brainstorming for UDS-N - Ubuntu the Project

[Dylan McCall]

On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 12:39 PM, Allison Randal <allison at canonical.com> wrote:
> The Project track is about building the community and improving our
> development practices. Make the work of existing contributors easier by
> removing blockers and streamlining processes. Think about
> more/different/better ways to welcome new contributors, and encourage
> and train less experienced developers.
>
> What's high on your list for this area?
> Allison

This may be more suited to the “other” category, but earlier in the
Maverick cycle there was a bit of talking about release notes. That it
would be really cool to have a “what's new” page on the web, aimed at
current users, to get them all energised and excited about the next
release. It could also appeal to developers by going over the new
tools they have available and what they're all about. (Done right, it
would help developers get their apps well integrated with the latest
stuff in Ubuntu without needing to hunt).

Blender does this amazingly well, for example. Their non-technical
release notes are educational and exciting to read and they act as
perfectly good marketing tools as well. They solve a lot of problems
users and developers can bump into when upgrading. And, as we all
know, excited users are HAPPY users, and happy users are potential
contributors.

Getting that kind of thing planned, as an effort complementary to the
existing (very technical) release notes, may be a good session :)


Dylan