Issue307


Contents

  1. In This Issue
  2. General Community News
    1. Mir + Unity QML + Unity APIs = Unity
    2. Not convinced by rolling releases
    3. Follow Up from "Let's Discuss Interim Releases"
    4. Virtual Ubuntu Developer Summit
    5. Welcome New Members and Developers
  3. Ubuntu Stats
    1. Bug Stats
    2. Ubuntu Brainstorm Top Ideas this week
    3. Ask Ubuntu Top 5 Questions this week
  4. LoCo News
    1. Ubuntu Global Jam, Novosibirsk 2013
    2. Measuring Jam
    3. Ubuntu Global Jam Brazil 2013
  5. Ubuntu Cloud News
    1. Lock-In: Why Your OS Choice Matters in the Cloud
  6. The Planet
    1. Recent announcements and the Ubuntu Community
    2. James Hunt: Upstart 1.7 released & A basic Upstart Events GUI (and cli!:-) tool
    3. Kaj Ailomaa: Future Ubuntu Studio changes
    4. Tiago Hillebrandt: Downloading photos from Ubuntu Touch to your desktop
    5. Valorie Zimmerman: Thoughts and worries about the proposed new Ubuntu processes
    6. Nicholas Skaggs: Staring down the scarecrow; should ubuntu roll?
  7. In The Press
    1. Ubuntu 13.04 beta touts search privacy - before it hooks in eBay, IMDb etc
    2. Canonical's Windowing Shift: More than a Mir Techie Footnote
  8. In The Blogosphere
  9. Other Articles of Interest
  10. Featured Audio and Video
    1. Ubuntu Ohio - Burning Circle: Burning Circle Episode 103
    2. Ubuntu Ohio - Burning Circle: Burning Circle Episode 104
    3. Ubuntu Podcast from the UK LoCo: S06E02 – Crouching Tiger, Hidden Ubuntu
    4. Ubuntu's New Display Server 'Mir' Gets Demoed [Video]
  11. Weekly Ubuntu Development Team Meetings
  12. Upcoming Meetings and Events
  13. Updates and Security for 8.04, 10.04, 11.10, 12.04 and 12.10
    1. Security Updates
    2. Ubuntu 8.04 Updates
    3. Ubuntu 10.04 Updates
    4. Ubuntu 11.10 Updates
    5. Ubuntu 12.04 Updates
    6. Ubuntu 12.10 Updates
  14. Subscribe
  15. Archives
  16. Additional Ubuntu News
  17. Conclusion
  18. Credits
  19. Glossary of Terms
  20. Ubuntu - Get Involved
  21. Feedback

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Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 307 for the week March 4 - 10, 2013.

In This Issue

  • Mir + Unity QML + Unity APIs = Unity
  • Not convinced by rolling releases
  • Follow Up from "Let's Discuss Interim Releases"
  • Virtual Ubuntu Developer Summit
  • Welcome New Members and Developers
  • Ubuntu Stats
  • Ubuntu Global Jam, Novosibirsk 2013
  • Measuring Jam
  • Ubuntu Global Jam Brazil 2013
  • Recent announcements and the Ubuntu Community

  • James Hunt: Upstart 1.7 released & A basic Upstart Events GUI (and cli!:-) tool

  • Kaj Ailomaa: Future Ubuntu Studio changes
  • Tiago Hillebrandt: Downloading photos from Ubuntu Touch to your desktop
  • Valorie Zimmerman: Thoughts and worries about the proposed new Ubuntu processes
  • Nicholas Skaggs: Staring down the scarecrow; should ubuntu roll?
  • Ubuntu 13.04 beta touts search privacy - before it hooks in eBay, IMDb etc
  • Canonical's Windowing Shift: More than a Mir Techie Footnote
  • In The Blogosphere
  • Other Articles of Interest
  • Featured Audio and Video
  • Weekly Ubuntu Development Team Meetings
  • Upcoming Meetings and Events
  • Updates and Security for 8.04, 10.04, 11.10, 12.04 and 12.10
  • And much more!

General Community News

Mir + Unity QML + Unity APIs = Unity

Olli Ries, Engineering Director for Unity and Display Server at Canonical, announces and shares some insights about the Mir display server and Unity QML. According to what Ries calls their ambitious goal, Unity will transition back to Qt/QML, and Mir will replace Xserver in 2013.

http://fridge.ubuntu.com/2013/03/04/mir-unity-qml-unity-apis-unity/

Not convinced by rolling releases

Mark Shuttleworth, responded to the case of rolling releases. Shuttleworth expresses that he is not convinced of the idea as it injects uncertainty where certainty is needed, among other issues. The proposal rose up again this year and Shuttleworth allowed the core engineering team at Canonical to create a “trial balloon” proposal. Shuttleworth noted that the proposal put forward by Rick Spencer was not final action as it was not put forward to the Technical Board and that, though the Community Council was briefed on it, they had not taken action either.

Shuttleworth indicated that there were unexpected findings by the team putting the proposal together. The releases, the mechanisms for releases, and the release paradigms all presented conundrums that needed to be untangled. Shuttleworth also indicated that some expectations expressed by stakeholders, such as providing support for PowerPC architecture, were unrealistic based on the nature of today’s consumer market.

Beyond that, Shuttleworth called for an end to what he termed as “melodrama” and indicated that the “sky was not falling.” While noting that there has been a paradigm shift from integration to leadership, Shuttleworth also stated that those who feel the need to move on should not “poison the well behind them.” Shuttleworth noted that there is now - what he calls - a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Ubuntu to dominate in the consumer electronics space, and it is time to strike while the iron is hot.

The post ends with questions to try to steer the discussion back into debating the rolling release proposal prior to it being submitted to the Technical Board later in March.

http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1228

Follow Up from "Let's Discuss Interim Releases"

Rick Spencer follows up on his original proposal to switch Ubuntu to a Rolling Release. He starts by reassuring that the proposal was a call for discussion, and then invites everyone interested to provide input. The final proposal is planned to be put to the Technical Board on March 18th.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2013-March/036872.html

Virtual Ubuntu Developer Summit

This week the Ubuntu community had the first virtual Ubuntu Developer Summit, held for 2 days, March 5th and 6th. The following posts are from community members who attended and written about their experience:

Welcome New Members and Developers

elfy reports the Forum Council has approved Ubuntu Membership for forum contributions to the following people:

Results from the 2200UTC Ubuntu Membership Board meeting, 2013-03-07:

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2013-March/001749.html

Results from the Kubuntu Council meeting, 2013-03-10:

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2013-March/001751.html

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

  • Open (104226) +237 over last week
  • Critical (73) -1 over last week
  • Unconfirmed (51278) +46 over last week

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

Ubuntu Brainstorm Top Ideas this week

Ubuntu Brainstorm is a community site geared toward letting you add your ideas for Ubuntu. You can submit your own idea, or vote for or against another idea. http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/

Ask Ubuntu Top 5 Questions this week

Ask (and answer!) your own questions at http://askubuntu.com

LoCo News

Ubuntu Global Jam, Novosibirsk 2013

Maia Kozheva writes that at Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University in the Russian Federation, a Global Jam was held on March 4th with a discussion of Linux deployment in schools as well as a master class on creating packages for upload to PPAs. Translations, Steam, and gaming on Linux were also discussed.

http://lucidfox.dreamwidth.org/11206.html

Measuring Jam

Randall Ross compares the metrics of Global Jams being registered around the planet. He notes some worry about the decline in Global Jams during the Quantal cycle, but reflects that Ubuntu is in a growth phase with the difference between Quantal and Raring being positive.

http://randall.executiv.es/raring-global-jam-9

Ubuntu Global Jam Brazil 2013

Tiago Hillebrandt writes about his experience at Ubuntu Global Jam, with the Brazilian team. He mentions they had a format similar to Ubuntu on Air!, which had an audience of around one hundred people.

http://tiagohillebrandt.eti.br/blog/ubuntu-global-jam-brazil-2013.html

Ubuntu Cloud News

Lock-In: Why Your OS Choice Matters in the Cloud

Robbie Williamson reflects on a recent article, which expresses vendor lock-in concerns in the cloud market. Williamson writes that important choices when selecting an operating system include selecting an independently produced OS, and selecting an OS with service orchestration support. He makes the case for using Ubuntu to fill this role. "Obviously I’m going to encourage the use of Ubuntu Server, but not just because I work for Canonical or am an Ubuntu community member, but because I actually believe it’s currently the best option around."

http://undacuvabrutha.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/lock-in-why-your-os-choice-matters-in-the-cloud/

The Planet

Recent announcements and the Ubuntu Community

Several community members have expressed varying degrees of concern and hope for changes announced by Canonical this past week. We have collected a sampling of what they have had to say:

James Hunt: Upstart 1.7 released & A basic Upstart Events GUI (and cli!:-) tool

James Hunt shares some of the new features in Upstart 1.7 and a very basic Upstart events graphical and command line tool: upstart-monitor. Hunt writes that upstart-monitor is "a simple application that shows Upstart events as they are emitted" and shares some possible uses.

http://ifdeflinux.blogspot.com/2013/03/upstart-17-released.html

http://ifdeflinux.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-basic-upstart-events-gui-and-cli-tool.html

Kaj Ailomaa: Future Ubuntu Studio changes

Kaj Ailomaa mentions the Ubuntu Studio changes discussed during the last Ubuntu Developer Summit. He lists the Rolling Release change, moving from X to Mir, and what these things will mean to Ubuntu Studio, analyzing each point.

http://zequence.net/future-ubuntu-studio-changes/

Tiago Hillebrandt: Downloading photos from Ubuntu Touch to your desktop

Tiago Hillebrandt writes a guide on how to transfer the photos taken with your Ubuntu Touch device to your PC.

http://tiagohillebrandt.eti.br/blog/downloading-photos-from-ubuntu-touch-your-desktop.html

Valorie Zimmerman: Thoughts and worries about the proposed new Ubuntu processes

Valorie Zimmerman shares a list of concerns brought by the Kubuntu and Xubuntu flavors about the proposed upcoming changes to the release cycle, including: support for Mir, how library transitions will be handled, testing and several thoughts about how PPAs will fit into the new system. Zimmerman wraps up her post by saying “I want to thank everyone involved who continue to work so hard to provide an excellent user experience, even when we disagree about how best to do that. And especially the Kubuntu and KDE communities. You rock!”

http://linuxgrandma.blogspot.com/2013/03/thoughts-and-worries-about-proposed-new.html

Nicholas Skaggs: Staring down the scarecrow; should ubuntu roll?

Nicholas Skaggs examines the characteristics of a Rolling Release, and how that would affect the Quality Assurance team. He breaks it down to how it would affect Ubuntu itself, the Ubuntu flavors, and some alternative ideas. Finally he explains how quality is assured in a Rolling Release, and what the reaction should be.

http://www.theorangenotebook.com/2013/03/staring-down-scarecrow-should-ubuntu.html

In The Press

Ubuntu 13.04 beta touts search privacy - before it hooks in eBay, IMDb etc

Scott Gilbertson of The Register writes about the new features that we will be seeing in the next Ubuntu version. Gilbertson mentions the ones that have been already implemented, with some screenshots, as well as the ones which have not, and what should we be expecting from those features.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/04/ubuntu_13_04_review/

Canonical's Windowing Shift: More than a Mir Techie Footnote

Eric Brown discussess the new announcement from Canonical, moving from X.org to Mir, a Canonical-developed window server.

http://www.linux.com/news/embedded-mobile/mobile-linux/707710-canonicals-windowing-shift-more-than-a-mir-techie-footnote/

In The Blogosphere

Ubuntu Ohio - Burning Circle: Burning Circle Episode 103

The podcast team at Erie Looking Productions derailed from their normal release cadence to talk about the then-upcoming Ubuntu Developer Summit and the Rolling Release Proposal.

http://ohio.ubuntu-us.org/node/136

Ubuntu Ohio - Burning Circle: Burning Circle Episode 104

The podcast team at Erie Looking Productions continued off cycle from their normal release cadence to talk about the aftermath of UDS-1303 and implications for Ubuntu Ohio. The big push for Ohio is to increase the numbers of Ubuntu and Kubuntu members to provide a strong cadre as a core to build up around.

http://ohio.ubuntu-us.org/node/137

Ubuntu Podcast from the UK LoCo: S06E02 – Crouching Tiger, Hidden Ubuntu

Tony and team bring an interview with Elizabeth Krumbach from the Xubuntu project, go over listener feedback, respond to voicemails, and otherwise continue with their new weekly release cadence.

http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/2013/03/07/s06e02-crouching-tiger-hidden-ubuntu/

Ubuntu's New Display Server 'Mir' Gets Demoed [Video]

Joey-Elijah Sneddon captures two YouTube videos said to be demonstrations of the new display server.

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/ubuntus-new-display-server-mir-gets-demoed-video

Weekly Ubuntu Development Team Meetings

Upcoming Meetings and Events

For upcoming meetings and events please visit the calendars at fridge.ubuntu.com: http://fridge.ubuntu.com/calendars/

Updates and Security for 8.04, 10.04, 11.10, 12.04 and 12.10

Security Updates

Ubuntu 8.04 Updates

End of life - April 2013 (Server)

Ubuntu 10.04 Updates

End of Life - April 2013 (Desktop) - April 2015 (Server)

Ubuntu 11.10 Updates

End of Life - April 2013

Ubuntu 12.04 Updates

End of Life - April 2017

Ubuntu 12.10 Updates

* ubuntu-drivers-common 1:0.2.71.2 - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/quantal-changes/2013-March/013354.html

End of Life - April 2014

Subscribe

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Archives

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

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:

  • Elizabeth Krumbach
  • Stephen Michael Kellat
  • mikewhatever
  • Matt Rudge
  • And many others

Glossary of Terms

Other acronyms can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/glossary

Ubuntu - Get Involved

The Ubuntu community consists of individuals and teams, working on different aspects of the distribution, giving advice and technical support, and helping to promote Ubuntu to a wider audience. No contribution is too small, and anyone can help. It's your chance to get in on all the community fun associated with developing and promoting Ubuntu. http://www.ubuntu.com/community/participate

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.

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UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue307 (last edited 2013-03-11 21:51:32 by lyz)