Forging a new path.

[Eric Hedekar]

Well I'd like to start with a warning that I've just woken up the morning
after my cousin's wedding, so if I make some hung over gaffs please excuse
them.

Sandie mentioned: "I know that it would mean more trivial work for the team,
but perhaps a more detailed "what can I do" would help in the long run."
So I thought I'd make public one that I've recently started.  I originally
intended this to become a sticky post in the Multimedia Production section
of UbuntuForums (so that guided the tone of what I've written), but for the
sheer convenience of the wiki format I've posted it here to get everyone to
help work on it:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuStudio/howtohelp(please go and
edit it)
Sometimes helping out with the dev team really is just that simple - create
a page on the wiki.  I think that's well within everyone's abilities here.

I'm saddened to see that this discussion has started before Jaunty's
release.  I think the large number of Pulse Audio mentions in this post
stems from this (Hardy - which most people are using - was the first
PA-by-default Ubuntu), I for one enjoy the benefits of Pulse Audio and
believe that the further UbuntuStudio strays from the Ubuntu default setup
the more work the Dev team has to take on.  But on a more fundamental level
the vision for the future should probably be crafted after people get a
better feel for the present.

Lending a helping hand on this project is really essential for it's
survival.  I'd like to see many more edits to the documentation, and people
volunteering themselves to be testers.  I've committed (on IRC) to becoming
a / the lead tester, so anyone who'd like to help out with testing should
probably send me an e-mail with the subject "UbStub Tester" and I'll gladly
hand out directions (knowledge of using a VM is really useful, but not
essential).

As for future directions of the project, I would hope the answer would be
'stay the course'; Ubuntu Studio is a very successful disto for a reason.  I
do audio as my main focus, but sometimes that involves working on a
soundtrack for a film, so the video software comes in handy, sometimes that
involves creating posters or online PR for a concert, so the graphics
packages are essential.  In the end I don't think Ubuntu Studio is greatly
burdened by the Video and Graphics end of the development.

A few improvements that I think would be useful for the project would be:
 * getting the new firewire stack implemented (the current system is
insecure and rigid) to assist firewire soundcards
 * pushing forward the new LV2 plugin standard (this really is just a
packaging project so if you can learn to package you can probably help here)
 * http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/18847/
 * http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/18873/

I'd really like to see Ubuntu Studio maintian the ability to run all
applications (rhythmbox is a dead app) even if they're not jack aware.  I
rely on Skype for connections to my family, not having to reboot to get that
done is almost essential (just really really really useful).

In the end I'd hope more people would get out and join the dev mailing list,
say hi and ask where they can help - better yet would be to just help and
ask questions later.
Here's a quick introduction to packaging:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKLabbXTqMc (part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwTp1YnehoI (part 2)
But really, documentation has not occured in the community docs since Hardy,
testing is almost non-existent (I'm trying to help fix that), and packaging
is an area that many hads already help with.

PLEASE, everyone jump on board and do your part.  Linux is built on and only
succeeds with a vibrant development community.

- Eric Hedekar

-- 
_______________________________________
    http://greyrockstudio.blogspot.com
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