Issue108

Contents

Contents

  1. UWN Translations
  2. In This Issue
  3. General Community News
    1. Introducing Jaunty Jackalope
    2. UI Freeze in place, Alpha 6 freeze ahead
    3. Last push for Intrepid documentation
    4. Ubuntu 9.04 Developer Summit Sponsorship
    5. Status of Ubuntu Romanian Localization Team
    6. Ubuntu Developer Week
    7. MOTU
    8. New Ubuntu Members
      1. Asia Oceania Board
      2. America's Board Meeting
    9. Intrepid Spanish Translation
    10. New Ubuntu Cyclists Team
  4. Ubuntu Stats
    1. Bug Stats
    2. Translation Stats Hardy
    3. 5-a-day bug stats
  5. LoCo News
    1. Upcoming Atlanta Linux Fest 20 September 2008
    2. Arizona LoCo participating in ABLEconf(Phoenix)
    3. Ohio Linuxfest almost here...
    4. Berlin LoCo Bug Jams
    5. Ubuntu-NI SFD 2008
  6. In The Press
  7. In The Blogosphere
  8. In Other News
    1. Join us at PostgreSQL Conference: West 08, October 10-12 2008
    2. TurnKey Linux: new project builds Ubuntu based Live CD appliances
  9. Meeting Summaries
    1. Technical Board Meeting Summary
      1. Status of cdrtools discussion
      2. Gobby co-maintenance with Debian
      3. Revisiting limited upload privileges for kernel and printing packages
      4. Board membership/nominations
  10. Ubuntu Server Team: 9/9/08 Meeting
  11. Upcoming Meetings and Events
    1. Tuesday, September 16, 2008
      1. Community Council Meeting
      2. Server Team Meeting
    2. Wednesday, September 17, 2008
      1. QA Team Meeting
      2. ubuntu-pa LoCo Team Meeting
    3. Thursday, September 18, 2008
      1. Ubuntu Mobile Team Meeting
      2. Ubuntu Desktop Meeting
      3. Ubuntu Java Meeting
    4. Friday, September 19, 2008
      1. MOTU Meeting
      2. Platform Team Meeting
  12. Updates and Security for 6.06, 7.04, 7.10, and 8.04
    1. Security Updates
    2. Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Updates
    3. Ubuntu 7.04 Updates
    4. Ubuntu 7.10 Updates
    5. Ubuntu 8.04 Updates
  13. Archives and RSS Feed
  14. Additional Ubuntu News
  15. Conclusion
  16. Credits
  17. Glossary of Terms
  18. Feedback

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Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #108 for the week September: Introducing Jaunty Jackalope, UI Freeze in place-Alpha 6 freeze ahead, Last push for Intrepid documentation, Ubuntu 9.04 Developer Summit Sponsorship, Status of Ubuntu Romanian Localization Team, Ubuntu Developer Week, MOTU, New Ubuntu Members, Intrepid Spanish Translation, New Ubuntu Cyclists Team, Atlanta Linux Fest 2008, Arizona LoCo participating in ABLEconf, Ohio Linuxfest, Berlin LoCo Bug Jams, Ubuntu-NI SFD 2008, Technical Board Meeting Summary, Server Team Meeting, 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

  • Introducing the Jaunty Jackalope
  • UI Freeze in place, Alpha 6 freeze ahead
  • Last push for Intrepid documentation
  • Ubuntu 9.04 Developer Summit Sponsorship
  • Status of Ubuntu Romanian Localization Team
  • Ubuntu Developer Week
  • MOTU
  • New Ubuntu Members
  • Intrepid Spanish Translation
  • New Ubuntu Cyclists Team
  • Ubuntu Stats
  • LoCo News

  • In the Press & Blogosphere

  • In Other News
  • Meeting Summaries
  • Upcoming Meetings & Events

  • Updates & Security

General Community News

Introducing Jaunty Jackalope

Mark Shuttleworth has announced the name for the proposed Ubuntu release 9.04, and it will be "Jaunty Jackalope." Specific goals for this warrior rabbit will be addressed at the Ubuntu Developer's Summit in Mountain View on the 8th - 12th of December. Included in the new release will be faster boot time and resume time, blurring the difference between web services and desktop applications. The move of all of Ubuntu into Bazaar should provide an intricate pattern of collaboration between developers in a distributed version control system.

The challenge that Mark has set, is to provide customers of the several million devices being shipped with Ubuntu with an experience comparable to Microsoft or Apple. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to shine, and Mark wants to make sure that the very best thinking across the whole open source ecosystem is reflected in Jaunty Jackalope since many people will judge free software as a whole, by what we do. https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2008-September/000481.html

UI Freeze in place, Alpha 6 freeze ahead

The sixth and final alpha testing milestone for Intrepid Alpha 6 is scheduled for next Thursday, September 18th. Intrepid Alpha 6 will again use a "soft freeze" for main Developers are asked to refrain from uploading packages that aren't essential to the release of the Alpha from Tuesday through Thursday. This is so the archive can be set, and the last show stoppers can be fixed. See the link for further information. The list of bugs targeted for alpha-6 can be found at: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/intrepid/+bugs?field.milestone%3Alist=1324

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2008-September/000483.html

Last push for Intrepid documentation

The User Interface (UI) for Intrepid Ibex is now in a freeze state. This leaves about 3 weeks for errors to be found in the documentation before the string freeze takes place. Here's an opportunity to help make the documentation better. If you have Intrepid installed, please scan the documentation and submit bug reports on any errors, omissions and typos. http://oldsoldiers.wordpress.com/2008/09/12/last-push-for-intrepid-documentation/

Ubuntu 9.04 Developer Summit Sponsorship

Jono Bacon reports that the next Ubuntu Developer Summit will be held at the Googleplex in Mountain View, California from Monday, December 8th to Friday, December 12th, 2008. This year, the method of sponsorship has changed. Those sponsored will be expected to choose an idea from Ubuntu Brainstorm to use as the basis of a presentation. Some of the key topics for Ubuntu 9.04 are:

  • Networking
  • Power Management
  • Desktop Experience
  • Booting
  • Hardware Support
  • Sharing and Backup
  • Desktop Configuration
  • Server Configuration
  • Network Authentication
  • Security
  • Community
  • Mobile
  • QA
  • And many others

Instructions for requesting sponsorship can be obtained from Jono's blog: http://www.jonobacon.org/?p=1278

Status of Ubuntu Romanian Localization Team

Adi Roiban has issued the first of a series of updates on the localization of Ubuntu to Romanian. Currently, about 27.5% is done, with most of it Launchpad, and 2 major packages done in Narro. The team has almost all GNOME and configuration utilities translated, including the live cd menu, installation program, and Ubuntu guides. They plan to translate all the GNOME packages and the GNOME GUI, then start working on the Ubuntu Desktop Course. http://adi.roiban.ro/?p=68

Ubuntu Developer Week

Ubuntu Developer Week happened from Sept. 1st to Sept. 5th in #ubuntu-classroom on irc.freenode.net. 25 IRC sessions happened with involvement from developers of all sorts of teams. At peak times we had more than 200 participants. Here a quick overview what happened throughout the week. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperWeek

  • Day 1:
    • "Packaging 101" was packed with people and although we just had one hour to go through the bare-bone structure of the hello-debhelper package, we had a great time and the participants were a very sharp bunch, and asked very clever questions. Awesome! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek0809/Package

    • Jorge Castro’s "Upstream Bug Linkages" also went great. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek0809/Upstream He got lots of questions about the process of linking Ubuntu bugs to Upstream bugs, which helps a lot to bring developers closer together. In addition to the session log, check out "Bugs/Upstream" for more information. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream

    • Iulian Udrea had a very busy time in "Introduction to MOTU". Everybody wanted to know more about our Master of the Universe team and how to get involved. Iulian covered a lot of ground, talking about processes, meetings, and people. He conveyed a good feeling for how the team works. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek0809/MOTUIntro

    • Celso Providelo was up next and talked about "Soyuz and all that Jazz". Lots and lots of questions came up and Celso did his best to answer all of them, he even drew a fancy diagram to explain what Soyuz is all about. I’d like to note that the audience of this session likes Rock’n'Roll more than Jazz. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek0809/Soyuz

    • Pedro Villavivencio Garrido spent almost an hour talking about tips and tricks working with "Ubuntu and GNOME QA". If you know Pedro, you know how enthusiastic he is about spreading the Ubuntu and GNOME love. That’s what he did in the session. He covered using GNOME’s Bugzilla, talked about the GNOME Love project, freedesktop components, and lots of other stuff. Awesome! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek0809/UbuntuGnomeQA

  • Day 2:
    • "How do I fix an Ubuntu bug?" was a lot of fun. Lots of sharp questions, and lots of really good fixes by the end of the session. We used Harvest to find some low-hanging fruit, verified the bug, tested the fix, test-built it and came up with a collection of good debdiffs. Yeeeehaw! Lots of excitement among the crowd! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek0809/FixingBugs1

    • The audience had a good time with David Futcher who was up next with his "Introduction to BZR". David shared a lot of insights into bzr and code hosting on Launchpad and everybody seemed quite pleased. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek0809/BazaarIntro

    • Super Mario Limonciello joined us to take the plunge and experience the joys of "Kernel module packaging with DKMS". His presentation was concise, to the point and demonstrated quite impressively, why DKMS is the way to go. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek0809/DKMSPackage

    • Leonard Richardson (with the help of Barry Warsaw and Francis Lacoste) demonstrated "The Launchpad Web Service API" and got a huge amount of questions. I guess we’re going to see a lot of scripts and applications making use of the Launchpad API soon. Thanks a lot Launchpad Heroes! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek0809/LaunchpadWebService

    • At the end of day 2, Brian Murray demonstrated his "Launchpad Hacks" and how to make use of Greasemonkey to change bits of the functionality of Launchpad pages, add additional information, etc. With Brian’s background in QA work it was pretty obvious to see how these hacks make working with bugs a lot easier. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek0809/LaunchpadHacks

  • Day 3:
    • James Westby started off with "BZR for packaging". The atmosphere was great, and James demonstrated very, very well, why bzr for packaging makes the world a better place and yourself much more productive. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek0809/BZRPackage

    • Cesare Tirabassi took over and explained "How to update a package properly". There was lots of MOTU participation in the sesion, so lots of questions could easily be answered. Excellent session! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek0809/PackageUpdates

    • Mathias Gug was next and did an "Introduction to the Server Team". A great session: he introduced everybody to the current team members, explained what areas of interested the team works on, where to find easy tasks to get involved, and answered loads and loads of questions! ROCK ON Server People! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek0809/ServerTeam

    • This is the umpteenth time that Celso Providelo gave his rocking "Introduction to PPA" session. You could call him a veteran of Ubuntu Open and Developer Weeks. It was just awesome to see how many questions popped up, how many ideas were discussed, interest in PPAs is definitely very very high. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek0809/PPAIntro

    • Christophe Sauthier and Didier Roche did a 1h30m-session about "Various ways to patch packages". No matter if it was quilt, CDBS’ simple-patchsys, dpatch or anything else: these two guys from France managed to give everybody the perfect overview. Rock’n'Roll! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek0809/PackagePatches

  • Day 4:
    • Ara Pulido kicked off the day with "Automated Testing of the Desktop". Ara showed us what amazing stuff she was working on. In examples she showed how easy it has become nowadays to test the integral parts of our Ubuntu Desktop. The audience asked lots of interesting questions any everybody left the session with a much better idea of what’s happening in #ubuntu-testing. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek0809/AutoTests

    • Afterwards Daniel Holbach did another session called "How do I fix an Ubuntu bug". The main aim of this session was to demonstrate how easy it is with Harvest and the Ubuntu development tools to make Ubuntu better. You don’t need a degree in rocket science, just a knack for trying to make things work again, some patience, and being good at team-play. The session was well-attended and the questions showed that the audience was clearly motivated to shake out bugs of Ubuntu. We even managed to fix two bugs during the session. The shipment of awesome-ness clearly has arrived! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek0809/FixingBugs2

    • Jonathan Riddell delivered the third session that day and showed how to write a "WebKit browser in PyKDE". Everybody was very impressed by how easy it is to use WebKit in PyKDE. Have a look at the examples yourself: this is clearly next-generation awesome stuff. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek0809/PyKDEWebkit

    • Alexander Sack afterwards gave a great introduction to "Having fun with the Mozilla Team". This is one of the very very busy teams we all expect the best from. Alexander explained all the areas that require work (extensions, bug work, maintenance of all mozilla-related packages, etc.) At the end of the session he demonstrated the ease of packaging Mozilla extension. Rock and Roll! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek0809/MozillaTeam

    • Steve Langasek as one of the Heroes of the Archive Admins delivered a great session on "How to avoid making Archive Admins unhappy". The session was a great opportunity to find out almost everything that’s reviewed with great scrutiny, especially since the session was a relaxed discussion, it invited everybody to join in. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek0809/Archives

  • Day 5
    • Matt Zimmerman kicked off with "Ask Matt". He answered a myriad of questions about Ubuntu Development plans, syncing of upstream and distro schedules, distributed development, Canonical partners, and lots of other interesting topics. If you read the log you can imagine how fast Matt was typing to answer the questions. Rock On, Matt! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek0809/AskMdz

    • Lars Wirzenius talked about "Unit testing Python Code, with code coverage measurement". He did a great job at explaining the bits and pieces needed to write better code and get it tested. The audience was very interested, and will hopefully make Lars proud with their next Python projects. Smile :-) https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek0809/PyUnitTests

    • The "Introduction to the Installer Team" was up next, and Evan Dandrea held a great session about it. It’s worth pointing out how modest Evan was, and how he introduced everybody who’s involved with the team. He also gave a quick update about what’s happening with the team right now, and invited everybody to join in on the fun. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek0809/InstallerTeam

    • The "Introduction to the Security Team" session was packed with people who wanted to see Jamie Strandboge, Kees Cook and William Grant talk about their favorite topic. They started off with a quick introduction to the life cycle of a security issue, areas in which the team is active, proper testing of security fixes and so on. Lots and lots of great questions. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek0809/SecurityTeam

    • Ben Collins had the last slot of this week, talking about "The Kernel Team". Current plans, DKMS goodness, 2.6.26 vs 2.6.27, and lots of other lively discussion happened. Everybody saw how much fun the Kernel can be. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek0809/Kernel

MOTU

You can refer to Fabien Tassin as a MOTU now. His application was just approved, and his track record of excellent work on Mozilla related packages spoke for him. Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/~fta

Iulian Udrea's application as a Universe Contributor has been approved. He spent quite some time making Ubuntu better, and has learned a lot in the last weeks and months. Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/~iulian

Thierry Carrez (Koon) just joined the Universe Contributors team. He put a lot of good work into several areas in the Server Team, and the feedback of his sponsors was great. Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/~tcarrez Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ThierryCarrez

MOTU congratulates these 3 on their contributions to the team!

New Ubuntu Members

Asia Oceania Board

Ruben Romero from Oslo, Norway has been approved for Ubuntu Membership. Ruben is the contact person of Ubuntu Ecuador LoCo Team. As a new member, he has been contributing to various projects, notable among them are: Spread Ubuntu and Spanish Documentation for Ubuntu. Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/~huayra Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Hubuntu

Rafik Ouerchefani of the Tunisia LoCo Team is a new member. Rafik has the responsibility for Tunisian LoCo Website and its Arabic Forum. He also does some writing about Ubuntu & Free Softwares in magazines. Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/~rafik Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Rafik

The Asia Oceania board is happy to welcome these newest Ubuntu Members!

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2008-September/000175.html

America's Board Meeting

David Thomas is a core member of the Ubuntu New Mexico LoCo Team and has been responsible for many of its core functions since joining in 2007. He spoke about Ubuntu at HDI 2008 Conference, where he handed out over 150 Ubuntu CDs. He plans to do more talks in the future, continue to promote the New Mexico LoCo, and get involved in the Ubuntu Security team. Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/~dthomas Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/dthomasdigital

David Giard is the founder of the Quebec LoCo Team, and the leader of the LoCo-Drupal Development Team. Starting with the translation of the Canadian site into French, his extensive work with the Quebec team has advocates describing him with such phrases as "unstoppable workhorse". Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/~swe3tdave Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DavidGiard

The America's Board is very happy to welcome both these new members to the project!

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2008-September/000181.html

Intrepid Spanish Translation

With the Ubuntu 8.10 release around the corner, the Spanish speaking LoCos are having a Translation Sprint on September 27th, 2008. Organized by the Ubuntu Spanish Translators (Ubuntu-l10n-es Team), the Intrepid Translation Sprint will gather Ubuntu users from all the Latin American countries and Spain. Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuSpanishTranslators/IntrepidSprint

  • What: Intrepid Translation Sprint
  • When: Saturday, September 27
  • Where: #ubuntu-es-locos

http://leogg.wordpress.com/2008/09/13/intrepid-translation-sprint/

New Ubuntu Cyclists Team

Greg Grossmeier has formed a new team in Launchpad called Ubuntu Cyclists. While not your regular Ubuntu team that only works toward improving our favorite operating system, this team is "geared" toward gathering cyclists from the Ubuntu community to help them meet and form lasting relationships. Anyone who loves biking in whatever form is welcome to join! Launchpad: https://edge.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-cyclists

http://blog.grossmeier.net/2008/09/11/announcment-new-launchpad-team-ubuntu-cyclists/

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

  • Open (45899) -200 # over last week
  • Critical (27) +1 # over last week
  • Unconfirmed (21309) -52 # over last week
  • Unassigned (37485) -135 # over last week
  • All bugs ever reported (209498) +1805 # 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

  • Spanish (11869) +/-0 # over last week
  • English-UK (30837) +1 # over last week
  • French (39041) +1 # over last week
  • Brazilian Portuguese (49930) -117 # over last week
  • Swedish (52882) +2 # over last week

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

5-a-day bug stats

Top 5 contributors for the past 7 days

  • crimsun (360)
  • maco.m (189)
  • jorge (53)
  • dholbach (50)
  • chrisccoulson (47)

Top 5 teams for the past 7 days

  • dcteam (549)
  • ubuntu-berlin (63)
  • ubuntu-michigan (57)
  • kubuntu-de.org (16)
  • california.team (12)

5-A-Day stats provided by Daniel Holbach. See http://daniel.holba.ch/5-a-day-stats/

LoCo News

Upcoming Atlanta Linux Fest 20 September 2008

The Ubuntu Georgia US LoCo is sponsoring the Atlanta Linux Fest (ALF) on Saturday, 20 September 2008, at the IBM Hillside Conference Center. ALF will be a non-distro specific event, partly an install-fest along with demonstrations. Scheduled demonstrations include dual-booting, virtualization, privacy and encryption with SSH and GPG, Fedora 10, IBM's Symphony productivity software, and gaming. The Florida and Alabama LoCos will also be attending and helping celebrate Software Freedom Day. Linux books provided by O'Reilly and Peachpit will be given away, along with openSUSE and Ubuntu swag. Nick Ali, who is coordinating the event, says the idea for ALF arose only 6 weeks ago, but is expected to attract well over a hundred attendees.

More information can be found at http://atlantalinuxfest.org.

Arizona LoCo participating in ABLEconf(Phoenix)

On Sept. 20th, 2008, ABLEconf will be "rockin" in Phoenix, AZ. The Arizona Business and Liberty Experience (ABLEconf) is a Free Software conference organized by a coalition of many Arizona Free Software groups, including the Arizona LoCo team and PLUGAZ. Conference times are 10:00-17:00 local time, and will be held at the University for Advancing Technology (UAT) campus. http://www.uat.edu/ The 20th was chosen because it's Software Freedom Day, an international celebration for Free Software. Arizona's own John Crawford, Craig Eddy, Kenny and Travis McHenry, among others will be making presentations at the conference. Everyone is invited to attend, and don't forget to stop by the team's Ubuntu booth to experience our idea of fun with Open Source.

http://www.ableconf.com/

Ohio Linuxfest almost here...

The Ohio Linux Fest will be held October 10th and 11th, in Columbus, Ohio. Please check the links for a schedule [1] and a list of speakers [2] available. Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier from openSUSE, and Jono Bacon, the Ubuntu Community Manager, are giving the keynote addresses. In addition to those notables, there will be members of the Michigan LoCo, the Kubuntu maniacs from Chicago, and of course Stephen Stalcup (vorian), Simon Ruiz from Indiana, and Andrew Conkling, among others from Pennsylvania.

[1] http://www.ohiolinux.org/schedule.html

[2] http://www.ohiolinux.org/speakers.html

http://stompbox.typepad.com/blog/2008/09/ohio-linuxfest.html

Berlin LoCo Bug Jams

Starting on September 25th, 2008, the Ubuntu Berlin LoCo team is going to have regular Bug Jams!

  • When: every 2nd Tuesday of the month and every 4th Thursday of the month
  • Time: from 17:00 to 20:00 local time in Berlin’s c-base to: http://c-base.org/

  • Objectives:
    • make bugs more useful
    • have lots of fun
    • fix some bugs
    • talk aboug packaging, bug triage and other related topics
    • AND … have lots of fun!

This is the perfect way to get involved, learn more, get to know other Berliner Ubuntu friends, and have fun. Let’s see which LoCos will be next to have regular Bug Jams and/or Packaging Jams.

http://daniel.holba.ch/blog/?p=243

Ubuntu-NI SFD 2008

The celebration of the worlds biggest FOSS event started early this year in Nicaragua. They launched the SFD event on Debian Day Nicaragua '08 (August 14), at the National University of Engineering (UNI), with an installfest, conferences and guest speakers from Guatemala, El Salvador, Norway, and of course, Nicaragua. They gave a lot of information about the upcoming SFD event, and distributed some brochures.

Two days later, they visited the Central American University (UCA) in Managua, where the local GNU/Linux community had an information stand with flyers and brochures, and three laptops running Ubuntu, openSuse, and Fedora. UCA is the venue of this year SFD.

On September 5th and 6th, it was time for Comtech, the largest technological fair in Nicaragua. They had a stand promoting FOSS and SFD. Sponsorship provided by the Ministry of Industry and Commercefont.

This week, they had three more events. Two conferences about Free Software and a demonstration of Ubuntu at the American University (UAM) in Managua on September 11th. They distributed some Ubuntu CDs, and the next day they had two other conferences. Visit the link for some pics. Great Job Ubuntu-NI! http://leogg.wordpress.com/2008/09/13/heading-to-the-sfd-2008/

In The Press

  • The Jaunty Jackalope Hops Aboard Ubuntu’s Ark - Ashlee Vance of The New York Times reports on the naming of the Ubuntu 9.04 release. Jaunty Jackalope is now added to the other animal names that have helped establish Ubuntu as a legitimate player in the desktop and server OS markets. In an email interview, Mark Shuttleworth admitted that, "We learned a while ago that our sanity depended on making the names alphabetical" but that it's not a sophisticated process. Ashlee also reports that Canonical will be releasing Intrepid Ibex next month. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/the-jaunty-jackalope-hops-aboard-ubuntus-ark/

  • Ubuntu 9.04 to be called Jaunty Jackalope - Ryan Paul of Ars Technica reports on the naming of Ubuntu 9.04. Included in the article is a graphic of Mark Shuttleworth, "our intrepid explorer", riding a jackalope.(Everyone should check out this graphic!) Ryan reports that Mark believes that Ubuntu is ready to compete with Microsoft Windows and Mack OS-X. Development of the Jaunty Jackalope release will begin following the release of Ubuntu 8.10, Intrepid Ibex. Ubuntu is popular in the desktop Linux ecosystem and is moving into the general consumer market. Dell is already shipping Ubuntu on the new Mini 9 netbook. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080908-ubuntu-9-04-to-be-called-jaunty-jackalope.html

  • Canonical to fund upstream Linux usability improvements - Ryan Paul, of Ars Technica reports that Mark Shuttleworth announced Wednesday that Canonical will hire professional designers, and interaction experts to work with upstream developers to improve desktop software. In the past, Canonical has not had the resources to make big contributions to upstream code. Now, it will be able to work on X, OpenGL, Gtk, Qt, GNOME and KDE, to turn ideas into reality over the range of desktop experience. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080911-canonical-to-fund-upstream-linux-usability-improvements.html

  • Computer Music #129 article: Ubuntu Studio - Ubuntu Studio recently got a write up in CM(Computer Music) Magazine that was very complementary of the distribution. Calling it the miracle OS based on the Ubuntu operating system, it is packed with the latest Linux based free music software. They let readers know that by using Linux based software they are assured of having a system that will improve, be updated as needed, and will always be free under the End User License Agreement. You can read the full article at this link: http://luisbg.users.ubuntustudio.org/luisbg/computer_music/ where the pages of the magazine have been posted. https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-studio-users/2008-September/003114.html

  • Survey: 96 percent of enterprises not deploying Ubuntu server - Matt Asay from CNET News reports that Ubuntu server is only being deployed on 4% of the systems for a range of Fortune 1000 companies. Granted, with CIOs representing 48 percent of survey respondents, and vice presidents of IT representing another 33 percent, the survey was unlikely to get a very good view of grassroots IT adoption. However, on the other hand, Matt feels surprised that even 4% knew what Ubuntu was, and felt that this was progress. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10037554-16.html

In The Blogosphere

  • Ubuntu Saves Compaq Presario 2100 From Death and Windows - Joe Panettieri writes about saving his brother in law's Compaq Presario 2100 from being sent to the landfill. Ronnie, his brother in law, was going to chuck the aging Windows machine. He bought a new laptop, and Joe took the Presario and installed Ubuntu 8.04. What Ronnie saw then cause him to ask some important questions concerning price and availability. Joe hopes users who are ready to pull the plug on their aging Windows systems will consider a new direction: Installing Ubuntu. http://www.workswithu.com/2008/09/10/ubuntu-saves-compaq-presario-2100-from-death-and-windows/

  • Survey Says: Ubuntu Server Gaining Momentum - Joe Panettieri reports on a survey conducted by Works With U [1]. From voluntary information received from 1000 organizations and companies across the globe that run Ubuntu, they took the first 98 received and found the following information:
    • 77.6 percent of participants indicated that they run Ubuntu on servers
    • The typical survey participant has six Ubuntu servers and 15 Ubuntu desktops
    • The most popular uses for Ubuntu servers include Web servers (57.1%), file servers (57.1%), databases (54.1%) and backup/recovery services (40.8%)
    • Survey participants represent small, mid size and large organizations from across the globe
    It may not be a scientific survey, but it does show that Ubuntu is making inroads on the server market.

    [1] http://www.workswithu.com/the-works-with-u-1000/

    http://www.workswithu.com/2008/09/08/survey-says-ubuntu-server-gaining-momentum/

In Other News

Join us at PostgreSQL Conference: West 08, October 10-12 2008

The second annual PostgreSQL Conference West will be held in The Native American Student & Community Center at Portland State University. Already on the schedule is the membership drive for PgUS, the new PostgreSQL non profit association. Also hoped for is a debate and potential election of board members. But they would also like papers:

  • If you have a topic you have been dying to talk about
  • If it involves PostgreSQL
  • If it is interesting

Then post a submission: http://www.postgresqlconference.org/west08/talk_submission/ Possible talks might be about Ubuntu, PostgreSQL and Drupal.

http://www.postgresqlconference.org/

TurnKey Linux: new project builds Ubuntu based Live CD appliances

The motto of Turnkey Linux is "everything that can be easy, should be easy". TurnKey is trying to make Ubuntu easier to use for certain types of (mostly server) tasks. Public Betas have been released for:

  • TurnKey LAMP stack

  • TurnKey Drupal 5

  • TurnKey Joomla

Some of the technical specifications of Turnkey are:

  • Based on Ubuntu 8.04.1 (hardy LTS).
  • Minimal footprint (typically around 150MB) - each appliance is
    • carefully built from the ground up with the minimum components needed to serve its role with maximum efficiency and security.
  • Packaged as an installable Live CD (I.E. bootable ISO) that can run
    • on real hardware in addition to most types of virtual machines.

More information can be found at the website: http://www.turnkeylinux.org/

Meeting Summaries

Technical Board Meeting Summary

Board members: Mark Shuttleworth, Matt Zimmerman Apologies: Scott James Remnant (holiday) Attendees: Oliver Grawert, Emmet Hikory

Status of cdrtools discussion

Mark has offered to obtain a legal opinion from the Software Freedom Law Center, on the condition that Joerg Schilling will agree up front to accept their determination.

We are waiting for Joerg to respond to this proposal. Mark suggested that we also involve Sun in the discussion, as they are shipping cdrtools.

Action: Mark to contact Sun legal regarding cdrtools

Gobby co-maintenance with Debian

Philipp Kern, upstream developer and Debian maintainer of gobby, and MOTU, is interested in helping to maintain gobby in Ubuntu main.

We agreed that this is reasonable, and that Phillipp's existing qualifications are sufficient to grant upload privileges.

Action: Matt to arrange upload rights for gobby for pkern

Revisiting limited upload privileges for kernel and printing packages

The Technical Board granted core-dev privileges to two developers (Tim Gardner and Till Kamppeter) who are interested in working with specific packages in main, with the proviso that they were to follow standard sponsorship processes for other packages.

Now that Launchpad has the capability to implement this type of access control directly, we agreed to transition these developers from ubuntu-core-dev to per-package upload rights.

Action: Matt to follow up with Tim and Till

Board membership/nominations

The Technical Board is in search of new members, and suggestions from the community have been received and reviewed. The next step is to contact the top candidates (most were suggested by third parties) and ask whether they are willing to serve in the position.

Action: Mark to contact the candidates and confirm their interest

Ubuntu Server Team: 9/9/08 Meeting

The Server Team met on Sept. 9th, and the follow are the highlighted topics of that meeting. To see the details of each topic, please visit the link below.

  • Ubuntu VM builder
  • Review ServerGuide for Intrepid

  • Boot Support for Degraded RAID
  • Ubuntu Manpage Repository
  • Encrypted ~/Private Directory in Each User’s Home
  • Tomcat6 server stack support
  • landscape-client in Ubuntu
  • Agree on next meeting date and time: Next meeting will be on Tuesday, September 16th at 15:00 UTC in #ubuntu-meeting.

http://ubuntuserver.wordpress.com/2008/09/12/server-team-20080909-meeting-minutes/

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Community Council Meeting

Server Team Meeting

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

QA Team Meeting

ubuntu-pa LoCo Team Meeting

  • Start: 8:30 EDT
  • End: 9:30 EDT
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-pa
  • Agenda: None as of publication

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Ubuntu Mobile Team Meeting

  • Start: 12:00 UTC
  • End: 13:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: None as of publication

Ubuntu Desktop Meeting

  • Start: 13:00 UTC
  • End: 14:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: None as of publication

Ubuntu Java Meeting

  • Start: 14:00 UTC
  • End: 15:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: None as of publication

Friday, September 19, 2008

MOTU Meeting

  • Start: 4:00 UTC
  • End: 5:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: None as of publication

Platform Team Meeting

  • Start: 10:00 UTC
  • End: 11:00 UTC
  • Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
  • Agenda: None as of publication

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

Security Updates

Ubuntu 6.06 LTS 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
  • Dave Bush
  • Arlan Vennefron
  • Craig A. Eddy

Glossary of Terms

  1. FOSS - Free Open Source Software
  2. MOTU - Master of the Universe
  3. PPA - Personal Package Archive
  4. QA - Quality Assurance
  5. SFD - Software Freedom Day
  6. VM - Virtual Machine

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/Issue108 (last edited 2008-09-18 17:25:58 by dsl-189-146-113-17)