DetroitTeam

Welcome to the Detroit LoCo Team! We're located in the midwest region of the United States and welcome all Ubuntu Enthusiasts and Users! Our purpose is to advocate Ubuntu and Free Software in our region in accordance with the Ubuntu Code of Conduct.

All team members are encouraged to use GPG to start building a web of trust. If you're unsure, then please get in contact with anyone on the list and we'll step you through the process. You can usually run into us at a michigan!/usr/group meeting, or MDLUG meeting.

Live in the Detroit Metropolitan Area? Are you in a general vicinity of this area until you're ready to form your own team? Then stop on by! We're ready to help you become part of the team! Add yourself to the list and let's put Detroit on the OSS map!

Current Members

• JorgeOCastro - Team Leader (tenative until we pick someone the right way, I'm just trying to get this thing off the ground)

• JimMcQuillan - Project Leader of LTSP, michigan!/usr/group President

• AaronLake - Master of the Universe (MOTU)

• ChrisScheib - UML/Xen guy

• ScottBalneaves - LTSP, Token Canadian(tm)

• AndrewJForgue - LDAP/Kerberos and Clustering Person

• FlaviodaCosta - Generic GNU/Linux Guy

• JimPharis

• MarkRamm

• LouNovak

• StevenHarms

Note: I am in the process of purchasing a local-esque domain name for a mailing list/webpage/contact info kind of deal, but I'm waiting to see if any kind of naming convention is set up for the US LoCo's first.

Hack Fests

One of the strengths of open source is the community that it builds. The sense of community is strongly apparent in the Ubuntu and GNOME user base. Although the open source community is dedicated with an enthusiasm that money can't buy, unsponsored open source projects heavily depend on end user participation. In a sense, these users do the testing and quality assurance in the absence of commercial resources. Different projects have different channels available to users to convey the issue. Ideally, an upstanding user will find the correct channel and log the issue. However, sometimes, the user doesn't communicate the issue correctly, and it falls through the cracks. In some cases, the developer attempted to recreate the problem and couldn't. In other cases, the developer needed more information, but the user failed to followup.

Being the upstanding users that we are here in Metro Detroit, we would like to announce the beginning of a local Hackfest meeting. Different from the traditional LUG meeting, the Hackfest will be more goal oriented. Each meeting, we will focus on contributing to some piece of software. The nice thing about this type of meeting is that it will be easy to come up with topics because there are a plethora of projects that need help.

Defects

• Identify new bugs
• Test existing bugs and provide additional information to developers
• Test existing bug resolutions
• Fix bugs

Documentation

• Write new documentation
• Write new tutorials
• Proofread existing documentation

Usability

• Do usability studies and critiques
• Identify where software can improve and log enhancement requests

Objective

• Build community momentum around Ubuntu and GNOME
• Make real contributions to the community

Meetings will be held every other Friday beginning with the 1st Friday of the month. Our hope is that the meeting location can change to make it fairly convenient to everyone at different times. Our only requirement is that is that the location have free wireless access.

If you'd like to help out, please contact JorgeOCastro, AndrewJForgue, JimPharis or FlaviodaCosta.