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Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #125 for the week January 11th - January 17th, 2009. In this issue we cover ...

UWN Translations

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In This Issue

General Community News

Jaunty Alpha 3 released

Jaunty Jackalope Alpha-3, which will in time become Ubuntu 9.04, has been released. Alpha 3 is the second in a series of milestone CD images that will be released throughout the Jaunty development cycle. The Alpha images are known to be reasonably free of showstopper CD build or installer bugs, while representing a very recent snapshot of Jaunty. You can download it here:

• http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/jaunty/alpha-3/ (Ubuntu)

• http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/edubuntu/releases/jaunty/alpha-3/ (Ubuntu Education Edition)

• http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/jaunty/alpha-3/ (Kubuntu)

• http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/jaunty/alpha-3/ (Xubuntu)

• http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/jaunty/alpha-3/ (UbuntuStudio)

• http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/mythbuntu/releases/jaunty/alpha-3/ (Mythbuntu)

See http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Mirrors for a list of mirrors.

Pre-releases of Jaunty are *not* encouraged for anyone needing a stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional, even frequent breakage. They are, however, recommended for Ubuntu developers and those who want to help in testing, reporting, and fixing bugs.

See all the details at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2009-January/000524.html

Fridge Mockups

At the last UDS there was a much needed discussion about a new news site for the community. Work has now begun on this proposal, and the first step of creating some basic templates for the pages is ready. Feedback would be appreciated, since this is going to be a community based news site.

• Blueprint: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/community-communications-internal-external

• Summary of UDS session: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Community/Specs/PlatformExternalInternalNews

• Rationale behind the idea: http://www.ndeschildre.net/2008/11/30/on-ubuntu-community-news/

What are some of the differences you might expect to see from the current Fridge news site:

• A new theme: 2 different themes are ready for viewing
• Highlighted stories will be chosen: for more important stories

• 3 targeted audience sections: World, LoCo, and Development

• Multi lingual support: thanks to some Drupal plugins
• A new name: possibilities include "Ubuntu News"
• Anyone could post to the site: posting would then be reviewed and posted
• Planet blogs: would automatically be put in the quay for review and posting
• Comment support: including picture support would be available
• Video and flash support: embedding of flash and video format on the site
• Inter website navigation bar: to allow linking to all the major Ubuntu sites

You can view the purposed themes, find more details, and leave your comments at the link below:

http://www.ndeschildre.net/2009/01/10/ubuntu-news-website-mockups/

Technical Board Run off

There is now a ballot of Ubuntu developers, to select a new member of the Technical Board:

• https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-dev/+poll/2009-01-tb-nominees/+vote-simple

The candidates in alphabetical order are Colin Watson and Kees Cook. In a departure from tradition, there will be a race between two candidates, rather than a confirmation vote. Both candidates have indicated that they are happy to be in a race rather than a confirmation. In future, depending on circumstance and candidates, the confirmation approach may take either method. This is a simple two-candidate selection, the winner will be the candidate with the most positive votes. In the event of a tie, Mark Shuttleworth will act as the tie breaker.

Both candidates work for Canonical. While that is not a requirement for the position, the requirements do stack the deck heavily in favour of someone who is able to devote full time attention to the whole linux stack, in Ubuntu or Debian, and is very aware of the Ubuntu community processes and players. Please vote soon, the vote is only open for a week. Thank you to both candidates for standing, and thanks in advance to all who participate in the ballot. Note: Only MOTU and core devs can vote in this process.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2009-January/000522.html

UDS Jaunty Proceedings

Proceedings from the Ubuntu Developer Summit for Ubuntu 9.04, which took place from 8-12 April in Mountain View, CA, USA, are now available.

The notes are available here:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UDSJaunty/Report

They are categorized by track. As you will see there are still a few entries which are missing notes or have only a few bullets; it is encouraged that those of you that participated continue to expand and correct these pages.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2009-January/000365.html

Awards: Ubuntu Forums, Ubuntu, and Canonical

A big well done to all the folks at the Ubuntu Forums for bagging the Best Support Resource in the Linux Format awards in issue LXF115. The forums community managed to beat the mighty Google. Pretty impressive stuff! Everyone in the Ubuntu community is very proud of the excellent work that goes on in the Ubuntu Forums. 6.5million posts and counting, 745,000 members and growing…the forums are a hugely valuable resource for Ubuntu and the Ubuntu ethos. They provide an important home for many of our community members. Thank you to Forums Council, the moderators and all the posters for earning the award. It is also very gratifying to see that Ubuntu won the Best Distribution Award, and Canonical bagged the Best Enterprise Award. 2008 was a great year for Ubuntu, 2009 can be even better!

http://www.jonobacon.org/2009/01/12/winning-formula/

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

• Open (#) +/- # over last week
• Critical (#) +/- # over last week
• Unconfirmed (#) +/- # over last week
• Unassigned (#) +/- # over last week
• All bugs ever reported (#) +/- # over last week

As always, the Bug Squad needs more help. If you want to get started, please see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BugSquad

Infamous Bugs

Translation Stats Intrepid

1. Language (#) +/- # over last week
2. Language (#) +/- # over last week
3. Language (#) +/- # over last week
4. Language (#) +/- # over last week
5. Language (#) +/- # over last week

Remaining strings to translate in Ubuntu 8.10 "Intrepid Ibex," see more at: https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/intrepid/

5-a-day bug stats

Top 5 contributors for the past 7 days

• crimsun (392)
• maco.m (60)
• chrisccoulson (47)
• hew (35)
• angusthefuzz (29)

Top 5 teams for the past 7 days

• dcteam (452)
• ubuntu-au (35)
• ubuntu-us-ohio (29)
• ubuntu-pl (15)
• ubuntu-cl (12)

5-A-Day stats provided by Daniel Holbach. See http://daniel.holba.ch/5-a-day-stats/

Ubuntu Brainstorm Top 5 this week

Ubuntu Brainstorm is a community site geared toward letting you add your ideas for Ubuntu. You can submit your own idea, or vote for or against another idea. http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/

LoCo News

Dutch LoCo bringing it home

When the Dutch team asked for help with a computer fair, Jono had 400 Ubuntu CDs. The disks were gone in a few hours. Jan Stedehouder, from the Dutch team, told Jono "It was good to see people of all ages and nationalities, constantly flocking the various computers with Ubuntu”. Jan is the author of the book “Probleemloos overstappen op Linux” (Migrating without problems to Linux), and will have a new one out soon, “Basiscursus Ubuntu” (Ubuntu Basics course). He told Jono that he and the team used the Ubuntu ethos in his presentation to draw out the ethos of the audience. http://www.jonobacon.org/2009/01/16/dutch-loco-bringing-it-home/

New in Intrepid Ibex

Launchpad News

How Launchpad will open source

When a major undertaking occurs, there are always questions. Launchpad becoming open source is no different. In brief, the questions are:

• WHAT - Launchpad source code, to be released under the AGPLv3 License
• WHEN - July 21, 2009
• WHERE - On Launchpad.net
• WHY - When a large project reaches the point where a team of limited size can no longer keep up with incoming bug reports, then the team has to choose between letting some bugs go or gathering more developers to help take care of the bugs. Launchpad has decided that the second is the better way, and is open sourcing the code in order to get that help.
• HOW - This is a sticky one, because some code used in Launchpad is specific to the business of Canonical, and some of the dependencies may have licensing problems. Thus, the existing team is going through the code very carefully, passing out to open source what they can right now, and trying to resolve licensing and determine what is actually proprietary. In addition, they are putting together documentation for developers and making sure that the existing team is comfortable with the open source method to minimize the number of simultaneous changes.

• WHO - Canonical will have the final determination as to what changes make it back into the code. They host the site, therefore they are responsible for what software runs on it. However, they want to make it as easy as possible for good changes to make it into the site, and have some concrete plans for how to do that. http://news.launchpad.net/general/how-we-are-open-sourcing-launchpad

What's new with Launchpad API

http://news.launchpad.net/cool-new-stuff/whats-new-with-the-launchpad-web-service-api

Ubuntu Forums News

In The Press

• Windows Vista Business Vs. Ubuntu 8.10 - When Microsoft Corp. unveiled Windows Vista a bit more than two years ago, it produced more angst than the IT market has seen in recent history. Microsoft did fix many issues and problems with Vista when the company released Service Pack 1, and driver and application support has noticeably improved. But so, too, has Linux—and without the controversy or drawing the anger and wrath of a marketplace. Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop Edition, nicknamed "Intrepid Ibex," provides so much functionality and ease of use, at zero cost of acquisition, that it is really impossible to ignore. Installing Ubuntu has become a snap. Ubuntu 8.10 scored big against Vista in both performance testing and in wireless integration. Ubuntu beats Vista on performance, client connectivity, portability and sharing, and acquisition price. Head to head, Ubuntu simply beats Vista on so many important points that Windows is no longer the simple, reflexive default. We're calling this one for Ubuntu, plain and simple, because it's a beautifully done operating system. http://www.crn.com/software/212701668

# http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/business/11ubuntu.html?_r=1 >> DUPLICATE: I did a write up for this in UWN 124. - Dave

http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/?page=business6_jan13_2009 (Please concentrate on Ubuntu and try not to bash windows please. thx)

http://www.kswo.com/Global/story.asp?S=9675283

http://www.wkowtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=9667184

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10140431-16.html

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Ubuntu-9-04-Boots-in-21-4-Seconds-101885.shtml

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/ubuntud_hp_mini_1000_mi_launched

In The Blogosphere

http://www.ciol.com/Developer/Open-Source/News-Reports/eRacks-to-offer-Netbooks-with-Ubuntu,-Fedora-Linux/12109114721/0/

http://www.builderau.com.au/program/linux/soa/10-predictions-for-Linux-and-open-source-in-2009/0,339028299,339294292,00.htm (Note: Use the intro and #9 paragraph about Ubuntu)

http://www.pressreleasepoint.com/ubuntu-904-receives-ext4-support

In Other News

Ubuntu-UK podcast #20

http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/2009/01/11/s01e20-happy-ending/

Ubuntu Podcast #17

Josh Chase and Nick Ali from the Georgia US LoCo released episode #17. Some of the topics covered in this episode include:

• NY Times covers Ubuntu
• Ubuntu wins awards from Linux Format Magazine
• EXT4 in Ubuntu 9.04
• New ARM netbooks with Ubuntu
• Interviewing Jorge Castro next week

http://ubuntupodcast.net/2009/01/14/ubuntu-podcast-episode-17/

Meeting Summaries

Technical Board Meeting Minutes

Attendees:

• Mark Shuttleworth
• Scott James Remnant
• Matt Zimmerman (chair)

Agenda:

• ubuntu-core-dev application from Dustin Kirkland (kirkland)
• Limited main upload rights for Stephane Graber
• Getting correct information on the fridge about this meeting (mdz)
• Technical Board nominations (sabdfl)
• cdrtools (mdz)

• Archive Reorganization and governance impact thereof (mdz) https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ArchiveReorganisation

• Patent policy (mdz)

Minutes:

Meeting times and the Fridge:

• The meeting time was incorrect on the Fridge calendar, and needs to be updated. It would be far preferable if a member of the Board could do this directly. Matt recorded an action to follow up with the news team.

ubuntu-core-dev application from Dustin Kirkland:

• Dustin's application was accepted and approved by the Board, and he is now our newest core developer.

Upload rights for LTSP in main for Stephane Graber:

• The Board approved Oliver's request, on behalf of Stephane, for privileges to upload the italc, ltsp, ldm and ltspfs packages to main.

cdrtools:

• Nothing has happened since early December. Matt took an action to ping the parties involved in the discussion.

Archive Reorganization and governance:

• We were short on time in the meeting, and a separate meeting on this topic (with the MOTU Council) is scheduled for later this week, so it was deferred.

Patent policy:

• The lack of a clear policy on patents is blocking a complete response from the Board to a developer inquiry. There wasn't time to hash this out during the meeting, and it still needs work.

Technical Board nominations:

• Mark nominated Colin Watson and Kees Cook for one open position on the Board. A run-off vote of Ubuntu developers has been announced on ubuntu-devel-announce and is in progress at: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-dev/+poll/2009-01-tb-nominees/+vote-simple Note: voting is for MOTU and core devs only.

Other business:

• Colin Watson asked for guidance on the management of the OEM tracking ID namespace. It was agreed that the Technical Board would manage this for now.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2009-January/000359.html

Server Team Meeting Minutes

Server Team meeting minutes can also be viewed here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/Server/20090113.

Screen Profiles:

• kirland announced that he uploaded a new version of the screen-profiles package to jaunty. Versions for hardy and intrepid are also available from his PPA[1]. He stated that it was totally awesome now and posted a screenshot [2]. He is looking for more testers.

ACTION: kirkland to write a blog post about screen-profile

[1]: https://launchpad.net/~kirkland/+archive [2]: http://people.ubuntu.com/~kirkland/Screenshot.png

SRU for ebox:

• sommer reported that all the bugs had been updated and submitted to the motu-sru team. zul uploaded relevant packages to intrepid-proposed which are waiting for the ACK from the motu-sru team.

libmysqlclient-dev package (MySQL 5.1) in jaunty:

• mathiaz reported that libmysqlclient15-dev is currently a transitional package depending on libmysqlclient-dev. Both packages are provided by mysql-dsfg-5.1. Unfortunately that breaks builds in main that depends on libmysqlclient15-dev since mysql-dfsg-5.1 is in universe. For now MySQL 5.0 is still the preferred package and should stay in main while MySQL 5.1 is part of universe. After some discussion it was decided to upload a new version of mysql-dfsg-5.1 that would provide libmysqlclient16-dev instead of libmysqlclient{,15-dev}. libmysqlclient16-dev won't provide libmysqlclient-dev. A new version of mysql-dfsg-5.0 will also be uploaded with the version 5.1.30really5.0.75-0ubuntu1 in order to restore a working libmysqlclient15-dev package. libmysqlclient15-dev will provide libmysqlclient-dev.

ACTION: mathiaz to upload mysql packages to fix libmysqlclient{15,16,}-dev packages in jaunty

Ubuntu Server on NAS devices:

• persia asked what would be required to turn one of his little ARM servers into a complete NAS device. There was some discussion about which services would be provided (NFS, CIFS, SFTP) and the need for a management interface. ebox may provide the latter. The first step however is to test whether cifs (via samba) and may be nfs are working correctly on ARM. zul mentioned that access to ARM devices was a blocker. persia volunteered to run an ARM install of Server through the test cases to check the current status and what needs to be done. He is also looking for help chasing down some of the bugs he might uncover during the process.

Agree on next meeting date and time

Next meeting will be on Tuesday, January 20th at 16:00 UTC in #ubuntu-meeting.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-server/2009-January/002536.html

Desktop Team Meeting Minutes

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-desktop/2009-January/001903.html

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Community Spotlight

Updates and Security for 6.06, 7.10, 8.04, and 8.10

Security Updates

Ubuntu 6.06 Updates

Ubuntu 7.10 Updates

Ubuntu 8.04 Updates

Ubuntu 8.10 Updates

UWN #: A sneak peek

Archives and RSS Feed

You can always find older Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter issues at: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter

You can subscribe to the Ubuntu Weekly News via RSS at: http://fridge.ubuntu.com/uwn/feed

Additional Ubuntu News

As always you can find more news and announcements at:

• http://www.ubuntu.com/news

and

• http://fridge.ubuntu.com/

Conclusion

Thank you for reading the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter.

See you next week!

Credits

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

• Nick Ali
• John Crawford
• Craig A. Eddy
• Dave Bush
• Your Name Here
• And many others

Glossary of Terms

Ubuntu - Get Involved

The Ubuntu community consists of individuals and teams, working on different aspects of the distribution, giving advice and technical support, and helping to promote Ubuntu to a wider audience. No contribution is too small, and anyone can help. It's your chance to get in on all the community fun associated with developing and promoting Ubuntu. http://www.ubuntu.com/community/participate

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