Tag Archives: Stephen Michael Kellat

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Stephen Michael Kellat: Late July Notes From Ohio Leader

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Ubuntu Ohio held an IRC meeting on Thursday. Leveraging the capabilities of the LoCo Portal allows for rough minutes to be maintained there. A few matters arose:

  • Jon Buckley and Scott Randby gave tentative expressions of interest in speaking at UbuCon during Ohio Linux Fest 2013. Proposals from members of Ubuntu Ohio and those outside the team are due to the Point of Contact & Leader by July 31st. First priority will be given to scheduling presentations by members of Ubuntu Ohio however this does not limit those from outside Ubuntu Ohio from being possibly scheduled to speak. Topics of interest include but are not limited to: Gaming, Server usage, Flavor Highlights, Highlights about finishing up Saucy Salamander for release, Thoughts looking forward to the next Long Term Support release, Reflections on the changes wrought by the virtual Ubuntu Developer Summit paradigm, Ways we need to work within the cultures found in Ohio to expand Ubuntu deployment.

  • Two issues were carried over to the mailing list for further discussion due to a lack of attendance. The summation was prepared by Scott Randby and can be read in the archive here where issues concerning scheduling a keysigning and what, if any, materials should be distributed were raised. Discussions on the team mailing list are encouraged.

In light of the hostile actions taken against the Ubuntu Forums which have sparked recovery processes, members of Ubuntu Ohio are asked at this time to stick to the mailing list and the IRC channel for discussions.

The package monkeysign is being investigated for use with the proposed possible keysigning at Ohio Linux Fest. Currently the package has been copied from Debian Unstable to the Saucy Salamander package archive and test backports have been made by the leader in his personal PPA. If it does not break their may be an Ubuntu Ohio PPA opened with backports for 12.04, 12.10, and 13.04. Other tools to ease the process for the proposed session are also being investigated. The Leader has committed to send out sets of instructions to the team for at least two weeks prior to Ohio Linux Fest if the keysigning session is to happen.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu

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Stephen Michael Kellat: Changes in Ubuntu Ohio

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It appears that as of 7 April 2013 I am the Point of Contact for Ubuntu Ohio and effectively Leader. In an e-mail to the community sent Sunday I wrote:

Good afternoon.

As of today the High Council of Ubuntu Ohio is taking a breather by ceasing to operate for the time being. The e-mail address for the High Council also no longer functions. It is time to give thanks to Cheri Francis, Michael Gilbert, Jon Buckley, Jacob Peddicord, and Paul Tagliamonte for their periods of service on that body over the past three years.

At this time I am the designated Point of Contact for our Local Community Team on Launchpad. The length of term for this is open-ended at this time. Ubuntu Ohio encompasses users of all flavors of the common core whether you favor Unity, KDE, Xfce, GNOME 3, or LXDE. I must reiterate that we have a big tent here and are not solely focused on the desktop environment named Unity but rather the unity that comes from the common core in software we all utilize.

Looking ahead, our near-term goal is to prepare for participation in Ohio Linux Fest 2013. In the long term we are going to need to strengthen the core of our community by mentoring members of our community so as to increase the number of Ubuntu Members that we have located here in the Buckeye State. Slowly but surely we will be looking forward to new horizons that will require new and interesting approaches.

Many adventures lay ahead. Let us move forward boldly as we near the end of the Raring Ringtail cycle and prepare for the Virtual Ubuntu Developer Summit in May.

Stephen Michael Kellat

The podcast known as The Burning Circle continues at this time. I’ve made updates to the relevant Launchpad pages to put the High Council into hibernation as I’m the sole member of it remaining. In due time it will return but we have some work ahead of us in the Buckeye State first.

While Ohio Linux Fest 2013 is five months away, we have some disadvantages. First off is that we do not have as much presence in the state capital as we once did. Our members are widely spread across Ohio and it will take some effort to get people to converge on Columbus. Second, we almost did not have a presence there in 2012. Extra effort will be needed to coordinate to ensure that we might be able to sponsor an UbuCon this year perhaps or at least get some speakers lined up. Third, their website was unreachable this weekend so I will need to invest some time to locate correct contacts. This all results in plenty of action items to cover the next five months.

New adventures await as 2013 continues ever onward…

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu

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Stephen Michael Kellat: Ever Onward

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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. — Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (King James Version)

Well, UDS-1303 is now over. It appears that some folks in the community have been overtaken by the number of changes that have been proposed recently. That much is understandable. During sessions I participated in during UDS-1303, I kinda was a broken record talking about the need for change management.

For many this has been a time to speak. Indeed, there was much discussion during the summit. There were also many announcements of community members departing.

It is unfortunate that community members are departing. I hope they find success in their new endeavors. With the state of the technology world as of late, departures need not necessarily be permanent as paths may well cross again in the future. With new synergies erupting in the most unexpected of places it is inevitable that we may perhaps meet again.

The bumper sticker sized key to UDS-1303 is that discussion happened in a format very different from an e-mail list. For the proposals that were initially made by e-mail, this pretty much had to happen as slinging decontextualized text back and forth in that communications paradigm can be limiting. After concerns, proposals, counter-proposals, technical nightmares, fears, anticipations, hopes, and potential excitements more were expressed I look forward to seeing a more fleshed out proposal for rolling releases.

The problem is that at the broadest level it is easy to talk about rolling releases. When you get down to the nuts and bolts of it is when it gets pretty complicated and can at times resemble a Gordian Knot. As evidenced at UDS-1303, there are many possible methodologies and risk is unavoidable.

As initially proposed, I did not favor the proposal due to uncertainties and a lack of nuts & bolts details. After the discussions that have ensued, I’m ready to wait for the full proposal to be released by Rick Spencer that is fleshed out so that I can consider this further. I heard many interesting potential approaches to the nuts & bolts of doing this during UDS-1303 and eagerly await what is settled on …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu

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Stephen Michael Kellat: Paradigm Shifting Without A Clutch

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Within the Ubuntu realm there have been some dramatic changes that have erupted at the end of February 2013. The first shift was that the Ubuntu Developer Summit has shifted to an electronic-only format with the first one in the new style set to launch within a week of announcement. The second shift was the announcement that rolling releases are under formal consideration with that release paradigm change being under consideration at the hastily-announced event.

Where is the Ubuntu realm going? If you have the answer to that, you are among a select few. For the various flavors such as Xubuntu, Kubuntu, and Lubuntu this is perhaps a systemic shock as the main flavor is now making fairly radical changes that may or may not fit with the goals of the flavor projects. The main line of Ubuntu is seeking convergence where it dominates the desktop, the tablet, and the phone. Rolling releases will presumably be needed to keep up with the fast-paced phone realm.

This is a bit of a change. Is the desktop where the future of computing is headed? Is the desktop going away in favor of pocket computers that somewhere inside still have a tiny amount of circuitry that results in them being called “phones”? That much is uncertain. The gamble being made by Canonical as it adds yet another mobile operating system to an already crowded space is that that is where things are headed. As noted by Anna Leach on The Register earlier in February, total planet-wide sales of cellular phones declined 1.7% last year. Half of all cellular phones on the planet sold in 2012 were made by one of the following three manufacturers/design bureaus: Apple, Samsung, Nokia.

Right now there is a bit of a rupture as to where Ubuntu and its flavors are progressing. That is unfortunate. There remains quite a bit of uncertainty in the market and no clear breakthrough leads yet that are truly destroying one segment of the market for another. The desktop is not dead and the cell phone seems mature/stagnant in terms of innovation at the moment.

Between the UDS changes and the rolling releases proposal, we are effectively rolling the dice. As a user of Xubuntu on a BeagleBoard-xM, I have to watch the development of the rolling release proposal very carefully to see if I am not left behind as Personal Package Archives (PPAs) do not build for ARM architecture routinely. My board is already considered unsupported but I would still like some flavor of Ubuntu, preferably Xubuntu, to still be able to boot on it. Indicators currently are not pointing towards that but towards a major drive now to get Ubuntu Phone ready and live as soon as possible.

Let us all hope that this roll of the dice is the right one.

Paradigm Shifting Without A Clutch by Stephen Michael Kellat is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at <a target=_blank …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu

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Ubuntu Ohio – Burning Circle: Burning Circle Episode 102

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This week’s episode relays bits from USDA Radio about supercomputers as well as the sixth season announcement from the Ubuntu UK Podcast team where they announce they’re shifting to weekly releases. News more local to the Ohio Local Community Team is also presented as members are implored to update the February 2013 Team Report and to log Ubuntu Global Jam events on the LoCo portal.

Unlike normal episodes, producer Gloria Kellat presented this week while head writer Stephen Michael Kellat stood temporary duty as recording engineer.

Download here (MP3) (ogg) (FLAC), or subscribe to the podcast (MP3) to have episodes delivered to your media player. We suggest subscribing by way of a service like gpodder.net. Please note that due to upload size limitations some audio formats for episodes are now being hosted at Internet Archive instead of directly on the team’s server.

Burning Circle Episode 102 by The Air Staff of Erie Looking Productions is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/2013/02/20/s06e00-season-6-is-coming/.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu