nixternal

…on a Microsoft product!

This is the most security I have seen from Microsoft in a long time, and it is on a $5 check.

Wow, talk about a long development cycle. Well at least it felt long coming out of the Edgy cycle. Kubuntu docs are looking good, finished up changing them from review to complete, created the .pot translation files, reuploaded to SVN, and created a new package for Feisty. As soon as Jonathan Riddell is back at his hacker station they will get uploaded. Translations are still waiting to be opened in the Launchpad, so hopefully any day now we can start the translation process.

So what to do now? Well, we will do some bug fixing this entire week for Kubuntu trying to rid the bug system a little bit. After that, we will continue tweaking and closing bugs preparing for final release just over a month away now. Once this is complete then we have a short break and then start taking on Feisty+1.

So from now until sometime during the Feisty+1 development cycle, you can catch me working on some new projects mainly over in the KDE camp (preparing for KDE 4). I will mostly be working closely with the KDE Documentation team, any and everyone developing KHelpCenter, and my new project, KOrganizer. I have planned a little KOffice 2 help as well seeing as it is coming along nicely now.

Well, that is it, just a quick update from me since I haven’t posted in over a week I think. Until next time, here is to you!

People always ask how I got involved with Free Software and of course lately, Ubuntu. I started messing with Linux around 1993 or 1994 and back then it wasn’t all that easy to find a single starting point on getting involved. I was a coder back then, but I didn’t feel like I was a hardcore coder compared to the guys who were doing the kernel hacking, putting GNOME together, or tweaking AfterSTEP. So for the longest time I stayed on the sidelines and was just a user, and at times an abuser. Hi, my name is Rich and I am a Linux user! (everyone applaud and cheer at this point). Today is much different when it comes to getting involved.

Getting involved in a free software community or a Linux distribution community is as easy as choosing your outfit for the day (unless of course your mom or significant-other dresses you). For the past 10+ years I was using SuSE (before Novell), Debian, and Slackware. It wasn’t easy to find one spot that I fit into. My coding style at that time was way different than what the communities were doing. Then Mepis came around, of course I heard of Ubuntu, but I have been a long time KDE user and contributor, and wanted a distribution that was built for and with KDE in mind. Then came Kubuntu. The Ubuntu community was popular for the super friendly people who always seemed to be there to help you no matter your situation as well as being very easy to get involved with. I knew I had found the place I wanted to help build and support the legacy it has built and continues to build.

So that is the past. Now, what exactly did I do to get involved with Ubuntu and Kubuntu? People (Brandon, aka imbrandon) will tell you, I was just a typical user when I stumbled upon #kubuntu-devel on IRC. I haven’t touched code since the 90’s, but I knew my way around KDE and Linux/Debian pretty good. So at first when there were pre-release ISOs (i.e., Feisty Herd 5 CD image), I would download, burn them, and then install it, and ask what exactly needed to be tested, see if I could find bugs and report them. From there, only a few weeks later I ran into Matthew East and Jonathan Jesse of the Ubuntu Documentation Project. I wanted to help document, that is something I can help out with. So they pointed me to starting out with editing and cleaning up the Wiki pages to see how I was there. I did that for a few weeks, then decided I would download the documentation repository and play with it. My XML and DocBook skills at that time were next to nothing, very rusty. After submitting a few patches to close existing documentation bugs, Matt went ahead and set me up with SVN access and Documentation Team membership. I haven’t looked back since, this was the first group that really gave me a HUGE chance at getting involved with a very important aspect of Ubuntu. Now I am a Kubuntu documentation junkie, can’t get enough of it.

Well during this time I also hooked up with people like Jordan Mantha, Daniel T. Chen, Brandon Holtsclaw, Sarah Hobbs, Jonathan Riddell, and many many more (bddebian boo!). They helped me learn packaging (which I am still learning). Now I have had quite a few packages uploaded into the repositories that many of you use on a daily basis. That is super cool. After this I wanted more. So I am in the process of “re-learning” or knocking the dust off of my C++ skills (weak as all hell at this point) so I can get back into coding and have been working on a couple of secret projects and not-so-secret projects.

So, with the Ubuntu community I am involved in one way or the other with: Kubuntu documentation, Kubuntu release notes, Ubuntu packaging (MOTU wannabe), Marketing, LoCo Teams (Chicago and Illinois are the beginnings of my world domination plan), Edubuntu Documentation (got in here by accident, but if you really want to get in quick, Edubuntu is the way to go, they need developers and documenters), The Fridge, and more… I am now involved with KDE and helping out with KDE 4 and KOffice 2 documentation, and getting involved deeper with KHelpCenter and hopefully some day a fully integrated topic based help system that is desktop environment independent.

So, if you want to get involved, let me be the first to say, IT IS EASY! Follow your instincts, to bite off more than you can chew, and go for it! If you aren’t a coder, don’t worry the community still needs you. Get involved with Marketing, Documentation (Wiki work as well), LoCo teams, IRC support, bug triaging, and so much more. From here you will learn the ropes rather quickly by watching others in the community and your growth will be determined by you. Who knows, this time next year you may be a top-knotch developer who many people look up to. That is another perk of being involved in such a great community, whether it is Ubuntu, KDE, GNOME, or whatever, people will look up to you, not as a God, but more or less as a leader or liason wanting to absorb everything the community has taught you. It is great getting someone interested and then watching them grow and become a great community leader.

Jono Bacon, the Ubuntu Community Manager, gives the greatest talks I have ever seen when it comes to community. Here is a YouTube video of his latest and greatest, Herding Cats, talk at linuxconf.au this year.

GET INVOLVED NOW! It’s easy, rewarding, and a great place to meet new friends.

LoCo Love! Illinois people (that small corn state in the US) you now have a place to call home in the Ubuntu community. Tonight, after talks with other Ubuntu members it has been decided to start an Ubuntu Illinois Local Community Team. Since I have been the team lead in a way for Ubuntu Chicago, it was decided that I should go ahead and get the project rolling. Well after further thought, a couple of dreams and some hacking, Illinois has now been Ubuntu’ized.

What is a LoCo? A LoCo, or Local Community, is a team of Ubuntu enthusiast that want to see Ubuntu succeed. The team will be made up of people from all walks of life with advocacy and support of Ubuntu in their minds. The building process will be slow, but if you are in the state of Illinois and would like to be apart of the Ubuntu community, you now have a place to start. What will we do? Right now the growth of membership is a large priority. Once we have a strong membership, and during the process of gaining new members, we will give talks, do demos, advocate (market) Ubuntu anyway possible. We will help people switch over, we will provide them with support, and we will turn them into enthusiasts as well.

Ubuntu Chicago in the past year has had some pretty good success. The team has held in-depth meetings, members have given talks at local events, converted hundreds of local users and have even helped support those users with their new life in the free software world.

Sign me up! Well, you can sign up yourself to show that you are interested in helping Ubuntu and Ubuntu Illinois grow. Head on over to the team page on launchpad and sign up. Note that you have to have an account on the launchpad first. Until the team gets up to speed the Ubuntu Chicago mailing list will be used for communications as well as the IRC channel. So, point your IRC client to #ubuntu-illinois on Freenode which will redirect you for the time being to #ubuntu-chicago. Say hi and hang out. Within the following months we are hoping to have a decent turn out in membership as well as events planned at the state universities. Keep an eye out for an updated wiki page for the team as well.

Thanks to everyone who helped in conceiving this idea and for poking me enough times to go ahead and start it up.