This blog post is a follow-up to UDS-P, the Ubuntu Developer Summit.

"Ubuntu Community". What does it mean?

During UDS-P, I asked publicly for a favour: When we speak about community, lets use adjectives. Let's use more than one adjective if one isn't enough. Let's use precise language to help frame the problems we are trying to solve in the Precise cycle.

To that end, and being a visual thinker, I have begun to map out the Ubuntu community as a first step in developing a lexicon. I hope this will help us frame our discussions and develop a common understanding of what our community looks like.

The words in black are the adjectives that help scope out different parts of the community. The words in blue are processes.

From the map we can see that:

1. There are far more "non-consumers" of Ubuntu than there are "consumers",
2. Not everyone who consumes Ubuntu contributes to Ubuntu,
3. There is a small group of "core" "contributors". Some of them work for Canonical. There are many "contributors" in the "core" and outside the "core" that do not.
4. Not all "consumers" of Ubuntu are part of "loco teams",
5. Not all people in "loco teams" contribute.
6. Some Ubuntu Members "consume" only.
7. LoCo teams currently play a role in onboarding "contributors".

There are two key processes we need to build/optimize:

1. Contributor Onboarding: How do we turn "consumers" into "contributors"? Though I've shown the process flowing exclusively through LoCo teams, that's likely not the only on-ramp. Consider the case where a "consumer" hits the boundary of "contributor" on their own. Do we have a process for that? Do we need one?
2. Consumer Onboarding: How do we bring those who don't currently "consume" Ubuntu into one of the inner circles as quickly and as smoothly as possible?

The diagram has (at least) two distinct cultural boundaries. "Non-consumers" are immersed in a different culture (paradigm) than "consumers" (I pay for my software and I get what I get. My software provider has only a passing interest in me and only where it satisfies their business plan.) "Consumers" are immersed in a different culture (paradigm) than "contributors" (Software is done TO us rather than software is done BY us.). We need to think about these boundaries as potential points of friction.

This is just a beginning of what will become a much richer picture and I've only really scratched the surface of what this depicts. Please add your thoughts in the comments on how we can improve this map. And, if you know of similar work elsewhere, please let me know.

Thanks!

It's the first ever "Community Appreciation Day" in Ubuntu-land.

I am grateful for the Ubuntu global contributor community: the most diverse and friendly community there is in free software.

But to me, community is first and foremost a local construct. I am honoured to be surrounded by all of my friends in Vancouver, BC who make Ubuntu in my city really come alive. Before Ubuntu Vancouver (the group), Ubuntu (the software) in Vancouver was pretty much just a CD with some great software on it carefully organized by nice people far away who I'd be unlikely to meet. Now, Ubuntu is also a local (as-in-neighbourhood), enthusiastic, creative, fun, artistic, inclusive community. And, it's on my street!

I've met most nearly all of my friends in Vancouver through my involvement in Ubuntu community, and as a result I consider it a fundamental part of my existence here. Today, I will be celebrating Community Appreciation Day by reaching out to the Ubuntu Vancouver Community and thanking them in the channel we live in: meatspace.

I encourage you to do the same. Do you know an Ubuntu person in your town that's done something awesome? Reach out to them. Invite them for a Cup of Ubuntu or a drink an Ubuntini. Tell them why they are special and why they matter to Ubuntu.

Woke up this morning and... WOW!! Chuck just endorsed my LoCo! Apparently he's into jam and parties!

I'm not sure what this means yet, but it sure made my day.

One week of cameras everywhere! Thousands of photos! Were you there?

Let's get all our photos onto Flickr (or similar) photo sharing services. Let's show the whole world our great Ubuntu Contributor Community in action.

Suggested photo tags: uds, uds-p, ubuntu, precise

Thanks :)

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Image (CC BY-SA 2.0) rrnwexec.

This blog post was the fourteenth in a series of many that I will be posting about UDS, the Ubuntu Developer Summit.

This blog post is the thirteenth in a series of many that I will be posting about UDS, the Ubuntu Developer Summit.

I was at the ever-popular UDS Lightning Talks this afternoon. At Lightning Talks, volunteer presenters take the stage for 5 minutes and share their best Ubuntu-related ideas. Interesting stuff is usually found at this session.

Highlights:

FreeRDP
A program that allows you to run proprietary applications (that don't run on Ubuntu) on Ubuntu. Could be useful in a corporate setting.

Trublr
Alan Pope has created a system to provide and receive help remotely without port forwarding or proxy madness. (It's a beta.)
http://dev.trublr.com

"Ask Ubuntu"
Marco Ceppi presented a site for asking Ubuntu questions, or editing, or answering them.
http://askubuntu.com

u1db
Stuart Langridge presented a way to sync data across all U1 platforms. A document-oriented database.

Ask Jorge
Chris Johnston talked about the newest way to ask questions and get better Community-Canonical communication.
http://www.askjorge.info

How One Ubuntu Member got to UDS by boat
A member of the Ubuntu design team from the UK shared his story about how he came here by bike and boat. Oh, and a new book about the Ubuntu font family is out.

Ubuntu Image On Panda Board
One member has Ubuntu running on a Panda Board, running a Qt application. (Thanks to Linaro for the Panda.)

Byobu
There have been some exciting developments in byobu and we were given a great demo by the developer Dustin Kirkland. A PPA is available. Sorry, no screenshots.

Where Has Launchpad's Downtime Gone
Evidently, downtime is a thing of the past on lp. Haw Loeung described the system architecture that made that possible.

Instrumented Flight Rules
Steve Langasek presented ways to save power on long flights etc. Powertop 1.13 was used for the demo. This tool shows you where the power is being consumed on your system so you can make some informed choices about which hardware components (e.g. wifi) should be enabled and which applications should be allowed to run based on their interrupt level (Hint: use the kill command.)

Multitouch on Ubuntu
Chase Douglas, of multi-touch team fame, demo'd some magical touch stuff using Qt QML. He showed free-form image rotation and pinch-to-zoom using touch. Caution: If you use the rotate too much, you'll get Rick Astley videos.

Novacut
Jason DeRose (he's amazing) and his all-star team demo'd Novacut. It works! Real-time collaborative workflows here we come :)

Editing Workitems in Launchpad
Michael Hudson Doyle wrote a GreaseMonkey script to make editing Launchpad workitems super easy.

If you were one of the speakers and want to provide further info, please leave a note in the comments.

This blog post is the twelfth in a series of many that I will be posting about UDS, the Ubuntu Developer Summit.

Interesting ideas get generated when we meet and share our stories. That's the magic of UDS!

Over lunch (at UDS) today, I had the pleasure of sitting between Alison Randall and Charles Profitt. Inevitably a passionate and pleasant discussion about community ensued. I'm passionate about creating new on-ramps and processes that are optimized to on-board and grow community as fast as possible. You might be thinking, "Wait a minute. Haven't we already done that?"

We were talking about Alison's amazing "Community Participation in User Experience" session earlier this morning. One of the things that was said at that session was that "Design teams don't often understand how to engage and to work with the community" (and I would add vice-versa to that statement).

At that sentence something hit me. Which community?

When we say the word community, why do we forget the adjectives? Admittedly, I'm no grammar enthusiast, but this is beginning to hobble us. We can't have an effective discussion about community engagement, or other aspects of community until we know and state explicitly which community we are talking about.

Here are some potential adjectives to consider putting in front of the word community when we speak about it:

• World Community
• "People-who-will-never-use-Ubuntu" Community
• "People-who-have-never-heard-of-Ubuntu" Community
• Potential Ubuntu User Community
• Casual Ubuntu User Community
• Ubuntu Enthusiast Community
• Ubuntu Online Community
• Ubuntu Advocacy Community
• Ubuntu Power-User Community
• Non-Technical Ubuntu Community
• Ubuntu Contributor Community
• Ubuntu Member Community
• Ubuntu LoCo Leader Community
• Ubuntu Developer Community
• Ubuntu "Canonical-Developer" Community
• Ubuntu Bug-triage Community
• Ubuntu Design Community
• Ubuntu Quality Assurance Community
• Ubuntu Testing Community
• Ubuntu Founder Community
• Ubuntu Translation Community
• Ubuntu Local Community
• Ubuntu Local-as-in-your-town Community

Here is my request: When we speak about community, lets use adjectives. Let's use more than one adjective if one isn't enough. Let's use precise language to help frame the problems we are trying to solve in the Precise cycle.

Thanks!

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image (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Choconancy1

One of the highlights of UDS is the group shot. Those that make the fantasic product, platform, project that is Ubuntu gather to show the world that Ubuntu is also a community of people.

Here we are getting ready. Can you spot some Ubuntu people that you know? I think I see Amber Graner. Hmm... there's that Ubuntuman again. Be careful!

Sean Sosik-Hamor was kind enough to be our director and photographer. Thanks Sean for having the patience to herd us into something that resembles an organized group while risking your life on the ladder!

I'm sure the official shot will be available soon. Stay tuned...

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Images (CC BY-SA 2.0) rrnwexec.

This blog post was the eleventh in a series of many that I will be posting about UDS, the Ubuntu Developer Summit.

This blog post is the tenth in a series of many that I will be posting about UDS, the Ubuntu Developer Summit.

I'll be hosting a UDS session this morning and I encourage everyone who is interested in community growth to attend and tune in.

Executive Summary:
The main idea is to make discovery of Ubuntu community automatic, and not an accident. Community is meant in the whole and general sense of "anyone who uses or contributes to Ubuntu."

Problem Statement:
"Houston we have a problem." Most people who have discovered Ubuntu community have done so accidentally. Most people (who are on the other side of the chasm) have no idea that community is central to the growth and development of Ubuntu. Most people have no idea whether others in their town/city are using Ubuntu. We need to make community obvious and make community formation easy.

Proposal:
One possible solution is to create a "Community Lens" , a "We Menu" or (similarly obvious desktop element). Make it prominent. Connect it to one's local community, beginning with those who use and enjoy Ubuntu in our town/city. Over time, expand it to include additional nearby non-Ubuntu social connections: family, friends, neighbourhood, city...

The blueprint is here:
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/community-p-making-communi...
An audio stream will be available here during the meeting:
http://icecast.ubuntu.com:8000/bonaire8.ogg.m3u
You can join the meeting remotely here:
http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=ubuntu-uds-bonaire8

What are your thoughts? Join us at 10am Eastern time!

Missed the session? That's okay. Add your thoughts in the comments.

I was hanging out with several hundred of my Ubuntu friends this afternoon and look what I saw...

Friend or foe? Human or not? Hmm. This creature seems friendly. If you spot him in your town or city, please give him a giant Ubuntu hug.

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Images (CC BY-SA 2.0) rrnwexec.

This blog post was the ninth in a series of many that I will be posting about UDS, the Ubuntu Developer Summit.

This blog post is the seventh in a series of many that I will be posting about UDS, the Ubuntu Developer Summit.

One thing I've realized is that it's very difficult to capture the firehose of discussions, sessions, and otherwise interesting content from UDS into one coherent daily blog article. So rather than documenting a play-by-play, I'll likely jump around and pull highlights from areas that I'm focused on into shorter summaries.

Day 2 of the Ubuntu Developer Summit was even more jam-packed than the first.

Meet The Ubuntu Desktop Designers

I think this was one of the most interesting and professional sessions sessions of the day. The awesome Alison Randall facilitated a discussion between the remarkable design team (Otto, Christian, mpt, Mika, Stuart, John) and community folks to talk about ways to engage with the community. A lot of the design process is indeed done in close physical proximity. As a result the design team can appear opaque. They aren't generally online and in IRC. As a result, this frustrates some Ubuntu contributors and there's a pent up demand for information about how design decisions are made and the process. We see some of this frustration from our vantage point as disparaging comments about Unity, which I've blogged about before.

There will be some follow-up communications from the team I'm sure. They seem committed to communicating more frequently and with greater transparency.

In the meantime I encourage everyone reading this to check out their blog:

http://design.canonical.com/

Hmm.. on second thought, please subscribe to it.

http://design.canonical.com/feed/

What are your thoughts? What can the design team do to help you understand both the process and the outcomes?