Hiring Edubuntu Staff

David Groos djgroos at gmail.com
Sun Jul 26 13:15:16 BST 2009


Got it!  the invite to edit the page should be in your inbox.  Let me know
if it doesn't work.
David

On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 11:10 PM, Ace Suares <ace at suares.an> wrote:

> Please share with acesuares at gmail.com
>
> thx!
>
> ace
>
> David Groos wrote:
> > Jordan, I really appreciate your focus on community and working on
> > growing it.  As I believe Lns. once said, the thing special about
> > Edubuntu isn't the software but the community.  I've learned a lot about
> > the history of Edubuntu and the community which uses it and has
> > developed it.  To grow a community one must know the community and while
> > there may be a few people here who do know all, is there a page, a
> > single page, with an overview of the different categories of community
> > members, who they are, their needs, strengths and knowledge?
> >
> > I've watched these many dozens of e-mails these last few days, pondering
> > my role in it all.  Still not sure but as a teacher one of my strengths
> > is organizing information, 'scaffolding' learning and growing
> > communities.  So... I propose that we need to increase our arsenal of
> > supportive software.  Really, the main collaborative tools of this
> > community are a wiki, list server, and launchpad, right?  We need tools
> > with additional affordances.  Googledocs is great with it's wysiwyg
> > editor, simultaneous editing, easy sharing and versioning.  I recommend
> > we use this googledoc: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgschn8x_11gtf4ddgc
> > to create an easily editable page to provide an overview of the people
> > who make up the community.  I'd like to 'share' this document so all
> > members of the edubuntu community can edit the document.  If you would
> > like to edit it, e-mail me and I'll share it with the e-mail you give me.
> >
> > Yours in Education,
> >
> > David
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 6:54 PM, Jordan Mantha <laserjock at ubuntu.com
> > <mailto:laserjock at ubuntu.com>> wrote:
> >
> >     On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 3:05 PM, R. Scott Belford<scott at hosef.org
> >     <mailto:scott at hosef.org>> wrote:
> >      > For what it is worth, it is now nearly a year since I tracked down
> >      > every key Canonical employee I could find at Linuxworld 2008, both
> at
> >      > the conference and at after-hours events, to communicate two
> >     messages:
> >      > the state of Edubuntu and its User community was having an
> *adverse*
> >      > *impact* on the adoption of gnu/linux in education, particularly
> in
> >      > thin-client environments,and that two people should be hired -
> Gavin
> >      > and Asmo.  As Ace observed, he actually thought Gavin worked for
> >      > Canonical.  I used to think so, too.  Asmo has been instrumental
> at
> >      > greeting and inspiring new users and help-seekers on this list,
> >     and he
> >      > likes Frank Zappa.
> >
> >     Gavin and Asmo are both great guys and I would love to see people
> like
> >     them employed to work on Edubuntu. However, Mark Shuttleworth has
> >     indicated to me that Canonical will not be employing anybody to work
> >     on Edubuntu for the foreseeable future so I think any paid developers
> >     are going to have to come from some other source. Edubuntu hasn't had
> >     a paid developer in over a year and it has shown.
> >
> >     The state of Edubuntu for the last year or so hasn't been that great.
> >     I don't think anybody involved with the project would disagree. The
> >     problem has been that every attempt to get development rebooted has
> >     not gone so well. I don't expect every Edubuntu user to be a bug
> >     filer, doc writer, packager, etc. but *some* people in the community
> >     needs to step up to make things happen. There are way more good ideas
> >     than hands to implement them.
> >
> >     There seems to be this eternal struggle between Edubuntu users and
> >     developers. Edubuntu users are frustrated with how slow development
> >     goes and how bugs/issues critical to them are not being addressed.
> >     They feel like their voices are not being heard and that perhaps
> >     developers just don't understand their situation. Perhaps they feel
> >     that Edubuntu's full potential is not being realized, especially if
> >     they've invested a lot of time, effort, and reputation in Edubuntu.
> >
> >     In contrast, Edubuntu developers see day after day where Edubuntu
> >     could be improved, where cracks are showing, and where new features
> >     could be developed but feel powerless to actually do anything about
> >     it. They are frustrated to see the same complaints time and time
> >     again. They are demotivated when 19 out of 20 times when a user comes
> >     to them it is to report a problem, complain about Edubuntu, or even
> >     attack the quality of their work. They may feel that users
> >     misunderstand that resources are the limiting factor, not a lack of
> >     recognition of problem or the desire to fix them. And when they try
> to
> >     inspire the user community to contribute towards fixing those
> problems
> >     that they are bringing they are met with a lackluster response.
> >
> >     So the question that has been racking my mind for the last two years
> >     or so is, how do we take these two populations of people who have a
> >     lot of negative perceptions towards each other and towards Edubuntu
> >     and turn them into a fun, functional, and productive community that
> is
> >     well-placed to be a dominate force for bringing the best open source
> >     has to offer to the world-wide educational community?
> >
> >     Obviously I don't have a good answer to this as I've spent countless
> >     hours working on and in the Edubuntu community of the last few years
> >     and it has not really improved. I do have a few thoughts about what
> >     possible solutions might look like though. I think there are both
> >     technical and social solutions that could be involved:
> >
> >      * evaluation of the current state of Edubuntu, what are its current
> >     strengths and weaknesses?
> >      * finish the Edubuntu Strategy Document, but maybe trying to involve
> >     the user community more.
> >      * perhaps going further and develop a roadmap that outlines
> >     specific, actionable steps for the next couple releases that
> >     emphasizes regaining ground in terms of quality and community
> >     development.
> >      * analysis of the current development processes and especially the
> >     barriers to entry for contribution. Some barrier will always exist
> but
> >     we should try to remove unnecessary ones
> >      * assess the user < -- > developer communication channels to see if
> >     a big disconnect exists
> >      * encourage a positive, respectful, and constructive community.
> >     Basically, if all you say is negative you end up just being a grumpy
> >     negative person. If users can learn to trust that developers do
> indeed
> >     want to do the best by their users and if developers can take a step
> >     back and put themselves in the user's shoes for a bit I think we'd
> all
> >     be better off. It's not like we're all running around yelling at each
> >     other 24x7 but I think we could maybe try to improve the tone on the
> >     mailing lists and IRC.
> >      * encourage leadership and taking ownership of Edubuntu tasks
> >      * develop decent documentation and procedures for handling drive-by
> >     contributions
> >
> >     I'm sure there are many others but that's what came from the top of
> >     my mind.
> >
> >      > Some of the Canonical staff who received my message last year are
> on
> >      > this list.  I hope that someone is listening.
> >
> >     They might be, but there's not a lot Canonical staff can really do at
> >     this point.
> >
> >      > Oh, and for the record, Most Schools Block IRC Making it an
> >     Impossible
> >      > Communication Venue for Teachers Needing Support.
> >      >
> >      > With Aloha and Respect and an Undying Passion for the Adoption of
> >     FOSS
> >      > in the the K12 Environment
> >      >
> >      > --scott
> >      >
> >      > --
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> >      > edubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
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> >      >
> >
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> >
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