Issue100

Contents

  1. UWN Translations
  2. In This Issue
  3. UWN 100th issue
    1. History
    2. Retrospect
    3. UWN Past and Present Staff Podcast
    4. Mark Shuttleworth podcast
  4. Comments from Past & Present UWN Editors
    1. Cody Somerville
    2. Martin Albisetti
    3. Craig A. Eddy
    4. John Crawford
    5. Nick Ali
  5. Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Editors and Staff - Past and Present
  6. Joining the UWN staff
  7. General Community News
    1. New Ubuntu QA team
    2. Call for nominations for Tech Board
    3. Alpha 3 Soft Freeze
    4. Next Ubuntu Developer Summit
  8. Ubuntu Stats
    1. Bug Stats
    2. Translation Stats Hardy
  9. LoCo News
    1. Peru LoCo gives Ubuntu presentation at San Marcos University
    2. Ubuntu Ireland gets local press coverage
    3. Ubuntu Nicaragua Continues with Television Shows
    4. New leader for Ubuntu France
  10. Launchpad News
    1. 250000 Bugs Reported in Launchpad
  11. Ubuntu Forums News
    1. Tutorial of the Week
    2. Ubuntu Forums Interview
  12. In The Press
  13. In The Blogosphere
  14. In Other News
    1. Ubuntu-UK podcast: episode #10
    2. Clarification of the Mark Shuttleworth interview
  15. Transcript of Mark Shuttleworth Podcast
  16. Transcript of UWN Staff Podcast
  17. Upcoming Meetings and Events
    1. Monday, July 21, 2008
      1. Asia and Oceania Ubuntu Membership Approval Board Meeting
      2. Server Team Meeting
      3. LoCo Council Meeting
    2. Tuesday, July 22, 2008
      1. QA Team Meeting
      2. EMEA Membership Approval Meeting
      3. Platform Team Meeting
    3. Wednesday, July 23, 2008
      1. Desktop Team Meeting
      2. Java Team Meeting
      3. Ubuntu Mobile Meeting
    4. Thursday, July 24, 2008
      1. MOTU Meeting
  18. Updates and Security for 6.06, 7.04, 7.10, and 8.04
    1. Security Updates
    2. Ubuntu 6.06 Updates
    3. Ubuntu 7.04 Updates
    4. Ubuntu 7.10 Updates
    5. Ubuntu 8.04 Updates
  19. Archives and RSS Feed
  20. Additional Ubuntu News
  21. Conclusion
  22. Credits
  23. Glossary of Terms
  24. Feedback

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Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #100 for the week July 13th - July 19th, 2008. In this issue we cover: UWN 100th Issue, UWN Past & Present Staff Podcast, Mark Shuttleworth podcast, Comments from Past & Present Editors, Joining the UWN staff, New Ubuntu QA team, Call for nominations for Tech Board, Alpha 3 soft freeze, Next UDS, Peru LoCo gives Ubuntu presentation at San Marcos University, Ubuntu Ireland gets local press coverage, Ubuntu Nicaragua Continues with TV shows, New Leader for Ubuntu France, Ubuntu-UK podcast #10, and much, much more!

UWN Translations

  • Note to translators and our readers: We are trying a new way of linking to our translations pages. Please follow the link below for the information you need.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Translations

In This Issue

  • Ubuntu 100th Issue
  • UWN Past & Present Editors Podcast

  • Mark Shuttleworth podcast
  • Joining the UWN staff
  • New Ubuntu QA team
  • Call for nominations for Tech Board
  • Alpha 3 soft freeze
  • Next Ubuntu UDS
  • Ubuntu stats
  • LoCo news

  • Ubuntu Forums news
  • In the Press & Blogosphere

  • Ubuntu-UK podcast #10
  • UWN podcast transcriptions
  • Upcoming Meetings & Events

  • Updates & Security

UWN 100th issue

Welcome to the 100th issue of the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter!

The purpose of this newsletter is to let everyone know what is happening in all the different corners of the vast Ubuntu community. The first issue was unleashed 04 June 2006, a few days after the release of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS. Since then, four releases have come out and community has grown by leaps and bounds. We, at the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, have tried to let readers know the the going-ons in the vast and growing community, including information from the different teams, LoCos, forums, mailing lists, IRC universe, and newsworthy press coverage and blogs. Many LoCos help spreading the news by doing translations. Current translations include: Spanish, Italian, French, and Hebrew.

It has undoubtedly been a fun and rewarding experience for all involved!

We would like to thank all our readers for all their comments and corrections (yes, we do make mistakes!) .

As always, the UWN staff welcomes any feedback.

History

Before the UWN, there were several other publications that kept the community up to date. Benjamin Mako Hill published the first Ubuntu Traffic 27 August 2004. Ubuntu Traffic was modeled after Kernel Traffic, and even used the same software. It was focused on summaries of major wiki pages, IRC, and mailing list. Mako published it weekly by himself, usually taking about a day to do. Every message sent to every Ubuntu list was read, but soon became very difficult as the community grew. The last issue of Ubuntu Traffic was released 04 February 2005.

Soon, different teams took it on themselves to improve communication internally and to communicate better with the rest of the project and followed the newsletter model to do that. Vincent Untz published the first Ubuntu Desktop Newsletter in December 2005, followed by the Ubuntu Documentation Newsletter, Kubuntu Newsletter, and Edubuntu Newsletter.

Creating separate newsletters became unwieldy quickly. All the newsletters were brought back under one roof when Matt Galvin released the first issue of the UWN on 04 June 2006.

Retrospect

Issue #1 high points:

  • New look for www.ubuntu.com
  • Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu, and Xubuntu 6.06 Released
  • Paris Summit to be held at the Charles de Gaulle, Paris hotel from Monday 19th to Friday 23rd June 2006

Issue #25 high points: Contributors - Cody Somerville, Jenda Vancura, Corey Burger, Toby Smithe, Martin Albisetti, Freddy Martinez, Melissa Draper

  • Feisty Herd 1 released
  • Ubuntu-devel mailing list split into core developers and MOTU
  • Ubuntu Canada and Ubuntu Nebraska and UbuntuAZ(South Africa) holds first meeting
  • Call for installer developers
  • Ubuntu named "King Distro for 2006" Distrowatch and Google Trends
  • Mark Shuttleworth sends an open letter to openSUSE developers asking for those concerned with Novell's recent pact with Microsoft to "come join the Ubuntu project."

Issue #50 high points: Contributors - Martin Albisetti, Dawid van Wyngaard, Nick Ali, John Crawford, Corey Burger

  • Canonical working on Desktop Training courses, and asks for help from the community to develop
  • US LoCo Teams "Call to Arms!- An effort to get LoCo teams in every US state by the end of 2008

  • New in Gutsy Gibbon - Drag and Drop Gnome application tabs now featured
  • Launchpad 1.1.7 released - Answer Tracker for FAQ, Personal Package Archives(PPA)
  • Canonical announces Landscape, a Web-based systems management application for servers and desktops at Ubuntu Live conference in Portland, OR

Issue #75 high points: contributors - Nick Ali, John Crawford, Craig Eddy

  • Hardy Heron Alpha 4 Freeze announced
  • Ubuntu 6.06.2 LTS Release
  • Voting open on MOTU Council Election
  • Launchpad 1.2.1 released - No more sysadmin request need to delete a PPA package
  • Dell releases XPS 1330n Ubuntu preinstalled laptops to the European Markets
  • Full Circle Magazine issue #9 available
  • Community Council decides on the concept of a LoCo Council to streamline membership approval

UWN Past and Present Staff Podcast

Several of the past and present contributors of the UWN came together to share their experiences with the UWN in a podcast. Martin Albisetti, Cody Somerville, Joey Stanford, John Crawford, Craig Eddy, and Nick Ali discuss how they got involved, the process of creating each issue, what technologies were used, and their impressions of the UWN.

Download the podcast:

A transcript of this podcast can be found below.

Special thanks to Joey Stanford for organizing and hosting the podcasts, Craig Eddy for the great introductions and John Crawford for recording the sessions.

Mark Shuttleworth podcast

Join Martin Albisetti as he conducts a special interview of Mark Shuttleworth about what the UWN means to the community, what he likes, what he would like to see more of, and his thanks for being such a great asset to the community.

Download the podcast:

The transcript of this podcast can be found below.

Comments from Past & Present UWN Editors

Cody Somerville

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is one of the few items in my mailbox that I look forward to reading each week and I'm proud to have served as the Chief Editor (Special thanks to Corey Burger for initially mentoring me into the role) for over 40 issues. It has been a huge pleasure to be able to work with some awesome folks like Corey, Nick, Martin, and Joey and equally exciting to see new faces such as Craig.

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter was my gateway drug in terms of being a Ubuntu contributor. I wouldn't be a MOTU or involved in leading Xubuntu now if it wasn't for this awesomely informative and often educational community treasure. I encourage everyone to get more involved in the UWN - its your duty as a community member Smile :)

Martin Albisetti

UWN was the first place I got to help out in the community, thanks to Corey Burger and Cody Somerville who where the main editors at the time, and it proved to be an entrance gate into other more complex places in the community. Having worked on the newsletter for over a year, I can truly say that it's an experience worth going through, especially if you're in your first steps in the community. It gives you a very good idea of the depth and size of the Ubuntu community, and helps you later on in any path you decide to continue on, already knowing who the key people are, and what the main processes look like.

Additionally, you also get to work with many cool people like Nick, John, Cody, Craig and Joey, and the feedback from the readers on each release is amazing.

Congratulations to all the people that made the 100 editions possible.

Craig A. Eddy

Being a part of the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter has been an experience and a half. When I first joined the Arizona LoCo, I had no idea that I'd be involved in as much as I am, nor get to meet the people that I have. I have had opportunities in the past to be a part of communities, but none of them have had the camaraderie or focus that this one has. And that is amplified and concentrated in my experiences with John and Nick. A lot of work gets done, very often live in the wiki, with people jokingly kidding about hogging the wiki or mistakes and mis-types they may have made. Then I look outside the Newsletter, at some of the articles and links that the newsletter provides, and see that there's a whole community that has this easy-going, get the job done type of attitude. There's no other word I can find to express that except GREAT! Thanks, friends. And Happy One Hundredth.

John Crawford

I began my work on the newsletter beginning with issue #48, and it's been a fun, exciting, and educational year. Ubuntu continues to grow, the community continues to excel, and we have more to report each week than ever before. Creating a finished product on a weekly basis is a challenge in itself, but thanks to the solid foundation put in place by former staff and editors, the UWN has been able to grow as Ubuntu has grown. Our thanks to all of them for their continue support and contributions, and for making our job easier.

The current staff is a fantastic group, and I'm proud to call them my friends. Each of us earned our Ubuntu memberships while working on the UWN, and now that I think about it, I don't know of any past staffer that isn't a Ubuntu member. That's pretty impressive.

Special thanks to Nick, Craig, and Martin.

Nick Ali

Just like the other editors, the UWN was the beginning of my journey in the Ubuntu world. Sure I wanted the cool @ubuntu.com address. Sure I wanted to be an Ubuntu member. But most of all I wanted to contribute to the community that had created the great distribution I used everyday. But it was tough finding something I thought I would enjoy. I wasn't particularly interested in the MOTU route; I looked at code all day for a living and I wasn't interested in doing it when I came home. Looking through many wiki pages, hanging out in many IRC channels, I found the UWN. There were no prerequisites to contributing. Simply edit the wiki page. For the first issue I worked on, UWN #32, I added two sentence summaries of news reports.

That was it. That made me a contributor. That made me an Ubuntu contributor.

69 issues later, I'm proud to have made friends like Cody and Joey who share the same passion as me.

Thanks to Martin and Corey Burger for putting up with my incessant questions when I started out.

Thanks to John, Craig, and Isabelle for tirelessly pounding away at the UWN every week.

Till the 200th issue...

Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Editors and Staff - Past and Present

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter has been brought to you by: (in order of appearance)

Silviu Bojica, Rocco Stanzione, Jeff Schering, Jonathan Riddell, Matt Galvin, Jerome Gotangco, Christian Bjälevik, John Dong, Jenda Vancura, ZM Chen, Brian Burger, Matt Zimmerman, Rich Johnson, Daniel T. Chen, Paul Sladen, Matthew Revell, Richard Johnson, Corey Burger, Jordan Mantha, Eldo Varghese, John Little, Christian Reis, Henrik Omma, Melissa Draper, Hubert Figuiere, Paul O'Malley, Jenda Vancura, Paul Sladen, Eldo Varghese, Christian Reis, Szilveszter Farkas, Brandon Holtsclaw, Jerome S. Gotangco, Jenda Vancura, Joey Stanford, Matthew Walster, Alexandre Vassalotti, Michael Vogt, Paul O'Malley, David Symons, Pete Savage, "towsonu2003", Fabian Rodriguez, William Grant, Ryan Paul, Jorge O. Castro, Lotusleaf, Jenda Vančura, Matthew Walster, Tony Yarusso, Matty Janssen, Cody Somerville, Toby Smithe, Martin Albisetti, Freddy Martinez, Isabelle Duchatelle, Rj Ian S. Sevilla, Tony Yarusso, RJ Marsan, Mariano Mara, Markus Wimmer, Dan Buch, Nick Ali, Audrey Deutschmann, Gabriele Monti, John Crawford, Dawid van Wyngaard, Lionel Porcheron, Craig A. Eddy, Ruben - Hubuntu

And many others

Joining the UWN staff

As Ubuntu has grown, so have the number of related articles, blogs, teams, mailing lists, podcasts, etc., that the UWN staff reports on. These are exciting times for Ubuntu and our community, and you can help contribute by joining the Ubuntu Newsletter Team. Some ways to join or contribute are listed below.

  • UWN mailing list: One way to get started is to join the mailing list and post an introduction. We can then help guide you on how to get started working for our publication. https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/Ubuntu-news-team

  • UWN IRC channel: Anyone can drop by the UWN news channel and ask how they can help. Just join #ubuntu-news on freenode and introduce yourself.
  • Translations: Anyone can help by translating our editions into another language. We would especially like to see our worldwide network of LoCo teams get involved with translations as a way of contributing back to the community. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Translations

General Community News

New Ubuntu QA team

A new community-driven Ubuntu QA team has formally been created [1] and is rocking already! The Ubuntu QA team is focused on developing tools, policies, and practices for ensuring Ubuntu's quality as a distribution as well as providing general advice, oversight, and leadership of QA activities within the Ubuntu project. [2]

The idea is to enhance the awareness and contributions to QA around Ubuntu, as well as helping people interested in serious QA work find a common, collaborative, and open environment. If you are interesting in contributing or joining the Ubuntu QA team please read the team wiki page. [2]

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2008-July/000452.html

Call for nominations for Tech Board

The Technical Board is the custodian of technical architecture, engineering processes and technology strategy in Ubuntu. They like to make sure it represents the best combination of experience and innovation from the Ubuntu desktop, server and mobile teams, and they are welcoming nominations for additional members of the Board. Tech Board meetings happen on Tuesday every two weeks, at 14:00 UTC, though the schedule has been adjusted to accommodate the membership at times. You can find more information at the link including who to contact. https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2008-July/025804.html

Alpha 3 Soft Freeze

Intrepid Alpha 3 will again use a "soft freeze" for main. This means that developers are asked to refrain from uploading packages between Tuesday and Thursday which don't bring us closer to releasing the alpha, so that these days can be used for settling the archive and fixing any remaining show stoppers. The expected release date of Intrepid Alpha 3 is next Thursday, July 24.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2008-July/000456.html

Next Ubuntu Developer Summit

The next Ubuntu Developer Summit will be for the 9.04 release, and will take place Monday 8th - Friday 12th, of December 2008. It will be held at the Google Campus, Mountain View, California, USA. The last time it was held at this venue we had an excellent and productive UDS, with strong participation. The date is out a little early so you can mark it in your calendars. Very soon the process will be opening up for you to register for UDS. More details can be found at wiki.ubuntu.com/UDS

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2008-July/000447.html

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

  • Open (47090) -13 # over last week
  • Critical (24) -6 # over last week
  • Unconfirmed (23622) +62 # over last week
  • Unassigned (38107) +242 # over last week
  • All bugs ever reported (196101) +1322 # over last week

As always, the Bug Squad needs more help. If you want to get started, please see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BugSquad

Translation Stats Hardy

This is the top 5, not specific languages, so the languages might change week to week.

  • Spanish (12095)
  • French (39115)
  • English (United Kingdom) (49609)
  • Swedish (52859)
  • Brazilian Portuguese (54448)

Remaining strings to translate in Ubuntu 8.04 "Hardy Heron," see more at: https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/hardy/

LoCo News

Peru LoCo gives Ubuntu presentation at San Marcos University

July 12th - Ubuntu Peru was invited to direct talks about Ubuntu in the System and Informatic Engeniering Faculty of San Marcos University. Nicolas Valcarcel (nxvl) talked about Ubuntu’s release process and learning from FLOSS. Michael Garrido (xander21c) talked about Ubuntu Peru, the community, and Ubuntu and the command line. Pictures are available at the link. http://xander21c.wordpress.com/2008/07/14/san-marcos-university-ubuntu-talks/

Ubuntu Ireland gets local press coverage

Ireland's Technology news service, Siliconrepublic: The upcoming Software Freedom Day 2008 event, organised and run by Ubuntu Ireland, will gather together all Ubuntu users from around the country and aims to educate the wider public about the benefits of free open source software (FOSS). The main event will be held at Camara’s offices in the Digital Hub in Dublin. Camara is a small charity organisation that together with volunteers takes old computers and refurbishes them with open source software before shipping these on to developing countries. Ubuntu Ireland already has its sights set on bigger plans. In the near future, they want to organise monthly events like: workshops, presentations and tutorials. http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/11032/cio/ubuntu-ireland-goes-for-open-source-success

Ubuntu Nicaragua Continues with Television Shows

In issue #98 we reported on Ubuntu Nicaragua working with the Nicaraguan LUG to produce their own TV show. This is a once in a lifetime chance to advocate on Nicaragua's largest television network for FOSS. Two shows are completed now, and can be found by following the links:

http://leogg.wordpress.com/2008/07/05/going-mainstream/

New leader for Ubuntu France

Christophe Sauthier is now the official team leader of the Ubuntu France LoCo. The team has lots of ongoing work, they had already started the transition some months earlier : new website (the transition to Drupal should be done within weeks), new projects, and rework of some existing procedures to include more and more people in the decision process. http://www.reponses.net/blog/2008/07/18/529-new-leader-in-ubuntu-fr

Launchpad News

250000 Bugs Reported in Launchpad

Launchpad announces that 250 000 bugs have been reported in Launchpad! Bug #250000 was an Ubuntu bug reported against gnome-terminal. Congratulations (or not?) for achieving this milestone! Perhaps this is related to UWN reaching 100 issues, Ubuntu-UK podcast reaching 10 shows, and Launchpad being upgraded with huge UI changes. Smile :) http://nickellery.wordpress.com/2008/07/19/250000-bugs-reported-in-launchpad/

Ubuntu Forums News

Tutorial of the Week

This week's selection is a nifty trick for anyone who may want to access an FTP site from within a directory structure -- "[HOWTO] mount an FTP host as a filesystem using CurlFtpFS", by geco.

The guide includes help for versions all the way back to Edgy, so anyone still using an earlier version of Ubuntu can give this a spin too. And recent replies suggest the instructions work on version 8.04 as well. If it sounds like something you might be interested in, geco's instructions are clear and well presented, and easy to follow. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=441126

Ubuntu Forums Interview

Mark Shuttleworth has agreed to answer the "Nine Simple Questions" for the 100th issue of UWN. The questions have not been changed for him, and the funniest one is #7! This interview is quite different from the ones usually published, and as Matthew writes it "Mark Shuttleworth, in addition to being an all-around nice guy, is also a true geek at heart." Please read the whole interview here: http://matthewhelmke.net/wordpress/2008/07/13/an-interview-with-the-sabdfl/

In The Press

  • Dell is serious about Ubuntu - Dell has announced it is now officially offering consumer desktop and notebook PCs with Ubuntu 8.04 pre-installed. Two notebooks and one desktop join two desktop systems in Dell’s open-source product portfolio. Choices among Dell’s Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) PCs are limited, but if you want such a PC, you can order one now without having to go through the process of installing it yourself. The two available notebooks are the XPS 1330 and the Inspiron 1525 for $949 and $549, respectively. There is also an Ubuntu desktop PC – the Inspiron 530N, which is priced at $449. http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/38473/135

  • Proprietary software? Counsel objects - Nathan Zale Dowlen objects to proprietary software, so when he opened his new law office, he outfitted it with Ubuntu and open source software. Cost was the main factor in his decision at first, but he has since come to appreciate the security found in FOSS and the ease of use found with Ubuntu. The main reason he prefers Ubuntu is the distribution's business mindset. They have a goal of market penetration and they want to be pre-loaded on manufactured machines. Many other distros just want to configure the operating system as they want, when they want, but that is not helpful for small business or the advancement of Linux. http://www.linux.com/feature/140930

  • Best Buys' $20 Ubuntu: Good or Bad for Linux? - What does the sale of the Ubuntu Hardy Heron LTS package for $20 at Best Buy mean for the Linux community? The linuxinsider gives us some of the reactions of the open source community, which includes: Mainstream legitimacy, nice to see, not a bad deal, price concerns, misses the mark, a loss for Linux, and even the idea of Canonical introducing its own Ubuntu PC. Get all the reactions at the link. http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/63777.html

  • Ubuntu 8.04.1 LTS vs. 8.10 Alpha 2 Performance - Phoronix recently conducted benchmark testing between Ubuntu 8.04.1 LTS and 8.10 Alpha 2. Comparing 32 different test results can be challenging, but in the end there was simply no clear winner. It was a very competitive race between these two Ubuntu releases, and in many of the real-world tests the differences would go unnoticed, but in 20 of these tests Ubuntu 8.04.1 LTS was the leader. However, there is still over three months to go until Ubuntu 8.10 "Intrepid Ibex" will be released. Look for additional Ubuntu benchmarks with an expanded selection of hardware as its final release nears. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_804_810a2&num=9

  • Ubuntu hits new high in Linux boredom (Robin 'Roblimo' Miller) - Last weekend a friend of Robin's was moaning about endless problems with Windows XP on his desktop PC. They decided to install Ubuntu 7.04 on it, and the problems went away. That started Robin thinking about his own "daily driver" computer, a Dell Latitude that also runs Ubuntu 7.04, and it made him realize that he hadn't thought about his laptop or its operating system in many months. Linux -- especially Ubuntu -- has become so reliable and simple that for most end users it's simply not worth thinking about, any more than we think about tools like wrenches and screwdrivers. Right now 8.04 is the latest Ubuntu version. Robin has stuck with 7.04 because he feels no great need to update a reliable system that does everything he asks of it. http://www.linux.com/feature/141546

  • Shuttleworth has some nice words for KDE - Given the amount of flak that the recent KDE release - 4.0 - has taken from the pro-GNOME pundits at sites like linux.com, you would think that the worst possible thing any supporter of GNOME - as Mark Shuttleworth is perceived to be - could do is to speak out in support of anything associated with KDE. But you would be wrong. Mark is now floating the idea that there can be a QT-based GNOME. Does he then favour a switch away from GTK to QT? No, he merely thinks it would be perfectly possible to deliver the values of GNOME on top of QT. See further explanation of Mark's stance below, In Other News. http://www.itwire.com/content/view/19456/1148/

  • Linus Torvalds, Geek of the Week - Linus Torvalds, an acknowledged godfather of the open-source movement, was just 21 when he changed the world by writing Linux. Today, 17 years later, Linux powers everything from supercomputers to mobile phones. In fact ask yourself this: if Linux didn't exist, would Google, Facebook, PHP, Apache, or MySQL? Linus uses different operating systems, but he actually doesn't care too much about the distribution, as long as it is easy to install and keep up-to-date. "I like Ubuntu." http://www.simple-talk.com/opinion/geek-of-the-week/linus-torvalds,-geek-of-the-week/

In The Blogosphere

  • Canonical, Openbravo Set to Demo ERP for Ubuntu Linux - Ubuntu isn’t just for desktop users anymore. That will be the key message when Canonical and Openbravo demonstrate open source ERP software on Ubuntu servers at Linuxworld in August. Openbravo is an open source company that focuses on enterprise resource planning (ERP) and point-of-sale (POS) software. This is a smart move by Canonical and Openbravo. It’s all about the applications for CIO's, midmarket IT managers, and solution providers. http://www.thevarguy.com/2008/07/17/canonical-openbravo-set-to-demo-erp-for-ubuntu-linux/

  • My new netbook with Ubuntu 8.04 - WatirMelon went out a picked up a new Asus Eee PC 900 with a 20 GB HD. Since his wife has already been "Ubuntized," he quickly decided to install Ubuntu. The installation process is fairly easy using a flash drive, and there are plenty of helpful howtos to tweak the system. He figures his new netbook running Ubuntu is way cooler than a Macbook Air, plus it was about 20% cheaper. http://watirmelon.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/my-new-netbook-with-ubuntu-804/

In Other News

Ubuntu-UK podcast: episode #10

Ciemon Dunville, Alan Pope, Dave Walker and Tony Whitmore bring you the 10th episode of the Ubuntu UK Podcast: "Easy Come, Easy Go"

In this episode:

  • Discussion:
    • Watching video content on Ubuntu
    • Podcast now available in transcribed form!
    • Sarcastic News
    • Selling Ubuntu without using ‘Freedom’ in the sales pitch
  • Competition:
    • We announce the winner of the Canonical Store Voucher this month
    • We start a new competition where we give the Wraith PC from Efficient PC!

Just answer the question set out in this weeks show, and you could be the proud owner of this PC! Picture of PC at the link: http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/2008/07/16/s01e10-easy-come-easy-go/

Clarification of the Mark Shuttleworth interview

There seems to be some confusion on Slashdot and blogosphere about Mark's comments during a derstandard.at interview (http://derstandard.at/?url=/?id=3413801, ): "Well, I think it would be perfectly possible to deliver the values of GNOME on top of Qt." Some interpret it as Mark wants GNOME to be able to sit on top of QT. Others think Mark meant adding GNOME-like qualities on top of QT. By email, he replied

"I was saying that, *if* GNOME decided to embrace Qt, it would be perfectly possible to deliver the user experience that we associate with GNOME, on top of Qt.

GNOME is built on a commitment to user experience (the HIG [1]), and a desire to have LGPL libraries, which gives a great deal of flexbility to ISV's. The latter precludes Qt, but if it were to change, then GNOME could, and should, *consider* embracing Qt. I think it's reasonable to consider all the options."

[1] Human Interface Guidelines, http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/

Transcript of Mark Shuttleworth Podcast

ANNOUNCER: Welcome to a special 100th issue podcast for the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter featuring Martin Albisetti and Mark Shuttleworth.

UWN: So, Mark, as you know, we're at the 100th of the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. So we're just wondering what you thought of the UWN, if you thought this was a good service to the community?

MARK: Alright, well first I should say congratulations to everybody who's delivered to the community 100 amazing issues, and, yea! I think it's a fantastic contribution to the community. I look forward to it every week and I think it's the best single sort of summary of what's going on in all the amazingly diverse activities that there is in this fantastic project.

UWN: OK, great. So you read it on a weekly basis, more or less?

MARK: Yea, if I don't get to it immediately, I save it up, but I always read it within a week or two. And it's such a fantastic view because all the . . . a lot of stuff does come to the Community Council, or a lot of things - you know I have some ability on many different processes within Ubuntu. There's always stuff inside UWN that I didn't know was going on. And it's a thoroughly fascinating insight into everything that's happening in the community.

UWN: OK, great. Is there anything you think that could be improved in what we currently have or anything you'd ever like to see on it?

MARK: The thing that I'm most pleased with in the recent couple of editions is the way the flow of information from the recent membership boards used in becoming members of the project and what they're doing and what their project is and what their interests are and so on, in the UWN. So, it's a very nice way of keeping in touch with just the general flow of what individuals are doing. It would also be nice to hear more of kind of LoCo news and news from other teams. There are now tens of active teams in Ubuntu, and while we do have a reporting process, it would be nice to hear some of the stories and some of the project initiatives that are happening and the responses, that are happening in Ubuntu into the UWN.

UWN: OK, great. So is there anything else you'd like to say to everybody listening to this hundredth anniversary broadcast?

MARK: Well, it's just congratulations to . . . thank you very much for what you're doing and keep it coming. And you'll have at least one avid reader in me and I reckon that there is a couple of hundred people around the world who look forward to it every week. So it's really worth the effort that gets put into it, and that effort is hugely appreciated.

UWN: Great! Thanks, thanks, Mark, for your time. We really appreciate it.

MARK: Well it was a pleasure to speak and thanks for giving me a call.

ANNOUNCER: Thanks for listening and we hope you enjoy the 100th issue of the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter.

Transcript of UWN Staff Podcast

ANNOUNCER: Welcome to a special podcast for the 100th issue of the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter featuring past and present UWN editors. Your host for this session is Joey Stanford.

JOEY: This is Joey Stanford, here, with a fine cast of characters from the Ubuntu Weekly News. And, let's see, let's go through the introductions. We'll start with John Crawford.

JOHN: Hi, I'm John Crawford, one of the co-editors. I'm also am the Team leader of Ubuntu-Arizona LoCo, and on the Fridge Team.

JOEY: Fantastic. Thanks, John. With us, also, we have Nick Ali. Nick?

NICK: Hey! Nick Ali. I've been doing the Newsletter for, I guess, a little bit more than a year. Part of the Georgia, U.S. LoCo. Do some other stuff, like the LoCo Council, the Fridge, and all that fun stuff.

JOEY: Fantastic. Welcome, Nick. Also with us is Craig Eddy. Craig?

CRAIG: Good morning, I'm Craig Eddy, otherwise known as tyche on the internet. I am a member of the Arizona LoCo. I am also the Team scribe for the Arizona LoCo, and an associate editor for the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. And, of course, everybody knows what an associate editor is. . .

JOEY: Thanks, Craig. Also with us is Martin Albisetti. Martin?

MARTIN: Well, I edited the Ubuntu Newsletter, I think, for over a year or so, until Nick picked it up and has done a fantastic job since. I'm also . . .

JOEY: Fantastic. And last we have Cody Summerville with us. Cody?

CODY: I was involved with the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter since, I guess I started around issue 12 or 13, 14. And I was involved probably up until issue, beginning the high 60's where I kind of went off in a different direction. For a period of time I was the chief editor and I really enjoyed . . . and I really enjoyed bringing the news to everybody, and really glad to see that we have some . . . folks that are taking that . . . step now.

JOEY: Fantastic. Thanks, Cody. I suspect our listeners are wondering why myself am actually hosting or partially co-hosting the call today. And that's 'cause I was actually, believe it or not, and editor for 2, 2 Ubuntu Weekly News sessions. Somewhere like the 16th, one for - or 14th, one for Corey and then I covered one for Cody. So, my little claim to fame with the Ubuntu Weekly News. So, guys, thanks very much. This is a really exciting time for us. This is the 100th episode, 100th edition of the Ubuntu Weekly News. This is just fantastic. So, one of the questions I have is how did Ubuntu Weekly News get started?

NICK: I have talked to Benjamin Mako to about . . .a little . . . kind of get a little history about it, and when he was a Canonical employee he actually put out the Ubuntu Traffic. And he had modeled it after the Kernel Traffic Newsletter, which would basically catalog all the mailing lists stuff, and he would pick out the highlights and comment on all of that. And back then, he pretty much did it by himself, and he basically read all the mailing lists, all the Ubuntu mailing lists and kept track of it all Obviously, it got to be quite a big job, and it split off into different newsletters. Like there's a documentation newsletter, a desktop newsletter. And then, since there were a bunch of them, it was kind of time to bring them all back into one so that the community could get a pretty good idea of what was going on. And Matt Galvin took that on and released the first in, sometime in 2006?

JOEY: I think I have that date right here. I was doing some research with John, and I think we discovered it was May 28th, 2006. Where does the time go? So it's really interesting, it's really interesting that over the course of the 2 years that I've been involved, on and off again, mostly off recently, I apologize for that, I've seen, when we first started, you know, the very first early editions, we used gobby quit a bit. There were nice, long Saturday evenings when we were all sitting there, hacking away, and trying to get all the necessary material actually assembled to the Ubuntu Weekly News. Do we still, in the current editions, do we still use gobby? Or do we use some other technology? How does that happen, these days.

NICK: We tried to use gobby, on and off, now and then. But we always end up going. . .we always end up editing the wiki. And I think, when Martin, Corey and I were doing some of it, I think we did gobby for a couple of issues. But I think we always went back to the wiki. It was the easiest way of just managing everything.

MARTIN: Yea, I think it's easier because everyone can do it, and at their own time. I mean, when we used to do gobby we used to just sit everybody at the same time and work for a couple of hours. I think, now, you guys are a bit more organized, and, during the week, everybody work when everybody has the time.

NICK: You would think so, but. . .

MARTIN: Yea, well that's. . . yea.

CODY: I think that would be the very important part in the getting the newsletter together. I think that the different features there sometimes in different from people to do were in different ranges were not kind of put on the back shelf or what not depended . . . that made a big difference. That sometimes, for example, when we used to do a description of all of the new upstream releases in the development . . . we really needed gobby there. Nobody liked doing it, but it was really cool when it was all done. And that's a situation where we really needed gobby there. And there were stories and that that were sometimes controversial, or we wanted to be professional about it and we would collaborate real-time, again, in there.

JOEY: I think that was the most interesting thing, from my experience, is to just re-factoring. So somebody would write something and you'd come in behind them, and re-factor it, and then a third person would come in behind you and change it a little bit further. And it was kind of a nice, interactive way of doing it. But I'm glad that the wiki's working out for you guys. That's fantastic. You know, Cody got me thinking about something. You know, he started to give us a little bit about his impressions. So we should, we should probably talk about that. I think the listeners would really appreciate that. Our impressions from the editors. You know, how we got involved, what went well, what didn't. You know, did we find our time worthwhile. That type of thing. So, Cody, I'll turn to you, if you wouldn't mind. Why don't you take a stab at that. Did you like your stint as the editor? How did you become involved? Those type of things.

CODY: I think that the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter was really the, I guess, the gateway for me really being more involved with other areas. Now I'm the, you know, heading up the Xubuntu Project. I wouldn't be in this position, today, if I hadn't started out working with the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. Working with that, those social teams is really important for people that are just starting out. People would make those connections and make, you know, friendships and relationships with other people in the community. That's really important for people that are interested in being strong, and contributors over a long period of time, that sustained contribution. So, the greatest thing I really enjoyed about it was the social component and learning so much about the community that I was so fascinated by.

JOEY: Fantastic. Thanks. Thanks, Cody. Uh, Martin . . . your impressions.

MARTIN: Well, my story's really similar to Cody's. I actually got involved in Ubuntu because, I think, I dropped by the Ubuntu Marketing Team which, at the moment, was a pretty good sized team. Corey was there, Corey Burger. There was quite a good set of people who were really friendly and helped you get integrated to the community. So, I just ended up wanting to help with whatever tasks they had. And the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter was one of the biggest ones. And releasing week to week is sometimes really hard, and everybody has, you know, work in real life, and all that. So . . . and it really helped me to grasp how the community worked, and respect a lot of people. It was really interesting for me it was also a really big gateway to other places within Ubuntu. So, I really, really enjoyed it. And I think that the social aspect of it was probably what had drawn me to it, initially, and then moved on to some of the technical, more technical bits. So, that was really . . . was a really interesting experience. You learn a lot about the community in general, because, you just go through every single article, and talk to a lot of different people and get a lot of feedback. So, it's a good place to start off with.

JOEY: Great. Thanks, Martin. Craig. What are your thoughts?

CRAIG: Well, I'm probably the newest one on the team. I came in due to John. Nick was already on board at the time. John had been working with him for a while, and John felt that they needed a little bit more help. Someone to do the background stuff, like the bug stats, and translation stats, and upcoming meetings, and stuff like that. It's all pretty much cut and paste type stuff. And, since then I've been branching out, and learning an awful lot more about the community, itself, the way the world perceives us, things like that. And, it's amazing.

JOEY: I think we'd all agree with that. Thanks, Craig. Nick?

NICK: The way I got into the newsletter in the first place was at the end of 2006, we were trying to start up the Georgia LoCo and it was kind of going slow. And, I wanted to get involved, and I initially looked into the MOTU stuff. And there's a learning curve with that, and I write code for a living, so, I kind of didn't want to do that when I got off of work. So, I decided that, let me see if I could find something else to do. And, I think that I had just dropped by the marketing channel and I basically harassed Martin, and Corey, into, you know, kind of letting me help out. Little bits here and there. It's turned into a really amazing experience. While I started out working, like, on some of the blog stuff and some of the press coverage. And like Craig was saying, it's very interesting to see how other people see Ubuntu. Especially since they usually look at Ubuntu as the end product. You know, they look at, you know, does it have this application or, you know, why my web cam doesn't work properly. Where, working on the newsletter you're trying to expose all the corners of the community to the reader. So you learn a lot about the community. And, you know, it's a fun job. And, it is challenging, at times, but it's definitely is worthwhile.

JOEY: Fantastic. Thanks, Nick. John? Your thoughts.

JOHN: I got started on issue 48, so I'm one year and one issue on the hundredth celebration, here. I got in touch with Martin through Vorian, who knows everybody, and Martin took me onto the staff. And, lo an behold, about 2 weeks later, he was gone. And, I really didn't know Nick at all. But, we got along good, and things have gone well, and when we brought Craig on it really made a difference. I'm not a big tech person, so this was a way for me to contribute to the community and learn more about Ubuntu as I went along and evolved. And I've really enjoyed it. One person that we should mention that is not here today is Isabelle Duchatelle, and I don't know if it's "Dushet" or "Dushay". But she does all the Forum stuff on the Ubuntu Weekly News, has done it for a long time, and just does a great job.

JOEY: Absolutely. I think Corey Burger probably is the other person that we should single out, because he was one of the very first editors af . . .

MARTIN: Yea, I got in because of Corey Burger.

JOEY: Fantastic. You know, I have the same, me, personally . . . thanks, John . . . for me, personally, I have the same comments that the rest of you have. I joined because I thought it was kind of a neat thing to do. And, when you started looking at the topics that we had to cover for each issue, and it touched everything. It went deep into distro, it went into, deep into components of Launchpad that Ubuntu uses. You know, translations and bugs, and whatnot. It went into the LoCo Teams, and into just various pieces of the community, that it was just an amazing and, for me, it was a fulfilling experience. I really miss actively participating on Ubuntu Weekly News, actually, in recent times. But it's lead me to think about something, as I was reminiscing and looking through a lot of the past, uh, past issues, I notice that there's a large number of the issues where there was this steady team of Cody and Martin and Nick. That it just, you go for issue after issue after issue with just their names in it. And so the question. . .the question I have, to really all of you, is what's your motivation to continue to do this on a regular basis? I mean, what drives you, week after week, to produce a Newsletter for consumption by the community?

JOHN: Well, I think it's something that the community needs. It's a way to centralize the news for Ubuntu. And, it's important to me to give them that news every week.

MARTIN: For me, for me, personally, I think, it was so many people commented on whatever, without available to . . . I mean, I remember we used to, I mean, we missed a week, a week's release and everybody was commenting or asking about it. So, when you see the impact it has, you just. . .you just, you know, realize that a lot of people actually wait for it, and then read and feed off of it. So, it's just, you know, it just drives you and pushes you to actually make sure that your meets and to get information on there the best as possible. It's just, you know, really, really gratifying. And I think most of us, I think Nick and, I'm not sure, John, I think we got our Ubuntu Membership because of our work on the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. So . . .

JOHN: Oh, absolutely.

NICK: That was a big part of it.

JOEY: Excellent.

NICK: It goes back to the community is so huge and there is no easy way to keep track of what's going on inside the community, easily. You can read the planet and you can read, you know, stuff that other people post, news reports or blogs or whatever. But it's hard to get a sense of what is happening in different teams, and different LoCos. That's kind of the little niche that we're filling, trying to just inform everybody. It's - we have to do it. It's almost like we have to do it because, otherwise, I think, the communication within the community would, kind of, fall apart. Or if not fall apart, we improve what everybody knows and that just makes the community a better place.

JOEY: It's been said that the Ubuntu Weekly News is called the glue of the global community. That all of you have really reinforced that today. That it's something that everybody looks forward to. It's translated into several different languages, it's posted on the Fridge for wider consumption, there's been quotes in mainstream media, taken from Ubuntu Weekly News. So, it's a pretty powerful little endeavor that happens every week.

JOHN: Translations is a good point to bring up. We still can use more translators. And, of course, we can always use more staff. As the Ubuntu Weekly News and the Ubuntu Community has grown, you know, we grow with it, and every week we have more and more to report. And we can always use more help.

JOEY: So, if people listening to this want to help, how would they contact us?

JOHN: They can drop by ubuntu-news mailing list . . . uh . . . sorry, IRC channel on freenode. They can join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list. We will provide all the links in the newsletter.

JOEY: Fantastic.

JOHN: OK, 1...2...3 Happy one hundredth

MASSED VOICES: Happy one hundredth (and cheers)

ANNOUNCER: Thanks for listening and we hope you enjoy the 100th issue of the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter.

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Monday, July 21, 2008

Asia and Oceania Ubuntu Membership Approval Board Meeting

Server Team Meeting

LoCo Council Meeting

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

QA Team Meeting

EMEA Membership Approval Meeting

Platform Team Meeting

  • Start: 22:00 UTC
  • End: 23:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: Not Listed as of Publication

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Desktop Team Meeting

Java Team Meeting

  • Start: 14:00 UTC
  • End: 15:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: Not Listed as of Publication

Ubuntu Mobile Meeting

  • Start: 16:00 UTC
  • End: 17:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: Not Listed as of Publication

Thursday, July 24, 2008

MOTU Meeting

  • Start: 20:00 UTC
  • End: 21:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: Not Listed as of Publication

Updates and Security for 6.06, 7.04, 7.10, and 8.04

Security Updates

Ubuntu 6.06 Updates

Ubuntu 7.04 Updates

Ubuntu 7.10 Updates

Ubuntu 8.04 Updates

Archives and RSS Feed

You can always find older Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter issues at: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter

You can subscribe to the Ubuntu Weekly News via RSS at: http://fridge.ubuntu.com/uwn/feed

Additional Ubuntu News

As always you can find more news and announcements at:

and

Conclusion

Thank you for reading the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter.

See you next week!

Credits

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

  • Nick Ali
  • John Crawford
  • Martin Albisetti
  • Craig A. Eddy
  • Isabelle Duchatelle
  • And many others

Glossary of Terms

  1. LUG - Linux Users Group
  2. LTS - Long Term Support
  3. LoCo - Local Community

  4. FOSS - Free Open Source Software
  5. QA - Quality Assurance
  6. MOTU - Master Of The Universe (Developers approved for submitting to the repos)
  7. UTC - Coordinated Universal Time (Replaces GMT)

Feedback

This document is maintained by the Ubuntu Weekly News Team. If you have a story idea or suggestions for the Weekly Newsletter, join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list at https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/Ubuntu-news-team and submit it. Ideas can also be added to the wiki at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Ideas. If you'd like to contribute to a future issue of the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, please feel free to edit the appropriate wiki page. If you have any technical support questions, please send them to ubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com.

UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue100 (last edited 2008-08-06 17:00:07 by localhost)