ReApprovalApplication2011

Key Details

Introduction

The Ubuntu UK LoCo team has 845 members in its launchpad group and an active mailing list and IRC channel where members provide support and have discussions about Ubuntu. We have compiled some statistics of mailing list activity and the IRC channel activity.

We have a website where we post some news articles and allow users to mark themselves on a map of the UK to help find people in their local area. We have been using the LoCo directory for organising the sign-up for some of the more recent events.

As well as LoCo team activities, a lot of our members are individual contributors to Ubuntu, in the main forums, the #ubuntu IRC channel and through development activities and community governance all over Ubuntu.

There are 47 Ubuntu Members in our launchpad team, so about 5.5% of the team are Members. Many team members have been to an Ubuntu Developer Summit, some as sponsored community members, others working for Canonical. As the Canonical head office is in the UK there is an overlap between Canonical and the UK community and we get together for release parties and other events such as our jointly hosted Ubuntu in Business day.

Roadmap

We have been improving our forward planning so we can do more real world events,we use our Etherpad server to maintain a scratchpad of things we are thinking of doing in 2011 and 2012 and we will be using this to plan how we distribute the LoCo allocation of CDs.

CD Distribution

As Shipit has come to an end we have put together an alternative process where people can request a free CD from the LoCo allocation to be sent to them.

OggCamp 11

OggCamp is a two-day unconference jointly hosted by the Ubuntu-UK podcast and the Linux Outlaws podcast where technology enthusiasts come together to exchange knowledge on a wide range of topics from Linux and open source software to building home automation systems. Now in its third year, the event is steadily growing and attracting interesting speakers from all over the UK, the rest of Europe and even the US. Since OggCamp is an unconference, speaking schedules are set on the first day and everyone is free to propose a talk themselves.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6090/6041112753_2c399f02e1_z.jpg

Christmas Party

Planning has started for a Christmas social event, similar to the one we have run for the last couple of years.

Experience

Rebranding

We followed the Ubuntu re-branding guidelines and changed our team logo and website theme. The logo was selected using a voting process based on the Pollka software and in the process of setting up the poll we contributed back a number of improvements.

Launchpad Statistics

  • Total Team Karma: 576,793
  • Average per member: 683
  • Average per member excluding those with zero: 2053

Podcast

Our podcast was started in March 2008 by 5 members of the LoCo. 4 people get together every 2 weeks to put out a 1 hour podcast using Ubuntu. The show is family friendly, and was code-of-conduct-compliant from the outset. We have had 1.5 million downloads of Ogg and MP3 format files over 4 years in 73 episodes.

The content of the show includes interviews with developers and project leaders, including Mark Shuttleworth, Matthew Paul Thomas, Matt Zimmerman, Scott James Remnant and Jeremy Allison, from both inside and outside the Ubuntu community. Feedback and contribution from the wider community is encouraged and we have a page where people can contribute segment ideas.

The podcast is designed in such a way that processes and activities are well documented so other members of the community can step in or take over when needed. The community help mirror the podcast on their own servers to spread out the distribution of the downloads to listeners all over the world. http://www.flickr.com/photos/codedragon/sets/72157624005309900/with/4579096654/

Books and Butties -21 July 2011

Loco directory event details

This was a day out at the British Library to visit their science fiction exhibition. The main aim of the day was a social activity and a geeky day out in London. Much food and fun was had, and we might have even learnt something (even if the doctor was out saving the universe)

http://www.daubers.co.uk/~matt/geeknic-library.jpg

Barcamp Blackpool

An unconference held in Blackpool, Lancashire for web and software developers http://www.flickr.com/photos/45703688@N07/sets/72157624312964991/ - source -http://lespounder.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/barcamp-blackpool-2010/

Oggcamp

Oggcamp the first instalment in Wolverhampton http://www.flickr.com/photos/swardman/sets/72157622671612692/with/4048159997/ - OGGCamp 2009

Oggcamp 10 an event organised by the Ubuntu UK podcast and the Linux Outlaws podcast http://www.theopensourcerer.com/2010/02/16/oggcamp-10/ about 120 attendees

Ubuntu in Business

This was an event for the community to bring the boss to, jointly hosted by Ubuntu-UK and Canonical (but it was our idea to do it) http://www.theopensourcerer.com/2010/06/09/ubuntu-in-business/ http://catlingmindswipe.blogspot.com/2010/07/ubuntu-in-business-event.html http://ubuntuinbusiness.eventbrite.com/

Christmas party

http://www.theopensourcerer.com/2010/11/23/the-ubuntu-uk-christmas-party/

Ubuntu Beginners Day

http://www.flickr.com/photos/45703688@N07/sets/72157626089841826/ - source - http://lespounder.wordpress.com/

UCubed

An Ubuntu / Debian unconference in Manchester http://ucubed.info/ http://www.flickr.com/groups/1687774@N22/pool/with/5589372498/

How Why DIY

A free unconference, focusing on technology and social skills in Liverpool http://www.flickr.com/photos/45703688@N07/sets/72157624910294546/ - source http://lespounder.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/how-why-diy-22nd-august-2010/

OK Computer - Feb 2011

OK Computer was a new type of Free Software event, in that it truly tailored to the requirements of a new user. Created and hosted by Anna Morris, from Manchester Free Software and the Girly Geeks team, it was a light hearted and insightful introduction into a world that so many people take for granted. There was a live demo, on how to install Ubuntu. Luckily we had been gifted a number of PCs that we were able to give away to the attendees. So we had Ubuntu pre-installed on most of them, and taught people how to use Ubuntu and Free Software.

  • http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5019/5459667686_5d5e6616e1.jpg
    Anna Morris, from Manchester Free Software and the Girly Geeks team explains Free Software

Linux Expo/Cloud Expo - Jan 2011

This event was at the Barbican hall. We had a stand in the Linux Expo show alongside a few other Free Software projects, we handed out CDs and answered questions about migrating to Ubuntu. http://pad.ubuntu-uk.org/linuxexposchedule

Geeknic

http://popey.com/blog/2010/08/08/first-ubuntu-uk-geeknic-a-success/

Launch Parties

Generally organised by Canonical in London and a good meet-up opportunity for the LoCo members http://www.theopensourcerer.com/2010/10/06/maverick-meerkat-release-parties-in-the-uk/

Online Events

We participated in the Ubuntu Global Jam, and held a day of hacking using voice over IP for collaboration alongside IRC and a shared VNC session to a KVM host so we could go through the Ubuntu installer together right from the start and spot bugs and areas for improvement. We created 10 new bug reports from this session. There is a write-up of the day here

Translation of Ubuntu

We have translated Ubuntu to the en_GB locale, so all the words ending -ize become -ise and the "trash can" becomes the "rubbish bin" etc. This is an important consideration for using Ubuntu in the public sector and particularly in education.

Things we do for other teams

We host Mootbot-UK, a variant of the mootbot found in the ubuntu-meetings channel that produces output in Moin format, this is in use by linaro, ubuntu-us-nc, ubuntu-us-fl, ubuntu-women-project, ubuntu-quality, ubuntu-il, ubuntu-news and ubuntu-uk http://mootbot.ubuntu-uk.org/

Games and Fun Stuff

We ran an Ubuntu UK Quiz night using Mumble for voice over IP discussions alongside an IRC based trivia quiz. We fixed the bot in #ubuntu-trivia and worked with others from around the world to create a set of questions on Ubuntu.

We invented profile roulette, inspired by the dubious chat roulette website. We promoted individual wiki pages on a random basis http://www.theopensourcerer.com/2010/07/18/profile-roulette/. A few other teams picked this up and although it didn't last as an initiative, it was a fun idea

We produce the Ubingo game http://ubingo.libertus.co.uk/ which is updated each UDS for Mark Shuttleworth's speech

We run a community Minecraft server (http://popey.com/minecraft/gmap/) with chat in #ubuntu-uk-minecraft


CategoryLoCoTeams

UKTeam/ReApprovalApplication2011 (last edited 2011-08-16 19:49:07 by 84)