20070301
Log
first rough seperation needs work though-- Ausimage 2007-03-01 23:15:31
04:00 jono hi all 04:00 jono is anyone here for the community Q+A? 04:00 LoudMouthMan Hello Jono. === Jucato raises his hand 04:00 omegabeta Yep 04:00 intengu yes === morgs too 04:00 jono righteo 04:00 Jucato ubuntu-meeting-questions seems to be empty though... 04:00 jono yeah 04:01 jono lets just ask questions in here 04:01 Jucato :) 04:01 jono please prefix a questions with QUESTION so I can see it 04:01 jono ok, does anyone want to kick off with questions? 04:01 omegabeta should we start on particular topics and work our way down? 04:01 jono omegabeta: no, the plan is free form 04:01 jono ask any questions you like 04:02 jono so, any questions? 04:02 Jucato are we limited to 1-2 questions per person? :D 04:02 jono nope 04:02 jono as many as you like
04:02 intengu QUESTION: installed gnome main menu herd 4 in control centre groups system 04:02 jono intengu: thats not a question :) 04:02 Jucato heh
04:02 LoudMouthMan QUESTION: Jono how do you feel community is doing. at this moment ? 04:03 boredandblogging why the decision to allow only approved LoCos to have canonical hosted domains and site? 04:03 jono LoudMouthMan: I think things are going well, I think our community is growing, we are developing some good best practise and the teams are beginning to communicate better
04:03 GazzaK QUESTION - if I am rubbish at coding and the like, is a suitable path to ubuntu membership being active on the irc channels and also being the local town's lugmaster? will I be able to become a ubuntu member with a lack of coding/bug fixing skills? 04:03 jono LoudMouthMan: but there is lots of road ahead of us and we all need to work together to share information and experience better
04:03 gord QUSTION: do you see any time in the future where ubuntu community teams will get more support from canonical, for example funding to hold conferences for local businesses or some such 04:03 jono part of this effort is wiki.ubuntu.com/Buildingcommunity 04:04 dabaR GazzaK: is that a serious question? 04:04 dabaR haha 04:04 dabaR Sorry
04:04 omegabeta QUESTION : How do you plan to further the ease-of-use in terms of "out of the box" installs regarding display drivers/ network productivity (installation/finding) for the people that have swtiched from Windows, this seems to be the leap and biggest issue? 04:04 Jucato GazzaK: yes! === Jucato did that 04:04 jono ok
04:04 jono QUESTION - if I am rubbish at coding and the like, is a suitable path to ubuntu membership being active on the irc channels and also being the local town's lugmaster? will I be able to become a ubuntu member with a lack of coding/bug fixing skills? 04:05 dabaR sup with everyone havin voice?
04:05 mobyli QUESTION: herding cats. Companies make products and as such would no doubt like to influence the direction of upstream projects. How is this possible when you cannot use power directly as in a traditional corporate hierarchy? 04:05 jono ubuntu membership is about proviing you are a good contributor, and if you can demonstrate commitment to the CC, you will get membership 04:05 jono it is always recommended that when you apply for membership you have a good body of experience behind you - and there are lots and lots of people with experience in non-coding things such as locos, advocacy, docs etc
04:06 jono QUSTION: do you see any time in the future where ubuntu community teams will get more support from canonical, for example funding to hold conferences for local businesses or some such 04:06 GazzaK jono, thanks 04:06 jono GazzaK: np 04:06 jono Canonical try to support all teams where possible, and in reality, most teams don't need financial support but help and assistance getting off the ground 04:07 jono but remember Canonical are a small company, and have a limited budget
04:07 JohnRobert QUESTION: Why does totem have a video area when I'm playing a music file? I used to be able to resize it away.. 04:07 Jucato O.o 04:07 jono so we try to plough resources into areas that are the most productive places for the money 04:07 jono but yes, Canonical is always open to ideas for funding, speak to me if you want to ask
04:07 jono QUESTION: why the decision to allow only approved LoCos to have canonical hosted domains and site? 04:07 Seveas jono, then I have some tough questions for you later ;) 04:08 jono Seveas: :) 04:08 jono one of the big problems with locos and other teams is that way too much time is spent messing around setting up resources - in reality every team just needs some wiki pages and some structure, as you can see at wiki.ubuntu.com/SampleTeam 04:08 Seveas jono, 404 on that page 04:09 jono so by restricting these resources to approved teams, it means the team has spent their time getting a team built and stable and can then offer the next level of resources 04:09 jono I want to see less time arguing about CMSs and more time *building community* and *building teams* - this is part of the plan 04:09 juliux Seveas, perhaps jono mean this one https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BuildingCommunity/SampleTeam 04:09 Seveas juliux, gracias 04:10 juliux Seveas, prego 04:10 jono sorry, yep https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BuildingCommunity/SampleTeam
04:10 jono QUESTION : How do you plan to further the ease-of-use in terms of "out of the box" installs regarding display drivers/ network productivity (installation/finding) for the people that have swtiched from Windows, this seems to be the leap and biggest issue?
04:10 Eruantalon QUESTION: How is Canonical/Ubuntu making sure that any translations, bugfixes and other improvements are sent upstream and shared with other distros? What is done to make sure we are not duplicating the effort?
04:10 Jucato QUESTION: What is the concrete role of the user community in Ubuntu development or what impact does the user community have in developmennt. How does Ubuntu try to bridge the gap between the developer and user community? For example, how do developers know features that users want or don't want vs. features that developers want or don't want? On the other hand, how are users informed on reasons for some changes or design decisions? or should 04:10 boredandblogging jono, makes sense, thanks 04:10 Jucato users be entitled to such information in the first place? 04:10 Jucato ugh too long.. sorry 04:11 jono thats more of a technical, distro team question 04:11 jono but one thing that is on my radar is to improve getting feedback from the community to developers
04:11 JohnRobert QUESTION: What kind of questions are we meant to be asking here (seriously) 04:11 mooey :) 04:11 jono one thing we *really* need to fix is ensuring people test hardware support *before* release instead of installing a new ubuntu and complaining that stuff is b0rked 04:12 omegabeta JohnRobert: not ones about re-sizing totem
04:12 jono QUESTION: herding cats. Companies make products and as such would no doubt like to influence the direction of upstream projects. How is this possible when you cannot use power directly as in a traditional corporate hierarchy? 04:12 jono ahh cool, a herding cats question, hope you guys like the presentation btw :) === Jucato still has to watch it :(
04:13 intengu QUESTION: /part 04:13 jono it depends on how companies want to influence upstreams - working with open source projects is the same for everyone, irrespective of whether you are a company or an individual - you need to understand the community development process - the problem with many companies is that they run in like a bull in a china shop and cause problems 04:13 Eruantalon jono: Where is it? 04:13 jono everyone has the potential to help upstreams, companies and individuals 04:14 Jucato Eruantalon: http://www.jonobacon.org/?p=878 04:14 Eruantalon Jucato: thx 04:14 jono Eruantalon: http://www.jonobacon.org/?p=878 04:14 jono ahh
04:14 jono <Eruantalon> QUESTION: How is Canonical/Ubuntu making sure that any translations, bugfixes and other improvements are sent upstream and shared with other distros? What is done to make sure we are not duplicating the effort? 04:15 jono Eruantalon: this is a distro team and Launchpad question, and I am not best to answer it - I do know that we always work to get translations, patches and fixes upstream though, but you will need to speak to the distro and launchpad teams about the specifics 04:15 dabaR Eruantalon: #ubuntu-my 04:15 dabaR soirry
04:15 jono <Jucato> QUESTION: What is the concrete role of the user community in Ubuntu development or what impact does the user community have in developmennt. How does Ubuntu try to bridge the gap between the developer and user community? For example, how do developers know features that users want or don't want vs. features that developers want or don't want? On the other hand, how are users informed on reasons for some changes or design decisions? or sho 04:15 jono uld users be entitled to such information in the first place? 04:16 Jucato hehe sorry for the batch question :D 04:16 jono users play a number of roles in ubuntu development: 04:16 jono * telling developers what they want, defining needs through use statistics etc 04:16 jono * giving feedback about ubuntu and what works and what doesnt 04:17 jono * supporting other users via lists and forums
04:17 daviey QUESTION: What is being done to encourage people with coding skills into development? Currently it seems like a cold wall between user and dev 04:17 jono I am really keen to improve the connection between ubuntu developers and users, but intelligently - we can't just ask users to tell devs what they want - devs are always inundated with cracktastic ideas
04:18 AnRkey QUESTION: Who decides what is important and whats not when it comes to what needs to be worked on 04:18 dsas like ponies. 04:18 AnRkey ? 04:18 Vorian lol 04:18 AnRkey rofl 04:18 jono if anyone has any ideas how to improve this, do let me know - part of my role is to take your ideas and claim them as my own === jono laughs 04:18 Jucato lol
04:18 jono <JohnRobert> QUESTION: What kind of questions are we meant to be asking here (seriously) 04:19 juliux JohnRobert, lol === JohnRobert isn't laughing 04:19 Jucato herding ideas know are we? :D 04:19 jono anything about the ubuntu community 04:19 JohnRobert ta 04:19 omegabeta humerously enough, i just applyed updates and i cant do anything except resize this irc window, everything else is frozen 04:19 juliux JohnRobert, sorry
04:19 omegabeta QUESTION : How do you plan to further the ease-of-use in terms of "out of the box" installs regarding display drivers/ network productivity (installation/finding) for the people that have swtiched from Windows, this seems to be the leap and biggest issue?
04:19 jono <daviey> QUESTION: What is being done to encourage people with coding skills into development? Currently it seems like a cold wall between user and dev
04:19 LoudMouthMan QUESTION: I know id like to get more Face/presentation time from any developers willing to give it. is there a way a approved loco team could arrange this e.g IRC meetings or Local Lug or dinner events ? 04:20 jono it is the responsibility of each team to encourage new users to join there teams, so I would like to see coder-friendly teams making an outreach effort 04:20 Jucato omegabeta: that was answered already I think
04:20 JohnRobert QUESTION: Alright then, is there a place where users can spew ideas that devs might look at? Rather than all over our blogs? Y'know, like 'wouldn't it be great if there was a nice gui tool for setting up number of times your ext3 fs is force checked'? 04:20 jono this is another area where I would like to see solid best practise - ensuring that all teams know how to get new users 04:20 omegabeta oops, my bad
04:21 jono <AnRkey> QUESTION: Who decides what is important and whats not when it comes to what needs to be worked on 04:21 jono this is largely a combination of community specs, which anyone can recommend, but the final word comes from the technical board 04:22 jono sensible specs with people to do the work always have a good chance, and remember you are welcome to work on projects for future inclusion
04:22 jono <LoudMouthMan> QUESTION: I know id like to get more Face/presentation time from any developers willing to give it. is there a way a approved loco team could arrange this e.g IRC meetings or Local Lug or dinner events ? 04:22 AnRkey so how do i get them to understand that my poodle is going to be killed because of my pent up rage and the fact that my MX510 has no gui config available 04:22 AnRkey :P 04:22 jono this is always tough 04:22 daviey RE: encourage coders into dev; I would like to see more #ubuntu-classroom lectures - going through package building and such 04:22 dsas jono: Though you should mention that non-canonical people can work on what they want. 04:22 jono we already demand a lot of travel from our paid developers, and Canonical are reluctant to add any more 04:23 AnRkey i feel cut off from devs 04:23 jono dsas: indeed 04:23 jono but every dev lives somewhere, and devs should be contacted directly for speaking appearances 04:23 LoudMouthMan jono: yeah we understand I was thinking of more on the local . dev down the road opportunity. 04:23 jono I am also available and do the odd bit of international travel 04:23 dabaR you should have said that their contact info is on launchpad, so someone can contact them and make them an offer. 04:23 jono LoudMouthMan: contact them directly 04:23 LoudMouthMan but get it co-ordinated in the community. 04:23 dsas LoudMouthMan: we have loads of them here :) I'm sure we could sort something out. 04:24 jono dabaR: I think we can all figure out how to contact people :) 04:24 LoudMouthMan dsas: guadec . hmmm . 04:24 jono LoudMouthMan: you can't coordinate it when their time is so thin and its a local level 04:24 mooey daviey, absolutly. i have the development knowledge to fix a few bugs, but more often than not i do not because i find working with packaging hugely intimidating. its way to complex. 04:24 AnRkey jono: i would gladly pay the bounty for things like a mouse gui for 10 button mice 04:24 jono why have a coordinated system when most devs will only travel within their locality - that would be a system without a problem 04:24 AnRkey and even for a joystick config gui
04:24 jono <JohnRobert> QUESTION: Alright then, is there a place where users can spew ideas that devs might look at? Rather than all over our blogs? Y'know, like 'wouldn't it be great if there was a nice gui tool for setting up number of times your ext3 fs is force checked'? 04:24 AnRkey can i do this and if so how? 04:25 LoudMouthMan jono : cheers
04:25 Seveas QUESTION: Where is jono's cellphone? 04:25 JohnRobert ANSWER: Someplace 04:25 Vorian lol Seveas 04:26 jono you are welcome to contact developers and share ideas, but the best place is to register specs with your ideas - remember though that ideas are not enough - if you can back an idea up with people who can work it, it becomes a real possibility
04:26 jono <Seveas> QUESTION: Where is jono's cellphone? 04:26 jono in a black cab somewhere in London
04:26 Seveas err, i meant: QUESTION: what's canonicals position on having companies/foundations/etc associated with Ubuntu? 04:26 jono although I have a new one now 04:26 jono woo!! 04:26 jono <Seveas> err, i meant: QUESTION: what's canonicals position on having companies/foundations/etc associated with Ubuntu? 04:26 Jucato n73 :) 04:26 jono Seveas: what do you mean?
04:26 Jucato QUESTION: about communication between devs and users. do you have some ideas, even wild ones on how to do this? How about plans on gathering user feedback? 04:27 Seveas jono, basically locoteam sponsoring 04:27 dsas Jucato: There's the forum-ambassadors spec for one. 04:27 Jucato is there a channel for the forum council? 04:27 Vorian Jucato, what do you mean? 04:27 Jucato dsas: what happened to that spec btw? 04:27 juliux Seveas, intersting question;) 04:27 jono Seveas: again, there is limited funding, but in reality, most locos don't need sponsoring - they just need "stuff" - CDs, t-shirts, flyers, posters etc, which we can supply some of, and they can provide the rest
04:27 AnRkey QUESTION: Jono, could you give more info on adding specs. What kind of info or "backup" can i add to help out? I can design a gui but I can't really code it yet... 04:28 AnRkey so add my design ideas or what
04:28 jono <Jucato> QUESTION: about communication between devs and users. do you have some ideas, even wild ones on how to do this? How about plans on gathering user feedback? 04:28 Jucato Vorian: a place to contact them for inquiries? 04:28 Vorian Jucato, forums-council AT lists DOT ubuntu DOT com 04:28 Jucato Vorian: thanks 04:28 Vorian Jucato, np :) 04:28 jono Jucato: I have lots of ideas :) 04:29 dsas Jucato: It's being implemented I believe. I don't know too much about it 04:29 Jucato hehe care to share? :) 04:29 jono I think we need to ensure that user feedback makes sense in the scope of development 04:29 dabaR well, he had the idea to make this meeting. 04:29 jono let me telly you a little story as an example: 04:29 dabaR oh, oh, story time! 04:29 Eruantalon :-) === Jucato sits down and listens attentively 04:30 jono every day my friend would get i from work, and the house would be freezing cold 04:30 jono and every day he would get in and turn the thermostat up to full 04:30 jono two other people I know did the same thing
04:30 daviey QUESTION: is Canonical willing to share any more information on their business interest in Ubuntu? Where do you envisage Canonical involvement in 5 years time? 04:30 jono so I asked if other people did it, and everyone I know does it 04:30 dsas jono: is that your favourite anecdote? 04:30 jono its cold, so they bang the thermostat up to full 04:31 dsas :) 04:31 jono dsas: one of many 04:31 jono banging it up to full does not make it heat up any quicker, but perception makes us do it 04:31 jono so, everyone is wrong when using the thermostat - this shows that mass opinion is not always right 04:32 jono what we need is intelligent feedback 04:32 jono I am not saying only letting clever people share views, but getting those views intelligently and in a form in which our devs can use 04:32 Jucato true... but devs usually have a very high standard for what's intelligent feedback... 04:32 dabaR which is good 04:32 jono Jucato: yes, but devs don't want to read 150 emails every day with ideas 04:33 daviey Jucato, isn't there where bug triage's come in? 04:33 Jucato I mean, from a user's perspective/knowledge, that's the only truth he knows... 04:33 jono what they want is a list of ideas that are (a) doable (b) considered and (c) practical for ubuntu 04:33 jono the biggest problem here is that user feedback is largely randomised - and we need to organise and present it effectively to developers
04:33 jono <AnRkey> QUESTION: Jono, could you give more info on adding specs. What kind of info or "backup" can i add to help out? I can design a gui but I can't really code it yet... 04:34 Jucato that's the hard part :) 04:34 jono specs are registered at https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ 04:34 jono they should be detailed descriptions of a feature, how it would work, what work is required to implement it eg 04:35 jono etc, rahter 04:35 jono rather 04:35 jono each spec has a wiki page associated with it 04:35 jono that is where the spec should be fleshed out 04:35 AnRkey jono: whould holding poodles for ransom until my demands for a mouse gui are met work? 04:35 jono we encourage the community to register specs, and these are discussed at the ubuntu developer summit 04:36 jono AnRkey: poodle abuse is not a good technique 04:36 Eruantalon AnRkey: Do you really have a mouse with 10 buttons? 04:36 AnRkey brb counting 04:36 jono AnRkey: but a detailed spec with how it would work, be designed and some efforts in finding developers to hack on it would do wonders :) 04:36 AnRkey 8 buttons 04:36 jono right, out of questions 04:36 jono anything else? 04:36 AnRkey 2 extra functions 04:36 AnRkey wheelup and wheeldown 04:36 AnRkey 10 total functions 04:37 AnRkey and i USE them all 04:37 Eruantalon wow
04:37 daviey QUESTION: is Canonical willing to share any more information on their business interest in Ubuntu? Where do you envisage Canonical involvement in 5 years time? 04:37 AnRkey in linux i use 7 of them
04:37 jono <daviey> QUESTION: is Canonical willing to share any more information on their business interest in Ubuntu? Where do you envisage Canonical involvement in 5 years time? 04:37 AnRkey Eruantalon: get an mx510 or 518 from logitech and see for yourself 04:37 AnRkey i am in love with these mice 04:38 AnRkey they make me feel wark when i get the latest version :D 04:38 jono AnRkey: can you take the discussion elsewhere 04:38 jono cheers 04:38 AnRkey jono: sorry 04:38 frafu maybe there should be a chart with all the ideas and a little description of their status (rejected, adopted, unconsidered yet,...). The users with new ideas could consult the chart to see whether it really is a new idea 04:38 jono the interests are largely what you see - developing ubuntu, providing support and business services, working with other companies to support ubuntu, hardware relationships etc 04:38 jono there is no devious or secret plan, at least that I am aware of :P 04:38 Eruantalon jono: That' 04:39 Eruantalon s because you're not inner circle yet! 04:39 jono its always about making ubuntu a product that we can derive revenue from
04:39 AnRkey QUESTION: what about a comunity voting system for working out each specs importance? 04:39 jono Eruantalon: hehe, I am pretty close to the center and its all good :)
04:39 jono <AnRkey> QUESTION: what about a comunity voting system for working out each specs importance? 04:39 daviey jono, i appreciate there is no devious plan - i believe that. But surely Canonical can't afford to fund it forever 04:40 jono AnRkey: thats a popularity contest and its not the spirit of free software - you could get one spec called "Death To All Kittens with KDeath in Kubuntu" and get 5000 wackos to support it and it goes in 04:40 jono specs and ideas should go in based on merit and the direction of ubuntu 04:40 jono daviey: sure, we need to be a profitable company, and Canonical has hired a business team to develop these services - training, OEM, ISV, business services, support etc 04:41 daviey jono, thaank you
04:41 AnRkey QUESTION: how is the comminity involved in the choices for which spec to work on and how important it is? 04:41 jono we offer the typical linux distro services, but there is a lot of work in getting that infrastructure up and running 04:41 jono part of my work is to always ensure the link between Canonical <--> Community is clear 04:41 jono daviey: np :)
04:41 jono <AnRkey> QUESTION: how is the comminity involved in the choices for which spec to work on and how important it is? 04:42 jono AnRkey: each community member works on what they want to - they decide is fun and interesting and work on it 04:42 jono any other questions? 04:42 AnRkey jono: so i need to inspire a dev to work on it then ? :) 04:43 daviey AnRkey, write up the spec, draw a sketch and see what happens 04:43 jono AnRkey: write a detail spec about how you would like it to work, and what work needs doing and then go out there and encourage someone to work on it :) 04:43 jono AnRkey: look at the existing specs 04:43 jono to see how it works 04:43 Jucato AnRkey: usually. you either find someone who has the same itch as you, or scratch it yourself eventually :)
04:43 daviey QUESTION: Would the council consider bounty projects, through launchpad, with the proceeds going to ubuntu 04:43 AnRkey jono: thanks for your time, i hope i was not too annoying 04:44 jono of course not AnRkey :)
04:44 jono <daviey> QUESTION: Would the council consider bounty projects, through launchpad, with the proceeds going to ubuntu 04:44 jono bounties from who? 04:45 daviey users 04:45 Jucato rich users... 04:45 jono right 04:45 daviey ie AnRkey wants something and is willing to give say $1 - it would help
04:45 Eruantalon QUESTION: Has it occured to Canonical that if you are really succesful in making Ubuntu a great distro then you will have trouble making money of support...(Hmm ironically my computer chrashed while writing this question) 04:45 jono not a question for me really, thats a decision for the Launchpad and technical board - I don't see a problem myself though - don;t we support bounties for products in LP?
04:45 AnRkey QUESTION: OK last one... Can I sponsor a bounty? So choose a spec and pay it's bounty on behalf of the community?
04:45 jono <Eruantalon> QUESTION: Has it occured to Canonical that if you are really succesful in making Ubuntu a great distro then you will have trouble making money of support...(Hmm ironically my computer chrashed while writing this question) 04:46 jono Eruantalon: haha, thats always the problem, but no vendor in the world has made software that easy to use - there will always be support requirements
04:46 jono <AnRkey> QUESTION: OK last one... Can I sponsor a bounty? So choose a spec and pay it's bounty on behalf of the community? 04:46 jono AnRkey: sure, anyone can set a bounty :) 04:46 jono ok I think we are done 04:46 jono seems like all the questions are in :) 04:46 AnRkey ok outa here 04:46 AnRkey thanks again :) 04:46 Jucato that was fast :) 04:47 jono this community Q+A will be a monthly meeting 04:47 AnRkey ta 04:47 GazzaK thanks jono, good meeting \o/ === Jucato will keep tabs on the schedules :) 04:47 Eruantalon same time and place? 04:47 mooey thank you, jono 04:47 JosefK good timing on my behalf ^^ 04:47 Jucato thanks jono!! 04:47 jono thanks all :)
MeetingLogs/QAjono/20070301 (last edited 2008-08-06 16:25:59 by localhost)