Ubuntu Open Week - The Ubuntu Community - Mon, Nov 27, 2006

see also Wednesday Session.

07:01   jono    I am going to run through some stuff for a bit and then I want to open it up to Q+A for much of the session
07:01   jono    hi everyone, my name is Jono Bacon and I am the Ubuntu Community Manager at Canonical
07:01   jono    a lot of people get pretty confused about what exactly my job is here to do

07:02   jono    my main role is to help keep the wheels in the community rolling, help optimise how the community works, develop better ways of working, and be a point of contact for the community
07:02   jono    although I am employed by Canonical, I am ultimately judged by the community itself
07:03   jono    as an example, when I started, even though I went through four interviews over a month, I still needed to apply for ubuntu membership
07:03   jono    working for canonical does secure me shortcuts or anything like that, the community is the judge

07:03   jono    this is quite deliberate, the community is central to ubuntu and central to canonical, and we have built an incredible community together
07:04   jono    the fact we have 332 people in here is testement to what our community is capable of doing
07:04   jono    every community needs rules and governance that determines how it works


07:04   jono    the ubuntu community is no different

<daxelrod> What do you mean by "community"? Anyone who uses Ubuntu, or just those who develop it?

• I am determining community as everyone in the ubuntu ecosystem - developers, users and anyone else

07:05   jono    so, we have some community structures, and right in the middle is the Code of Conduct
07:06   jono    this document species basic standards of practice that most decent people have innately, but it sets a standard for us
07:06   jono    although it is just words on a wiki page, the CoC has become a powerful document and a cornerstone of our community and one that is not used to judge people, but to set levels of how we work together
07:06   jono    in addition to that we have the Community Council
07:07   jono    the Community Council (CC) is a board of nominated contributors who decde on how the community is governed
07:07   jono    they do NOT have to be canonical people
07:07   jono    in fact, mako, who is on the board is not a canonical employee
07:07   jono    the CC make decisions on aspects of governance in the community
07:08   jono    as an example, recently there has been discussion of a Leadership Code of Conduct which outlines core standards of leadership
07:08   jono    that document would be accepted or denied by the CC
07:08   jono    we have also talked about sub-councils known as team councilc
07:08   jono    councils
07:09   jono    so, as an example, the forums would have their own council - they are a large sub-community inside ubuntu, and could do with a council to decide on issues in their domain
07:09   jono    another thing the CC decide on is ubuntu membership
07:09   jono    to be an acknowledged member of the ubuntu project, we ask that contributors go before the CC to apply for membership
07:10   jono    the CC then decide if that person is suitable to known as a member
07:10   jono    more on this in the becoming an ubuntu member session later in the week
07:10   jono    now, our community is hugely diverse
07:11   jono    we have lots of different areas in which people can get involved such as art, documentation, development, packaging etc, and we actively encourage participation in these areas
07:11   jono    we are keen that the ubuntu community does not suffer the same misinterpreation that other communities suffer - that only technical people can be a part of it
07:12   jono    each of our community efforts is broken into different teams, and each team is generally expected to have a mailing list, IRC channel, wiki pages on wiki.ubuntu.com and maybe a forum

[mattl] what area could someone who is new to free software and new to GNU/Linux especially get involved with?

• I think people need to figure out what their skills are and decide how they can apply them so, if someone is a good artist, the art team would be a good choice, good communicators could join the doc or marketing teams

[mattl] is there a task list, as such? a list of opportunities?

• there are more than one. http://www.ubuntu.com/community/participate, https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ContributeToUbuntu, and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HelpingUbuntu have other ideas. this is the plan to merge these together: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ImprovingParticipatePage. mattl, more on that in a bit

<elvstone> What does beeing a member of the Ubuntu Project entail? What would my responsabilities be towards the Project? What makes this different from just beeing a user and contributor to the Ubuntu Project?

• being an ubuntu means that you have performed a sustained and substantial contribution to the project. we use ubuntu membership as a method of identifying which people are good strong contributors in the project. it is a useful yardstick for seperating out solid performers from people who just get a kick out of shouting on mailing lists

<Yawner> How has being employed by Canonical changed your ability to contribute to the Project?

• not a huge amount - I am not going to deny that being employed by canonical means some people have more faith in you, because you have been through a pretty solid vetting process - but being employed does not buy any more rights with the community. I fundamentally needed to prove my worth to the community, but the community has been very open to my employment

<leetcharmer> Are there plans to make community involvement even easier? Perhaps a GUI-based application that would gather information from launchpad that would integrate and help people get started with ease?

• I have *lots* of plans about this very issue. One of the problems with free software communities is that the process of involvement follows this approx path:
  1. someone decides they like free software and they want to help
  2. the person looks at a list of possible teams and ways of contributing and tries to match their skills with a team
  3. they join the team
  now, at point (3) things can get shaky in most scenarios joining a team involves being thrown in a deep end - a contribution to the team requires a fairly large investment of time and energy. I am interested in lessening this investment and getting a win for the contributor sooner rather than later. one plan is to have the concept of "bite size tasks" - a number of tasks for a team that are simple, trivial things to do, but offer a great first step into that team

[mattl] i often have pockets of random spare time where i'm sitting with a laptop waiting for a train or a plane or something. be nice if i could use that time to do a microtask that would be useful to the community.

[finalbeta] I like the tasks idea, would be great for independent coders such as myself to help out when the have some time.

[leetcharmer] That sounds exciting! How can this be made possible? How do you lessen the required amount of time?

• I discussed this at the UDS and Allhands, and I am talking with some of the teams to do this in a consistant way, using tags in launchpad. The key thing is that bitesize tasks have plenty of feedback.

  [dsas] Akin to the gnome-love bugs gnome use?

  • similar sort of thing. we trialled this technique with the Jokosher community and it was very successfull

  [Arby] any estimate when this will happen?

  • I am hoping we can get something sorted over the next few months

  I am also looking into other areas such as standarding documentation and providing better optimised ways of working. I trialled some of my ideas with the LoCo team, and it seemed to work pretty well - developing consistancy, documentation, improving team relations etc the actual user experience is where good feedback from the team needs to come in. it is difficult to write rules to dictate how communities work - it is instead about best practice and learning from our peers

  [mattl] can you give an example of a task?

  • as an example, it may be a packaging bug

  [dsas] There was an effort within the desktop team to manage that, with the more experienced members tagging things with the 'ubuntulove' and others picking up on the tasks.

  • exactly, we need a consistant project way of doing this
  so yeah, expect more on this soon =P

07:24   jono    other projects include mentoring (trialled with a LoCo pilot), documenting best practice, events and more
07:24   jono    I don't think the issue here is an interface issue, it is a process issue

07:25   mattl   task based documentation is pretty useful. any way a user could make documentation by simply using the program? ie. it records the menu clicks to a file and lets them write some text around what they just did?

<emonkey-p> you're Community Manager only for Ubuntu or general for all *buntu Distros too? (like kubuntu)

• althougn my job title is Ubuntu Community Manager, I am here to help all aspects of the community where I can, and I have worked with Kubuntu, Launchpad, Ubuntu, Edubuntu and various others

<nmsa> are you working with loco teams? does your are include them? how?

• when I joined, I identified loco teams as a key part of the community. I have spent quite a lot of time working with locos. y'know, its interesting, when I started there were lots of locos, but noone talked to each other. Each team was its own little independent unit. I wanted to first get people talking to each other - we are a community and our biggest strength is how we communicate and learn from each other, so I revived loco-contacts and encouraged people to talk to each other. I also encouraged teams to share their experience, stories and other tips to figure out how to best run the teams

07:28   jono    another issue was the sparse and badly organised documentation, so I tidied up the wiki, added a consistant menu bar, created a knowledge base, encouraged teams to contribute docs and formed regular meetings
07:28   jono    finally, I worked to help improve the process of how loco teams are approved
07:29   jono    in the ubuntu project there are two types of team - new and approved - approved teams are the equivilent of ubuntu members, but for teams - teams that we know work well
07:29   jono    and recently I have been working on some ideas to unify loco resources in launchpad
07:29   jono    one of the problems we have with teams right now is that teams are spending too much time messing around with setting up websites, planets and user maps, and not spending their time teambuilding
07:30   jono    I want to reduce this resource based time, make things easier to set up, and get teams to concentrate on *making great teams*
07:30   jono    y'know, we have loco teams in nearly every single country in the world
07:30   jono    and on the loco mailing lists we have *over* 10,000 subscribers
07:30   jono    we have an incredible backbone here, and I am keen to see it get better

[tonyyarusso] Does that mean a unified, available framework for things like websites, planets, and maps that teams can just plug stuff into a template for?

• the idea is that a planet, website, user map etc should just be able to be "flipped on" - with a consistant look and feel - I would like to see people contentrate on "content" and not infrastructure

[mattl] how useful is a loco team for a large country? wouldn't a city based or region based loco be better?

• this is an issue. for some countries we divide it. for the USA, loco teams are at a state level. but for some places it is a country level

[mattl] at what point does a Loco be more like a GLUG?

• they have different purposes in many ways - lugs are often places where people (a) meet up (b) get support and (c) talk about a range of issues - locos are primarily advocacy and translations vehicles for the ubuntu community

[SimonAnibal] jono, what do you mean by "team building"?

• the real value in a team is how people work together, organise themselves and get stuff done - I want to see more of that and less debate about whether to use drupal or plone :P

[tonyyarusso] But what is being done to make that the case? Do we have something in place for new locos to click the "turn on" button?

• there was a spec at the UDS about this, and some additions to launchpad are being discussed

<juliux> is there a plan to have something like the gnome foundation that leads the project?

• we do have the ubuntu foundation, but is primarily a fund which would kick in if canonical or mark was to go away. right now there seems little need for foundation in my own view. I think we want to get away from making more and more governance infrastructure and spend more time *doing stuff*.

  [juliux] i mean from the community side

  • the community council is the governance infrastructure there

<Ng> How do we grow a rocking beard like yours?

• its tough, but it takes down, shampoo and condition every day

<nmsa> again, sorry, are you working with loco teams? does your area include them? how?

• I do indeed, I help the UK team

[Admiral_Chicago] but don't you see a practical application for approved teams to have planets? it seems having a unified point of communication (that maybe isn't IRC) is a useful thing.

• exactly - I am keen to get more perks for approved teams. we can rely on those teams, and there has been discussion about sending out event kits to them, using them for more formal events, providing these teams with additional help and we also send edgy cds to approved teams

  [Admiral_Chicago] good to hear, can you talk briefly on mailing lists in general and their use? for example, mailing list being used for support requests, pro/cons of having a mailing list mailing lists are essential for all teams, but I always recommend that with a new team to stick with a single list

<gummibaerchen> Who decide who leads the LoCo Teams?

• it varies - not all teams need leaders. usually the person who founds the team often leads it, some teams have elections and some have informal methods of voting people in

  gummibaerchen But I mean the leader in Launchpad for example. Who gave them their rights?

  • [LaserJock] when somebody creates a team in Launchpad they are the owner

  [Admiral_Chicago] for example, Chicago LoCo does not have a leader, we decided we don't need one. we have a main contact (nixternal) but he isn't an established leader Admiral_Chicago, as an example, when people set up discussion forums, a lot of people add 10 sub-forums and there is a temptation for people to split out across lots of lists

[Smiffeh] as community manager what sort of relationship do you have with the marketing team?

• I always recommend that communication is kept to single list or forum - it helps everyone see each other. I am beginning to work with the marketing team and had a discussion with corey last night about it. I am also developing processes to improve how the canonical marketing team and the community marketing team works together

  [Smiffeh] and what conclusions are you reaching about the direction they should take?

  • I have views on the marketing team - I think we need to use the marketing team as a central to push stuff out of the community - right now the marketing team does to much inter-ubuntu-community marketing - I would like to see other teams (such as loco teams) feed the marketing team with content and then the expertise of the marketing team can push and promote that information

<somerville32> What role do you play in the communities of the Ubuntu sister projects like Xubuntu or Kubuntu? Do you have any plans/goals for these projects?

• I covered this a bit earlier, I am here to help with their community building in the same way I do for ubuntu - my door is always open to people who need help

<fafek2> Don't you think Ubuntu community is somewhat careless? I mean posting bug reports and feature request in many other places like forums instead of Launchpad; grumbling about some lack in Ubuntu on personal blogs, instead of writing clear specification and so on...

• sure, there is lots of misguided work, but that is not solvable with a quick fix - it relies on good solid examples being set by key community figures, and good processes. I think we can improve things in many areas by developing these processes. let me be 100% clear here with my intentions. I want the Ubuntu community to be the finest example of free software community in action. we have all the right ingredients, we have all the potential, we just need to fix some things to improve our community. this is not about me telling people what to do, but about me coming up with ideas and suggestions that do not disrupt workflow but make things better. right now, I am going after low-hanging fruit - easy wins that will reap a great return on community productivity.

[fafek2] Maybe Ubuntu Forums moderators could be more determined?

• thats a seperate issue

<somerville32> Whats the best way to get in contact with you?

• well, I live on IRC during the days (around 8.30am - 6pm UTC) and I can also be gotten in touch at jono AT ubuntu DOT com. I also blog a lot at jonobacon.org

Smiffeh do you feel marketing should be working to attract a non-technical audience to Ubuntu to try and begin to dispel the "linux is not suitable for the desktop" myth

• yes indeed. marketing is a multi-faceted approach - we need to approach different demographics with a consistant message - education, non-techical users, developers, charities - they are all ripe pickings

<LoudMouthMan> What mechanisms/oversight do you feel may be needed to avoid people sitting around deciding to be "the peoples front of judea" or " the judean peoples front ", navel gazing in other words.

• whingers will always whinge. personally, I am not interested in talking to whingers. I am not interested in providing people with blog fodder.

[Smiffeh] From what i have seen so far they seem to be promoting the distro's activities in channels that appeal more to the technical usership.

• if you think other channels need to be targetted you could be the newest member of the marketing team. I am interesting in making our community have a standard of "can do" - I personally can't stand people who do nothing but complain, bemoan and otherwise feedback over things they can actually change. this entire free software landscape is mouldable, changable and has the ability to be bettered in every way. this is why I always try to encourage people to do stuff, then discuss. too many contributors start out by setting up a mailing list, svn server, website and such and then spend six months discussing thing they will ultimately never do. I always say "do it, and then discuss it." we need to get into a habit of making stuff happen

<levander> Why not merge the Loco's and LUG's so that a Loco is basically a "department" inside the local LUG? Just seems like more cross-traffic between the two that way.

• I don't think it works that way - the two are incompatible at level - they are different types of groups that should intead work together to achieve common goals

<tonyyarusso> One issue the marketing team has atm is that Canonical wants to be the only one writing press releases, but isn't doing any for the non-tech community. Does your interfacing w/Canonical and that team include dealing with things like that?

• indeed - as part of my Canonical/Community work I am trying to improve relations so we can work together on things like this - I am booking meetings with the business development team at canonical to improve on these issues

<mattl> If you want the Ubuntu community to be the finest example of free software community in action (and it's something I would love to see happen!) - how do we begin to expel proprietary software from Ubuntu so it can live up to that?

• speaking personally, I am not interested in taking away choice from the user - I want to help to provide a solid free software Operating System, but I am also open to the fact that people may choose to run proprietary software on it - that it their choice - personally I don't feel freedom includes the right to remove choice - but I do believe we need to make Ubuntu a solid free software base in which people can use it for what they like - this is a big issue, and one I have a blog post lined up for next week [sabdfl] Ubuntu has never been free-software-only, top to bottom. we have since the beginning included some proprietary drivers, for example, for wifi. it has, I think, always been possible to install Ubuntu without those pieces. they are in a specific place in the distro, called "restricted", so they are easy to identify and purge and distros like gNewSense are basically ubuntu without those pieces. in addition, we have also made packages of proprietary software available, just not accessible by default