2008 November Team Reports

If your team is not making team reports, see these guidelines for how to do so.

Community Council

• CC Meeting 08-11-18:

  • Quick update on bug 272826: decision to get rid of the term Ubuntero and generalise the CoC.

  • The Asia Oceania board asked for an expansion of their team of 2-4 members. They will send nominations to the CC and a poll will be set up.

  • Quick update on the TB situation: Mark is waiting for more nominations to have a run-off election.
  • Quick update on the IRC Council situation: nominations have reached the TB. Daniel will chase missing voters of the CC.

Ubuntu Development Teams

Documentation Team

• help website updated to include 8.10 documentation

• New theme introduced throughout help website and help wiki

• Presentation given during the OpenWeek by DougieRichardson

• Improvements made to help wiki guide

• Discussion of reworking the mentoring programme

Mobile Team

• Brutally hack contacts to build a -hildon package ;). Requires review.
• On pursuing an acpid cleanup quest we found a module-init-tools bug: modprobe --all foobar would exit 0, but not with --quiet in the flags; the conclusion from this is that initramfs-tools was leaking a lot of environment vars, including MODPROBE_OPTIONS.
• Tested new python ubuntu-vm-builder and discovered a bunch of small regressions; provided bzr branches for some features and fixed most issues; thanks to Nick for fixing lpia mirror detection!
• Experimented with use of xdm as a display manager for -MID. Initial results were positive. This will become a spec for Jaunty.
• Initial filtering of packages to be removed from the archive as part of Moblin 1.0 EOL and general cleanup from gutsy/hardy Mobile efforts.
• Tried unsuccessfully to find good ways to identify packages that have lpia-specific compilation. Suggestions would be welcome
• bootstrapped an initial build system based on mojo and built an initial kernel based on the linux-omap tree - rolled the image and published it for intrested developers to help getting ARM ready in the archive.

MOTU

Council

• Andrew Starr-Bochicchio became a contributing developer
• Michael Casadevall became a MOTU
• MC Meeting 2008-11-12
  • Open Applications:
    • UUC: Charlie Smotherman, Stefan Lesicnik
    • MOTU: Stéphane Graber, David Futcher, Stefan Ebner, Nathan Handler
    • Core-Dev: Dustin Kirkland
  • Discussion of possible procedure for per-package upload request administration
    • No conclusion was sought or obtained.
  • Discussion of techniques to better trigger MC members to start voting when an application is complete.
    • The proposal under review is to ask that endorsements for a given applicant be included on wiki pages prior to the application being sent to the MOTU Council mailing list.
  • Discussion on MOTU Council meeting format
    • Consensus is to remain with the current structure for the time being.
• Charlie Smotherman became a contributing developer
• Stefan Lesicnik became a contributing developer
• MC Meeting 2008-11-19:
  • Open Applications
    • MOTU: slytherin, nhandler, sebner, bobbo, stgraber
    • core-dev: kirkland
  • Discussion of improvements of the application processes. Expect RFC soon.
• MC Meeting 2008-11-26:
  • Open Applications: MOTU: iulian, koon, slytherin, nhandler, bobbo, sebner, stgraber
  • Application process discussion.
• Onkar Shinde became a MOTU.

Mythbuntu

• Discuss focus points for 9.04
• Ported entire live disk build process to be livecd-rootfs friendly
• Canceled alternate disk builds

Training Team

• Our primary project is updating the Ubutnu Desktop Course materials from 7.10 to the 8.04 LTS version. Many contributors have reviewed the existing material and suggested edits. To see the status of our progress, see the Getting Involvedsection of our wiki.

• The Training Team is now holding weekly mentoring sessions. These sessions cover using the tools (Docbook editing via OO.org v. 3, Bzr and Launchpad)to help us update the Ubuntu Desktop Course. Sessions are held every Wednesday, in #ubuntu-training at 20:00 UTC. Starting next year we hope to add North America evening times as there have been several requests for this.

• Emmajane and Popey have created several screencasts and updated our Knowledge Base to help new users contribute.

Ubuntu LoCo Teams

LoCo Council

• Meeting 10-11-18:
  • South Africa Team reviewed and reapproved.

  • Discussed encouraging LoCos to do their Team Reports. Decided that the LoCo Council will not make an official push, but will see if the News Teams publicity of the Team Reports has any impact.

  • The idea of LoCos having their IRC meetings in #ubuntu-meeting was discussed. The reasoning involved making LoCo members feel part of the greater Ubuntu community, not just their LoCo. It was deemed unnecessary since it would cause major scheduling headaches and require LoCo members to join a separate channel just for a meeting.

Austrian Team

New Austrian Team launched his new forum under www.ubuntu-at.org. We also started to get into the "LoCo Community Process" and as a result I post here.

Plans for the future:

• Setting up a Wiki for better structure of information around our LoCo activities.

• Planning a come together each month
• Planning workshops
• After the tools like the forum and wiki are ok, we will focus on getting as much members as possible in our new community

Danish Team

Yet another nice month for the danish team, and a range of great projects has been planned for the next couple of months.

General:

• The 8.10 Release Party was the biggest event for the danish team yet. Feedback has been great, and we feel it was a success. Planning has started for the next one or two release parties.
• Appeared in National Tv (DR1) equivalent to English BBC in a 20 min. long show about Ubuntu and Open Source.

• We increased the average daily visitor number on the LoCo site by a stunning 71% in 2 months due to heavy marketing campaign. A similar increase in the registered forum user number has been counted.

• A good general increase in the number of active members and participants in the LoCo team.

Projects:

• A new project has been started to redesign/plan out website, from the bottom up. A LP group has been created to the project.
• A danish Ubuntu Podcast is being planned.
• More focus has been put on marketing for Ubuntu in Denmark, both for private and governmental institutions. Discussions about distribution Ubuntu CDs from public libraries and the likes, together with home-made flyers has been taken, and the flyers are being worked out.

Florida Team

German Team

Berlin

• We had a fantastic release party. (Short report).

  • Translation of the officially unofficial party report as posted on the ubuntu-berlin mailing list: The "Ubuntu Berlin" user group successfully accomplished the 6th release party in Berlin on November 1st to celebrate the latest Ubuntu version "Intrepid Ibex". For the fourth time the party took place at the Berlin culture project "c-base e.V." establishing a fine tradition. Once again around 150-200 people took part in the celebration during the night. The agenda consisted of 6 presentations about new features in Ubuntu, the network manager, an initiative for free wireless networks "Freifunk", the semantic Desktop DeepaMehta, tips and tricks for newbies, KDE 4 and of course personal support and demonstrations on the demo computers. To prepare the party the media agency Area42 kindly sponsored 1000 leaflets that were dispersed all over the town, and for the second time the Berlin subway TV "Berliner Fenster" promoted the Ubuntu release and the party to thousands of travellers. Some high profile blogs like netzpolitik.org as well as the popular radiostation "Radio Fritz" made a good point about the event in their news coverage. Amongst the supporting musical program covering a variety of tastes and styles were DJ HighEnergy with live electronic music and the rockband "Hankyfour", while booths for Ubuntu brownies, Ubuntu apparel and Ubuntu origami contributed to the rich variety of activities. As before dozens of still warm [k|x]ubuntu CD's were spread amongst the party people... Our special thanks goes out to Area42, Berlin subway TV "Berliner Fenster", ubuntu Deutschland e.V., c-base e.V. and all volunteers taking part in the preparation and wrap-up of the party.

• Workshop held on 2008-11-20: working with Ubuntu - users show their applications for the daily work (organized as an open talk). There were about 20 people in the audience. More infos in german language at http://www.ubuntu-berlin.de/node/90.

Greek Team

• Published first issue of Ubuntistas (Greek Ubuntu Community E-zine)

• Successful release parties in Patras, Thessaloniki, Chania, Athens

• Ubuntu-gr Forum reaches 1000 members. More than 1300 members by the end of November!

• Received Ubuntu 8.10 CDs pack.

• Presence in Digital Technology Expo Athens, helping HelLUG with their stand.

Irish Team

• 30th October Intrepid Ibex Release Party

Japanese Team

• Ubuntu 8.10 Japanese Remix CD was released on 31st October. (announcment)

• The Japanese Team exhibited at the "Kansai Open Source 2008" on 8th November.

  • In seminar, Hajime Mizuno talked on "Ubuntuのある生活 (Life with Ubuntu)"

  • Published presentation material and movie.

• New archive/CD image mirror server are deployed.
  • Redistributing ubuntu-dvd/ubuntu-umpc too.
• Team member have written articles for following local magazines:

  • Software Design: ～UNIXのテクノロジーを学ぶ～ initデーモンとは何か( -Learning Unix Technology- "What is init daemon")

  • 日経Linux(Nikkei Linux): Ubuntu 8.10サーバー版の正体(True face of Ubuntu 8.10 Server)

Jordan Team

• Meeting to discuss our plan for Ubuntu Week at Jordan University as part of FLOSS week (During December).

• General issues were discussed in this meeting, and a short introduction about Linux and FLOSS was presented especially to new students. The meeting was primarily attended by IT and first year students who were very interested in free software philosophy and ideology. More than 50 Ubuntu GNU/Linux CDs were distributed. The CDs were offered by UBUNTU Jordan LoCo Team.

http://www.just.edu.jo/opensource/article.php?id=38

Romanian Team

• Ubuntu 8.10 and Ubuntu Romanian Team presentation in Targu Mures.

  • Here is the full report with pictures.Adi Roiban talked about launchpad and the romanian team role,also what should be done in the future (translation, bug fixing),Jani Monoses talked about http://kiwilinux.org and how it was created, OpenOffice3 will be included in December release.Marius Popa talked about the new features in ubuntu with live demo about them 3g network connection to local providers,new compiz sphere effect, openoffice3.0 from ppa,new gnome empathy,nautilus tabs,new 2.7.27 kernel with improoved wireless connection with real example everex cloudbook support, demoed the bigbuckbunny movie made with ubuntu also the Yo Frankie! game , also a new game made by szaby.New local lug created after that with many more regular meetings where we discuss about our favorite distro.An local tv station was there at the event (Realitatea TV) and we did an interview for local station Radio Mures.Next time we wil invite all the people from the bar (some people were affraid the get upstairs in the conference theatre room)

• Romanian Ubuntu web services migrate to a new server
• thanks to Stas forum.ubuntu.ro and www.ubuntu.ro were updated and note they are more easy to use

• the first meetings between local Ubuntu Romanian Team members and Romanian users in a series of sessions named „Ubuntu Romania Open evenings”. The meetings took place on #ubuntu-ro IRC channel.

Tunisian Team

• Participation to the Tunisia SFD'2008 : Presentation in the UWN#115 and an abstract.

• Ubuntu at The CLLFST Virtualization Day.

• Ubuntu's day in Sfax.

• 5th regular IRC meeting.

Zimbabwean Team

The Zimbabwean Team had an active and fulfilling month:

• We held our first ever Ubuntu Release Party in Zimbabwe, and it was a great success. We also incorporated an installfest, but didn't get many takers since the crowd was quite small, being our first release party. A few demonstrations were given on Intrepid Ibex, and they were well received by those present. Full report available at http://www.ubuntu.org.zw/node/12.

• Our monthly face-to-face meeting was held on 12-11-08.

• Our local Zimbabwean Web site was launched later in the month (http://www.ubuntu.org.zw).

• Monthly article on Ubuntu in Zimbabwe was submitted on 20-11-08 for inclusion in the Computer Society of Zimbabwe's newsletter.

• The ICT Director for the Parliament of Zimbabwe, who is also a Team Member, was invited to speak at this year's World e-Parliament Conference in Brussels (http://www.ictparliament.org/worldeparliamentconference2008/), and will be giving a presentation on the plans for Ubuntu and open source in the Parliament of Zimbabwe. Since the conference is taking place very late in the month, we will not be able to give a full report until next month.

New Mexico Team

11/25/2008

New developments in our EPC project

Discussions about a wiring plan, cost, and execution. We will be upgrading the lab to LTS on December 20th and 21st. Eric purchased some mesh routers and we will use those to test a wireless solution for the dorm rooms.

11/12/2008

Pictures of the Intrepid Ibex Release Party are on the wiki check them out here.

11/8/2008

Intrepid Ibex Release Party News, and pictures coming soon.

11/3/2008

New Mexico LinuxFest web site started www.newmexicolinuxfest.org

New Mexico Ubuntu News Archive

Italian Team

• The Italian Gruppo sviluppo, the Italian counterpart of the development team, is organizing a BugDay in Bologna for the second Saturday of December. It will not be a feature-complete BugDay, it's a test to understand what needs to be done and what are the necessities for organizing in the future a BugDay. The plan is to hold one in June, always in Bologna. For more information, visit the Italian wiki at: http://wiki.ubuntu-it.org/GruppoSviluppo/BugDay

• The Italian Gruppo web, the team responsible for Ubuntu Italian web site, worked on a restructuring of the home page that now has a new section for a rapid access to the contents.

PuertoRican Team

• Organizing FreeCD Activity for December 4th.
• Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex Launch Party (Pendent)
• Distribution Ubuntu CDs, and focus on provide Ubunto CDs/DVDs on University of Puerto Rico bookstores.

SouthDakota Team

• Ownership of the team transfered to ||MTecknology||.

• Complete redesign of our wiki page: ||SouthDakotaTeam||

• First Meeting - Set road maps and goals.
• Joined forces with 1/2 of state LUGs.
• Hopefully we can achieve much more.

New York Team

• Meetup held in Pittsford, NY on November 6th
• Release party held in Waterloo, NY on November 1st
• Install fest held in Rochester, NY on November 1st

Tamil Team

• Intrepid Ibex Lauch at Tiruppur, TamilNadu

• Intrepid Release Event at Erode, TamilNadu

Full Circle Magazine

• Issue 18 released and doing well, almost 20,000 downloads between 1st Nov and 24th Nov.
• Issue 16 Italian and 17 Hungarian now available for download.
• Issue 19 is being made available to the marketing team prior to release on 28th Nov.
• No Starch Press (via FCM) are sending a book, for review in a future issue, to a member of the Ubuntu Women team.
• We've had enquiries from Brazilian and Turkish translators. Let's hope they take up the challenge...
• Brett Alton will begin writing a Web Dev series from FCM#20 onwards.