A fantastic way of supporting the Ubuntu Edge campaign is to embed the campaign widget into your website. It looks like this:
It is as simple as pasting the following code into your site sidebar/widget/page:
<iframe src="http://www.indiegogo.com/project/461046/widget"
width="224px" height="486px" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>
Thanks!
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu
We are about 12 hours into the Ubuntu Edge Indigogo Campaign and we are about to hit 10% of the full goal.
Awesome.
Be sure to go and support the campaign!
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu
Last week many of you will have seen the teasers that were shared on www.ubuntu.com. As you can imagine, our community, the press, and others picked up on this with rampant curiosity of what was to come. I am delighted to see the news is now out there, and boy, is this exciting.
In a nutshell, today we are kicking off an Indigogo crowdfunding campaign to fund a fully converged device called Ubuntu Edge.
Can’t see the video? See it here!
The Ubuntu Edge will dual boot Ubuntu and Android, and will transform into a PC when docked with a monitor, with the full Ubuntu desktop and shared access to all the phone’s files. For this it needs the power of a PC, so Ubuntu Edge will be equipped with the latest, fastest processor, at least 4GB of RAM and a massive 128GB of storage.
Every week on my weekly Q&A many of you ask when you can buy a fully converged Ubuntu device in which you can use it as a phone and boot a desktop, and here it is. Now is the opportunity to not only buy one, but to contribute to showing your support for an Ubuntu converged device by contributing to the campaign.
The Ubuntu Edge is not only functionally powerful though. This beautifully crafted device replaces the traditional glass screen with a pure Sapphire crystal, so tough it could only be scratched by diamond. It will also pioneer the use of long-life silicon anode battery technology. A special dual-LTE solution will allow high-speed roaming with access to 4G-LTE broadband in both Europe and the US.
I know many of you who are reading this will be interested in the technical specs, which are:
(specifications are subject to change)
All in all this is a beautiful powerhouse for running a fully converged Ubuntu experience – not just a phone, but a phone and your desktop all in one package that looks and feels uniquely Ubuntu.
For the next 30 days our goal is to reach $32 million, an unprecedented amount raised in a crowd-sourcing campaign. Fortunately we have an incredible global community, and we are asking each of you to contribute what you can to the campaign.
The idea is simple: by committing $600 (£394) on day one, or $810 (£532) thereafter, you will receive one of these ground-breaking mobile devices in …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu
Just a quick note: I will be on vacation this week in Australia. I will be checking in with work and email, but this will be more limited throughout the week.
Look forward to seeing everyone in a week! Lots of exciting things to focus on when I get back.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu
Recently I have been working on a project with my best buddy Stuart ‘Aq’ Langridge, called BBQpad.
I haven’t really talked much about it on my blog as we have been fixing up the rough edges, but I wanted to share a little about it now.
As some of you will know, I have been increasingly getting into BBQ as a hobby. I love being outside and cooking, I love cooking over fire, and the art and science of BBQ facinates me. Don’t think there is a science? Well check out amazingribs.com and see just how much detail, science, and engineering can be involved in creating awesome BBQ.
One of the tips people give you when you start learning grilling and smoking is to maintain a notebook where you track the details of your cooks. You can then refer to what you did, learn from what works and what doesn’t, and improve your ‘cue.
Being of the nerdy persuasion, I was not going to use no stinking paper and pen, so I wrote a web app to track my cooks.
Originally I wrote this as something just for me, and then it struck me that this could be of general interest. I was chatting to Aq one day and he loved the idea so we decided to build what you now see at www.bbqpad.com. The sites works on your computer, mobile, and tablet.
So what does BBQpad let you do?
Well, with it you can create any number of cooks; each cook is a place you track the details of each cook session, such a meal for your family, practicing to improve your cooking, a party for your friends, a BBQ competition, or anything else. Go and see an example cook.
Within a cook you can add as many cookers and foods as you need (we maintain a database of cookers and foods to make this easy).
When you start cooking you can then track lots of different things:
We also allow …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu
Continuing with the work to refine and improve how we build Ubuntu in an open, transparent, and collaborative way, I want to take a few minutes to discuss some work going on to improve the regularity of our planning and the benefits this brings.
Traditionally planning for Ubuntu has worked like this.
While this has served us well, there are a few problems with this approach. The most notable issue is that we work in software, and a lot changes in software in a six month period. This means we define a set of work items, prepare the burndown, and then if requirements or direction changes it can be difficult to reflect those changes across our community and we have to go and postpone a bunch of work items and re-build our burndowns. This means that even though the changes are made to open blueprints, it can cause folks across our community to be out of sync. It also presents the misconception that everything at UDS is locked in for the duration of the six month cycle. If something changes in our strategy or a new opportunity opens up, it can be difficult to change coarse with everyone on the same page.
Solving this is part of our theme of making Ubuntu engineering as transparent and agile as possible.
One approach we are experimenting with in the Ubuntu Engineering Management team at Canonical is to increase the regularity and transparency of how we plan. Instead of locking in every six months we will do it like this:
Now, to set expectations clearly: this is just an idea for how to improve this workflow, and we are doing it for the first time this week, but the idea is that it will dramatically increase the transparency of which teams are working on what, making it easier for others to (a) know …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu
Our community is at the heart of how we build Ubuntu. Recently there were some concerns expressed about some aspects of our community and I have been working with various community members and internally at Canonical to resolve some of these issues to make things smoother.
I just wanted to summarize some updates:
This week’s live video Q&A is in a slightly later time slot this week on Wednesday at 8pm UTC (click here for the time in your location this week).
As usual everyone is welcome to bring any and all questions to the Q&A.
To join, head over to Ubuntu On Air at 8pm UTC on Wednesday and you can ask your questions in the embedded chat box.
Look forward to seeing you all there!
Recently there has been some fire flowing about Canonical in the community. These concerns started off as sporadic at first and then we saw a small blog avalanche (blogalanche, if you will) as a number of folks piled onto the ride.
I feel somewhat trapped in the middle of all of this. On one hand I work at Canonical and I believe Canonical are acting in the honorable interests of Ubuntu in helping to build a competitive and forward-looking Free Software platform, but I also feel a sense of personal responsibility when I see unhappy members of our community who are concerned with different aspects of how Canonical engages. Essentially, I sympathize with both sides of this debate; both have the best interests at heart for Ubuntu.
From my perspective there is a balance that needs to be struck. Our community needs to be transparent and open, but also nimble to react to opportunities (such as the convergence story), but also Canonical play an important role in helping us to drive Ubuntu to the masses. We need to be able to work in a way that maintains our Ubuntu values but also gives Canonical the opportunity to get our platform out to the market effectively to reach these users.
I believe one cannot exist without the other; Canonical cannot deliver this vision without our community and Ubuntu would be significantly debilitated if there was no Canonical providing staff, resources, and other investment into Ubuntu. Canonical is not evil, and the community is not entitled; we all just need to step back and find some common ground and remember that we are all in the circle of friends.
This symbol is as potent to me as it was back in 2004.
When I got interested in Linux back in 1998 and wanted to make it my career, my primary motivation was to bring freedom of technology to everyone. This is what attracted me to Ubuntu and ultimately working at Canonical. I don’t want to be rude to other distros who are quite happy within their remit of making a great OS for Linux enthusiasts, but I frankly don’t want to settle for that. I want Ubuntu to be the choice for Linux enthusiasts, but for us to not stop there and also bring Free Software to people who have not yet been blessed by it, and who may be new to technology and the opportunities it provides.
Achieving that goal is not just as simple as making the source code available for the platform and setting up a bunch of mailing lists. It means delivering simple and elegant user experiences built for the needs of our users, consistent and beautiful design, professional-grade quality, strong hardware and software partner relationships, certification across a range of hardware profiles, training, responsive security, diverse marketing and advocacy campaigns, and many other areas. Both Canonical and the community contribute extensively to provide these things that we need to get over that chasm, and importantly, each provides things that the other cannot.
It turns …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu
Yesterday I had a chat with Jono Bacon and Michael Hall from the Canonical Ubuntu Community Team. I first asked them why aren’t they doing at least one physical UDS per year, and they clearly seemed opposing my argument. Then I asked how about per post-LTS and such, and they still don’t see the need for it. Then I saw Pasi Lallinaho’s post about UDS and Canonical away from community, and I agreed.
The problem we have here is this:
Community finds it difficult to adopt
For example, we are now just near Ubuntu 13.04 (Raring Ringtail) Feature Freeze, and now suddenly Canonical’s Technical Lead Rick Spencer wants to step in and say “let’s cancel it for good”. It clearly destroys all the original plans for 13.04, especially for flavours. For example, Ubuntu Studio originally has some plans made for 13.04. Now it’s even unsure would these not be released to the public on April this year.
Update: Jonathan Riddell saved it for good, but fhe future of 13.10 and 14.10 is unknown.
UDS destroys comunity friendship
Canonical is happy that they don’t need to sponsor anyone now, but then this really breaks the Ubuntu community, especially teams of flavours, which now doesn’t have much chance to meet each other……..
People are leaving
From Planet Ubuntu + Google+ at least 4 community members have left the Ubuntu community because of Canonical’s decisions. Most of them even gave up Ubuntu membership. Is this what we want? Canonical being “Big Brother” in the Ubuntu community?
Summary
Canonical has been annoucing decisions that threatens the Ubuntu community. I really hope that the relations can be repaired.
Leave comments if you wish:-)
I just wanted to post a quick blog entry thanking everyone who joined the first day of our inaugural online Ubuntu Developer Summit today. Overall we didn’t see many glitches in our plan of how to run the event, and we also gathered some fantastic feedback for things we can improve and extend upon next time.
If you want to see what happened in the sessions today, you can view the schedule and view any of the recorded hangouts.
Before we get into the second day tomorrow, I just wanted to invite any comments and suggestions for what worked well, what worked less well etc, to see if we can make any adjustments for the second day. Thanks in advance for your suggestions!
If I don’t see you until tomorrow, we look forward to beginning Day 2 at 2pm UTC tomorrow! Be sure to see the schedule and join us in the sessions!
Tomorrow we will be running our very first online Ubuntu Developer Summit. The event will take place over two days and span a range of different tracks: Community, Client, Cloud & Server, App Developers, and Foundations. We have never run an event like this before, but we have prepared extensively to deliver the best online UDS experience we can. When UDS is complete we will then review any rough edges and fix those up for the next event in May.
With this being a new event, I wanted to share some key tips about how to get participate.
UDS takes place on Tues 5th – Wed 6th March 2013 from 2pm UTC. Please note: the original time was 4pm UTC, but we brought the event forward by two hours.
The full event is taking place online and everyone is welcome to join, irrespective of whether you are an active contributor to the community, a partner, a business, an enthusiast, or anyone else. We will be using Google+ Hangouts On Air to stream video from the active participants in the session, and we also provide quick embedded access to IRC, note-taking, and more.
The event will kick off on Tuesday at 2pm UTC with a keynote session. There will then be two hours of sessions, then an hour of plenaries, and then another two hours of sessions. On the Wednesday we will kick off into sessions at 2pm, and have lightning talks in the normal plenary slot. Jorge Castro is taking care of the plenary talks and lightning talks; reach out to him if you want to run a lightning talk.
There are five tracks, with each (apart from Foundations) having two video streams. Each track has two track leads:
You can find all sessions listed at summit.ubuntu.com. Just visit the session you are interested in at the time of the session to view it; everything is included on the session page. You don’t need anything other than a web browser to view sessions but you will need a Google+ account to actively participate in a hangout.
You should have all received an email from me about how to schedule sessions and how to start and stop the video streams.
Remember to ensure your Google+ is verified (Michael Hall should have checked this with you).
You and your co-track lead should pick one of the two tracks you have for your track and take care of setting up those streams.
Five minutes before a session (e.g. 1.55pm) is due to begin you should start the video stream and update the session in summit.ubuntu.com with the hangout and broadcast URLS. Likewise, 55 minutes into a session (e.g. 2.55pm), be sure to stop the hangout. We need to start and stop the video streams to ensure the recordings are broken up into the different hour long chunks. Required participants will automatically see a …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu
I just want to echo Tony’s appeal to help three year-old Sam who was diagnosed with high risk neuroblastoma, a particularly aggressive cancer. It has spread from the main tumor into his bones and bone marrow. That makes it a class 4 cancer, the most advanced on the scale. The long term survival rate for high risk neuroblastoma is 40%.
As Tony shares:
The good news is that Sam is responding well to chemotherapy. But Sam’s oncologist at Manchester Children’s Hospital has recommended that Sam receives immunotherapy treatment so that his own body can recognise and attack the neuroblastoma if it returns.
The most successful treatment is not available in the UK because some of the drugs are still being trialled. It costs over £250,000 in the US. Which is why Sam desperately needs your help. Carl and Christine are trying to raise the money to send Sam for treatment in the US.
If you would like to donate to help Sam, that would be brilliant. In the UK you can just text SAMS67 and the amount you’d like to donate (£1, £2 £3 £4 £5 or £10) to 70070. Alternatively you can donate on-line at the Sam Shaw Just Giving page. It’s Sam’s fourth birthday this week, so it would be a great birthday present to give him.
Also be sure to join the appeal’s Facebook page.
Your donation to Sam will have an incredible impact on his life as well as his parents, Christine and Carl, who must be having a hell of a time right now dealing with all of this. Let’s all show them that we care by helping them to cover their son’s treatment.
This week Jono Bacon announced that Ubuntu Developer Summits will become a series of online events. Having thought about it a few days, I’m now ready to input my own opinion to the discussion.
In the announcement Jono lists openness, transparency and accessibility as the major goals of the Ubuntu Developer Summits (UDS). The decision to move to an online event is supposed to improve these.
In this article I will explain why I don’t think it will, and why the new format looks just another Canonical team sprint. I’ll also cover some of my concerns over the accessibility and equality of the new format and important things I think the online events will lack, but shouldn’t. I will also discuss some of my opinions on how this changes the nature of UDS and the meaningfulness to flavors as well as how this change affects the Canonical-community relations.
I value openness and transparency very much. However, I’m not sure if the new online format will increase them in any way. Canonical is already making many decisions that affect the community in-house, behind closed doors. Unfortunately, these decisions and their results don’t always roll out as expected.
Until now the community has had at least some voice in the discussion, or at least have been able to react to changes, if they have been discussed in UDS. It’s a pessimistic view, but I can’t see why Canonical employees would start discussing and working more closely now with the community on decisions that have already been made. Now that the event is online, it’s much easier to have more discreet, even hidden meetings about things where community input would be largely unwanted or at least ignored à la the in-house pre-UDS sessions.
While it’s evident that a physical event has limitations when it comes to accessibility, so does an online event. One of the main reasons that made the Canonical-community communication so effective in UDS was that everybody got together, in the same place and at the same time. This means everybody participating in person is (ideally) always available and 100% focused on the sessions.
Now that the event takes place online, people will not be as committed to participating a session in every slot. Even when they are participating, the session might not get their full attention, because there are more distractions when working online.
When people aren’t participating in a session, they most probably won’t be available, which means there won’t be any substitution to the off-session discussions. This is sad, because this used to be one of the most powerful features of UDS for officially recognized flavors (such as Xubuntu) and I believe for numerous other teams as well. Even if people did have these off-session discussions, they are just as useful as contacting anybody via IRC or email any time, so there’s no real benefit of the centralized time. As a matter of fact, people might be even busier than usually during the online events, making it even harder to …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu
