nixternal

Linux, Open Source, Hackers, and a lot more are wrongly accused of a variety of things every day.

• You can’t play games on Linux - WRONG You can play pretty much every game in Windows within Linux, granted you have to use emulation (i.e., Wine or Cedega), but you can play them and play them just as well.
• Linux is to hard - WRONG If an 80 year old woman who has never touched a computer in her life can use it, then it obviously isn’t to hard. Linux has become a lot easier in recent years since GNOME, KDE, and others have worked hard on usability.
• Linux is for hackers - WRONG Linux is for everyone! Whether you are a coder, a gamer, a musician, or just a typical user, Linux is for you just as much as Windows or Mac OS X is. Also for those of you who think hackers are bad, read the next line and re-train your vocabulary.
• Hackers broke into my system - WRONG A script kiddie or a cracker has broken into your system. Hackers are ethical programmers who don’t want to take advantage but create more advantages to what is there. Hackers are the people who write the code that make Linux, Microsoft, Mac OS X, and anything else on your computer do what it does. Crackers are the bad people, hackers are the good people. Stop confusing the two, this goes especially to Merriam Webster, other dictionaries, major media outlets, and our very own governments. Put this as a mental note, and remember it forever, don’t always believe what you read, especially this blog!
• Open Source isn’t good for the IT world - WRONG The IT world wouldn’t be where it is today without Open Source. Besides being a culture that enjoys all of their freedoms, Open Source pretty much rules what you do and see on the Internet. Open Source allows many to view the code and offer fixes immediately whether they are simple bugs or major security issues. Open Source makes it possible for fixes to be made available within hours. Closed source or binary code makes it impossible for many to view it and offer opinions, so you will always have to wait for that small team in Redmond or wherever they are to figure out how to fix the solution. Think of Open Source as a collaborative effort among millions of diversified individuals to bring you the greatest and most secure applications. Diversity is good thing right?

There are many other misconceptions or false accusations that tend to annoy me as I am sure it annoys many others as well. There are many great people who talk about Open Source and Free Software, but hardly to you ever hear them shoot down the falsities that many people put on them. If we are going to remain a culture, it is time we stand up to the IT bigots who try to shame us or better yet the ignorant media and our not-so-perfect government (this goes for every government in the world). So, what can we do as a culture to spread the positive word about us and to put to rest the bogus misrepresentation that is put on us?

So you really want to get involved helping out Ubuntu but just don’t know where to start, or maybe think you need to be some big-time programmer in order to help out. Well let me be the first, or maybe the hundredth, person to tell you that this is far from the reality of getting involved.

How I got involved: I started out helping with Kubuntu developers with testing. From here I learned about other teams such as the Wiki Team, the Maketing Team, the Laptop Testing Team, as well as a few others. Each of these teams, perfect stepping stones as a way into the community, are not small projects or teams, and actually are depended on by the developers in the community. For instance, the Wiki Team maintains the developer wiki as well as the community documentation wiki. The goal of the team is to ensure that the wiki’s keep a consistent style as well as the information provided is accurate and detailed enough to help everyone from the first-time user all the way up to the seasoned developer. The Marketing Team maintains the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, creates DIY Marketing information, and works closely with the Canonical marketers to ensure that Ubuntu is spread worldwide. I started out with these teams in which I was introduced to many of the great developers in which I have a privilege of working along side with every day. It was from here that I eventually stepped up in to more prominant community roles and get to work with the development of the system documentation, Kubuntu development, and now a new roll which came up recently, KDE Documentation.

No matter the amount of knowledge you have with Ubuntu or Linux, there is always a way for you to get started in helping out the Ubuntu community. Be it sitting in IRC and helping out users with their problems, helping out the developers test their applications, working closely with a Local Community Team (LoCo), marketing, or documentation, your help will always be greatly appreciated, and awarded every 6 months with what has shaped up to be one of the greatest Linux distributions of all time. To learn more about how you can get involved with Ubuntu, the Contributing to Ubuntu is a great page to start out with. The most difficult things with getting involved, which are not actually that hard, is learning IRC if you have never used it before (just as easy as using AIM, MSN, or ICQ), setting up a GPG (gnupg) key, signing the Code of Conduct and becoming an Ubuntero. Now when I say difficult, I am using it loosely and mean that it is really that easy to get involved.

Who knows, you just might get lucky and meet some great developers who have no problem in guiding you and teaching you even more than you could have ever imagined. Now that I am a part of the KDE project as well, it is just as easy over there as I am sure it is just as easy with GNOME, Enlightenment, Xfce, and more. When we say Open Source, we are not only talking about the code of the application, but we are also speaking about the community. The door is always open and you are always welcome.

<- That should definitely be the logo:”Flock(For all you young hipsters, that is the hairdo of Mike Score from the Flock of Seagulls)”:http://www.flock.com! I am posting this right now from the Flock web browser. I have been playing with Flock for a few days right now, and I think it is pretty darn cool. Now, it all depends on if this post works or not of course, so this is a test.

If you download and install flock, you can definitely see the close resemblance to Firefox. Artwork and layout are just a tad bit different, but the included little scripts are pretty neat. If you aren’t aware of this just yet, Flock calls itself the “Social Web Browser,” as it allows you to post to many different social sites right from the browser itself. Here are just a few of the sites:

• Wordpress
• MySpace (I know you Ubuntu developers hide on MySpace)
• Flickr

There is of course a lot more to it, but I am trying to learn some of the stuff. I enjoy the fact it is of course OSS, and it seems pretty darn stable and responsive. I even notice it load quicker than Firefox and operate quicker as well.

Blogged with Flock