracker, which will make it easy to bring different distributions and upstream projects together. |
@dholbach | The idea behind this was: usually a bug not only occurs in Ubuntu, but in SuSE too and Gentoo and of course in the upstream project as well. |
@dholbach | At the moment, it's very complicated to find out, if Gentoo already fixed it and if we could use their patch and vice versa. |
@dholbach | Malone will make this all easier and the MOTU folks already use it in their day to day activities. |
@dholbach | another part of Launchpad is Rosetta |
@dholbach | where our translators are working day and night to make Ubuntu and the different applications available in *your* language too. |
@dholbach | https://launchpad.net/rosetta |
@dholbach | this is very interesting, if you have a software project and look for translators, because you usually don't start off with big translator teams as GNOME or KDE have. |
@dholbach | the translations are integrated into Ubuntu via "language pack" packages, you can easily download. |
@dholbach | This is usually the first step for our LoCo teams to get involved. |
@dholbach | but that's not all. our list of loco teams (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoTeamList) grew bigger and bigger |
@dholbach | and it's amazing to see how people raise awareness and help other users locally in those teams. |
@dholbach | they join conferences, organize events like installfests and have a lot of fun together. |
@dholbach | i read about the phillipines team, who have a christmas grill session together. :-) |
@dholbach | another team, i'm please to see is the Accessibility team, who started off quite recently. |
@dholbach | we're currently talking to other teams (like the GNOME one) and try to focus on testing of accessibility features like magnifying, text-to-speach, braille and so on. |
@dholbach | of course i didnt mention a lot of other teams, like the Laptop Team, the Server Team, the Kernel Team, ... |
@dholbach | they are all very lively and do an amazing job |
@dholbach | Launchpad makes it very easy to create teams. |
@dholbach | another activity we focussed our community efforts on is Testing |
@dholbach | http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing has test plans and we received a lot of feedback on our test releases |
@dholbach | the last release was tested by the OSDL Beijing which inspired us for the test plans |
@dholbach | Let me finish the talk with some points, what I like about being part of the community: every day was interesting and I learned a lot. You can have a look at all internas, everything is open. I got to know a lot of people around the globe and made friends with them. |
@dholbach | You can change the way Ubuntu looks, you can shape the distro - you can write your own specification, talk about it on the mailing list and consult the technical board. |
@dholbach | You can help to make things just work. |
@dholbach | specifications are usually written at our conferences, where contributors are invited also, but are written and improved every day. |
@dholbach | You can make the change, start now. :-) |
@dholbach | MJesus: you can unmoderate the channel, if you want. |
@dholbach | MJesus: i'm happy to respond to questions. |
@dholbach | . o O { MJesus must be eating again } |
@dholbach | Does anybody have questions? :-) |
mhz | dholbach: i have a question |
@dholbach | mhz: fire away |
mhz | dholbach: 1st, thx for the talk |
mhz | then, I have heard there have been some issues with LUGs or people who use ubuntu name but has not signed CoC |
mhz | how does CC deal with this |
mhz | ? |
mhz | I mean, some people using ubuntu name not always treat others kindly |
@dholbach | mhz: in what way did they use the name Ubuntu? |
@dholbach | oh right |
mhz | like registering ubuntu.country code |
mhz | or #ubuntu but in a diff server than freenode |
@dholbach | usually the Community Council talks to them in a friendly way |
@dholbach | we try to embrace every community effort there is |
\sh | mhz: you have to split those things up |
@dholbach | I'm not aware of any cases where that didn't work |
\sh | mhz: an irc channel named "#ubuntu" on ircnet or quakenet or somewhere != freenode is nothing we can avoid...why should we...IRC is free and nobody can control it |
@dholbach | of course there are people not taking care of the Conduct, but they usually experience that unrespectful behaviour is not tolerated |
mhz | and what will happens if they just keep using ubuntu name and do not 'obey' the CC ? |
\sh | mhz: speaking of domains, there can be a problem with the trademarks of "Ubuntu" which are held by canonical |
mhz | ok, so anyone can use 'ubuntu' name for their purposes? |
@dholbach | we can't force people to do things and we usually don't have to |
mhz | \sh: oh. i see |
mhz | dholbach: so, so far, experience with CC communications has always been good? cool |
\sh | mhz: what we can do, is to tell the people: "the real ubuntu dream is on freenode" the "real ubuntu webpage is ubuntu.com" |
@dholbach | I'm happy to say that we usually don't expect problems and try to defend ourselves, but expect people to be kind and help them to improve the situation. |
@dholbach | and that works well, because people feel that we empower them. |
mhz | dholbach: indeed, otherwise, this big growing wouldn happen |
@dholbach | and take them seriously. |
@dholbach | mhz: are you 'mhz' on the Ubuntu channels too? |
mhz | yup :) |
\sh | mhz: well...to make this clear: "Ubuntu" the word is Zulu and you can't forbid anyone who knows zulu to use this word |
@dholbach | mhz: excellent, you did very well. I was at the CC meeting too. :-) |
mhz | \sh: and what happens with ubuntu name on merhcandising. Can it be used by anyone? |
@dholbach | mhz: some people do, like www.ubuntu.ch |
mhz | dholbach: thx, you are doing well, too :D |
@dholbach | merci beaucoup |
@dholbach | mhz: i hope that answered your question. :-) |
@dholbach | are there any other questions? |
mhz | 100%, dholbach |
xorAxAx | hi mhz |
\sh | mhz: If they have the permission of Canonical they can use it...if not, well, I think if they are not "corrupting" the trademark or the "brand" "Ubuntu"... |
mhz | xorAxAx: hi, moin master |
\sh | mhz: there is no need to call a lawyer |
@dholbach | \sh: yeah, quite luckily we didnt have that many problems. |
mhz | \sh: ok :) just wondering. |
@dholbach | thanks mvo, vuntz, mhz, \sh, siretart and everybody else from the Ubuntu folks. :-) |
* mvo claps for dholbach |
* \sh hugs dholbach...well done :) |
@dholbach | thanks a lot |
@Oroz | thanks dholbach |
* mhz claps dholbach and the ubuntu people... and Mark |
* \sh looks around...where he is hiding? ,-) |
siretart | good job, dholbach :) |
* mhz wonders why no one asked about Debian :D |
* mhz couldnt help it ;) |
\sh | what about debian? |
* dholbach expected more questions as well |
\sh | dholbach: how do you work together with debian? |
@dholbach | I just interpret it as a sign of "everybody knowing already enough about Ubuntu". :-) |
@dholbach | \sh: good question |
mhz | \sh: usually, AFAIK, ubuntu devels get asked about Debian relationship and why some DD do not consider Ubuntu 'fair' |
\sh | .oO(it was more rethorical...but...) |
@dholbach | when I introduced new packages into Ubuntu, I usually told the utnubu project |
ASCIIGirl | is ubuntu people uploading the patched they do for ubuntu on debian? |
@dholbach | ASCIIGirl: i'll answer your question now, get back to you later, \sh |
@dholbach | ASCIIGirl: I for example am not a Debian maintainer |
@dholbach | so a Debian Developer could only sponsor me uploads for their package |
ASCIIGirl | at least on debconf5 that was what ubuntu said was going to start doing :) |
@dholbach | Ubuntu provides all the patches we do, sorted by package. |
\sh | ASCIIGirl: some do and can, when they are DDs, or have sponsors, others don't ( like me (i don't even have a sponsor), or dholbach ) |
ASCIIGirl | you can upload the patch to the bts...and the mantainer will probably love to have that patch ;) |
@dholbach | ASCIIGirl: I think you must have misunderstood. We generally can't "just upload" and we won't. |
@dholbach | for some simple reasons: |
ASCIIGirl | you dont need a sponsor...at least not the same one :) you can report the bug |
\sh | ASCIIGirl: the problem is, that 60 people can't send patches towards 20k packages |
@dholbach | first of all: we sometimes take a different direction |
@dholbach | Ubuntu made changes like introducing non-free drivers, which Debian just won't do. |
ASCIIGirl | report the bug + send the patch would be nice I guess... :) |
@dholbach | Ubuntu has different artwork, has Python 2.4 as default and so on. |
@dholbach | ASCIIGirl: some maintainer in the Debian world, don't like that and we respect that. |
\sh | ASCIIGirl: but we provide a patch tool (keybuks tool) where all diffs against debian and ubuntu are stored and could easily be catched by the package maintainers |
@dholbach | ASCIIGirl: the utnubu project are discussin this idea momentarily. |
ASCIIGirl | where I can find more info about that sh? |
@dholbach | http://people.ubuntu.com/~scott/patches/ |
ASCIIGirl | thx... |
\sh | dholbach: thx :)P |
@dholbach | the reassoning is easy to understand: for every upload we do, this would result in a bug report in Debian. |
ASCIIGirl | and sh..when I become a dd you can knock my door if you want something sponsored :) |
@dholbach | ASCIIGirl: cool :-) |
@dholbach | ASCIIGirl: good luck with that. |
ASCIIGirl | thx... |
\sh | ASCIIGirl: oh well....thx :) can you handle 300 uploads per week? ,-) |
@dholbach | haha |
ASCIIGirl | heheheh... |
* mhz cheers ASCIIGirl |
* mvo would like to point out that the packages.qa.debian.org contains a link to the ubuntu patches |
ASCIIGirl | you have mentors.d.o |
@dholbach | \sh: back to your question: apart from talking to the utnubu project, I reply to ITPs (intent to package bugs), when i see that somebody wants to package new software and we have it already |
\sh | ASCIIGirl: depends on my time and my RL responsibilities I will go the way of a DD :) |
@MJesus | :)) |
@dholbach | ... to give them a better start off |
ASCIIGirl | relationship between debian and ubuntu is veeeeery difficult....but think should work much more togeather |
@dholbach | ASCIIGirl: I'm very happy to see the Utnubu project taking off. |
\sh | ASCIIGirl: the problem is: "we can't solve social problems with technical solutions" |
@dholbach | yes, every patch has to be considered separately and we already talk a lot. |
\sh | ASCIIGirl: fact is...there are 95% of debian package maintainers who wants to work closely together with the ubuntu people |
ASCIIGirl | uhmmm...sh so social problens need to be fixed first |
@dholbach | the gnome teams work VERY closely together |
@dholbach | as the Mono Teams do and so on |
mvo | the package tool team (apt/synaptic/dpkg) as well |
mhz | ASCIIGirl: i have only 4 DD in my short life, 3 of them said ubuntu was a distro they wouldnt use, and 1 said ubuntu had lots of potential (may, 2005) |
@dholbach | we DO have good relations. if people refuse our patches, that's their decision. |
\sh | ASCIIGirl: but 5% are not wanting that...and as in any other society, those 5% are heard |
mhz | s/ony/only met |
ASCIIGirl | sh...anyway I think is much acceptance from debian..if not wont be included their talks on debian events, for example :) |
\sh | ASCIIGirl: I made a lot of good experiences with debian maintainers and I'm working as well with some of them quite closely together... |
@dholbach | I think this is a good thing. Derivatives always make the "Original" stronger, because more opinions are considered and the basis is always made to *just work* for every use case. |
ASCIIGirl | I have no idea how...but should get closer each other...not doing the same work twice... |
\sh | ASCIIGirl: let's say it like this: Without Debian I think we are nothing... |
\sh | ASCIIGirl: but debian can rely as well on our work... |
mhz | \sh: indeed |
@dholbach | I'm confident this will work out. |
mhz | dholbach: we should invite DD to HugDay :) |
\sh | ASCIIGirl: if they want...and only then. we do a lot of things different (technically python2.4 vs. python2.3) but we can help them a lot |
ASCIIGirl | hope so..I been hearing about for 1 year and a half..and I think is time to solve it and keep working |
ASCIIGirl | eheheh HugDay...europeans dont like hugs :P |
@dholbach | WE DO! |
* dholbach hugs ASCIIGirl |
mhz | KissDay ? |
@dholbach | where are you from? not from europe? :) |
* ASCIIGirl hugs dholbach :P |
* mvo likes hugs |
ASCIIGirl | nop... argentina, south america |
@dholbach | cool :) |
ASCIIGirl | we are latin .. and we hug, boys say hi with a kiss |
* dholbach hugs vuntz |
ASCIIGirl | so when I met many DDs in europe they were like...everything is fine, but dont kiss me! |
\sh | well..yeah that's different |
@dholbach | vuntz likes that especially |
@dholbach | haha :) |
mhz | ASCIIGirl: we need more LA people working on wiki and IRC |
ASCIIGirl | here there are lots of people wanting to do something.... |
\sh | boys in germany will say "hi" with a "beer" in their hands :) |
ASCIIGirl | hehehhe sh! thats a good way |
@MJesus | :)) |
@dholbach | are there any other questions? |
@dholbach | like "Where did the naked people in the art work go?" |
\sh | ASCIIGirl: but I'm not a boy anymore...could be your grandpa I think :) with at least 35 ,-) |
ASCIIGirl | anyboody else wants a hug? :) |
mhz | ASCIIGirl: Edubuntu needs LA people very much, we are working on crossing educatiopnal apps with curriculum |
\sh | dholbach: "Where did the named people in the art work go?" |
\sh | aeh |
\sh | dholbach: "Where did the naked people in the art work go?" |
@dholbach | \sh: mvo is longer with Ubuntu than I am, maybe he knows. |
\sh | dholbach: I think it wasn't appropriate |
mvo | \sh: unfortunately wasn't in the photo-shooting so I don't know :P |
ASCIIGirl | the ubuntu hug with naked people??? |
@dholbach | i liked them, but anyway. Are there still questions? |
mhz | \sh: it was meant to express the 'born of linux for human beings' maybe |
\sh | but actually...launchpad.net and lets create an "Adult Ubuntu" team :) |
jpatrick | \sh: I can't join :( |
* mvo wonders if this goes into the right direction |
ASCIIGirl | youre not adult jpatrick ? :) |
\sh | mvo: I think this is another part of Ubuntu...."we have fun" |
@dholbach | OK, any *serious* questions? |
ASCIIGirl | heheheh dholbach :) |
@dholbach | if not, i'd very much like to thank MJesus for this opportunity. |
\sh | ASCIIGirl: so...come around on irc.freenode.net (chat.freenode.net) and visit us in #ubuntu-motu :) |
ASCIIGirl | Im in freenode... |
mhz | dholbach: will ubuntu tour include LatinAmerica? |
@dholbach | I wasn't aware of Umeet at all and I think it's a very good idea, keep up the good work! |
mhz | yes, thanks MJesus |
lucasvo | dholbach: will it include Switzerland? :D |
@dholbach | mhz, lucasvo: that's something you should talk to jdub about. |
mhz | okis |
@dholbach | He's Ubuntu-on-Tour. :-) |
lucasvo | dholbach: ok |
@Oroz | dholbach: six years of umeet already, where have you been? ;) |
ASCIIGirl | would be nice to have ubuntu people over here..in LA |
@dholbach | Oroz: good question. Obviously not at the right place! |
@Oroz | :) |
* dholbach bows. |
* Oroz claps |
@dholbach | Have a nice evening, everybody! |
@Oroz | thanks dholbach |