Looking Ahead: Xubuntu Feisty+1, Part 1

[Jelle de Jong]

Vincent wrote:
> 
> 
> On 28/03/07, *Cody Somerville* <cody.somerville at gmail.com
> <mailto:cody.somerville at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     Hello Everyone,
> 
>     I'd really like to thank everyone for being so supportive while I've
>     been in the hospital. Everyone has done an amazing job and I really
>     regret not being around during such a critical part of the release
>     cycle. However, I want to let you know that I'm pumped for Feisty+1
>     release cycle and I've taken some time out of my busy schedule
>     (haha, I joke, I joke) to write out some thoughts about Xubuntu and
>     what we can do to improve the distribution and it's community for
>     the next release cycle. As I'm sure you already know, I'm always
>     open and happy to get feedback (it lets me know that people actually
>     read my ramblings, haha) – so, please, feel free to discuss, tear
>     apart, and dissect the following mumble jumble of thoughts and ideas.
> 
>     In this e-mail, I'll be tackling the social/community issues. My
>     next e-mail will be tackling development related issues.
> 
>     == Marketing ==
> 
>     Xubuntu Marketing is lacking attention right now. I think the first
>     step to remedying this issue is to find a volunteer who is
>     interested in taking charge of Marketing for Xubuntu. This person
>     would need to be confident in communicating with the public (of
>     course), creative, not afraid to get their hands dirty, an excellent
>     team-worker, and all that good stuff. The individual would need to
>     be a person who doesn't need someone to hold their hand. They would
>     need to be able to take charge and start initiatives (like Jim has
>     with the testing team).
> 
>     Once we get a person filling this role, they would want to get very
>     comfy with the ubuntu-marketing team (if they haven't already) to
>     allow us to hook into Ubuntu marketing initiatives (ie. Avoid
>     duplicating efforts, joint-initiatives, etc.).
> 
>     They'd have to brainstorm with the community for sure about things
>     such as "How do we want to market Xubuntu?", "Do we want to try and
>     give Xubuntu an appeal to the commercial market?".
> 
>     Their first project might be working with our resident artist to
>     make some artwork which people can use to represent their Xubuntu
>     pride on their websites and blogs. From there, the sky is the limit. :)
> 
>     Oh, and of course they would help write release announcements, etc. etc.
> 
>     == Documentation ==
> 
>     Documentation is an interesting creature. We had some pretty lofty
>     goals for Feisty documentation which we didn't meet but we did do a
>     million times better then Edgy (which used the documentation from
>     Dapper unmodified).
> 
>     As for Feisty+1, I think that with a bit of leadership, our
>     documentation could easily become stellar. There seems to be several
>     individuals interested in assisting with Documentation but more
>     direction is needed for these people's interest to be actualized
>     into hard work <g>. If there is anyone interested in taking the
>     initiative to take a leadership position in the Xubuntu
>     documentation effort, feel free to let me know and we can see about
>     accelerating the process of getting you svn commit access.
> 
>     Question: What needs to be done for Documentation?
> 
>     Answer: A lot but it can't be articulated in a few words. We need to
>     ask ourselves questions like "What information would users most
>     likely find helpful? What do we know can be tricky about a certain
>     default program? How would I go about instructing a friend to do a
>     task like setting up the printer or installing new software?".
> 
>     We also need to apply the topic-based help specification to our
>     documentation which means major restructuring.
> 
>     It would most likely also be beneficial to give the look and feel of
>     the documentation an update.
> 
>     We might also consider different Xubuntu specific guides we could
>     offer such as a migration guide (Ubuntu offers one).
> 
>     == ISO Testing ==
> 
>     I think Jim is doing an AMAZING job with this. He is the perfect
>     example of an excellent Open Source Leader!
>      
>     So, what is this section about? Well, maybe we should discuss what
>     testing team will do after the final release of Feisty. Maybe they
>     could continue to do QA testing of Xubuntu packages and daily
>     builds? What are your thoughts Jim?
> 
>     == Support ==
> 
>     I think it would be interesting if we could get some sort of
>     community-focused effort on providing support on IRC and Launchpad
>     Support Requests. I know a lot of people already do this regularly
>     but I think they deserve recognizability for their awesome efforts.
>     Maybe we could form a xubuntu-support team on launchpad? I know we
>     need to be careful when creating groups to avoid making a mess of
>     things but I also think that by being a member of a team helps make
>     helping out more fun and also offers the benefit of raising
>     awareness of the dedicated effort.
> 
>     Jani likes to help out in the IRC #xubuntu chatroom regularly. VS
>     John is a member of the Xubuntu support team and makes an active
>     effort as a member of that team to provide support on IRC and on
>     Launchpad.
> 
>     == Bug Triage ==
> 
>     Bug Triage is very important but can be harder to get involved with
>     because, IMHO, it is a skill you have to learn. Luckily, it is very
>     easy to learn and there is lots of documentation to refer to that is
>     ubuntu-flavor unspecific. The best part is that if you do something
>     wrong, some will let you know and correct it for you. :)
> 
>     Do I think we need an xubuntu-bugsquad team? Even though you might
>     focus on Xubuntu bugs at first, you'll soon get so proficient at bug
>     triage that you'll want to help out with all the packages (don't let
>     the karma bug consume you though!). However, maybe the logic I used
>     above still applies here and other people might feel an
>     xubuntu-bugsquad (as a member of the ubuntu-bugsquad team) team
>     would be a good idea. The question is: How do get people to help
>     triage bugs AND continue to work at it? Maybe instead of a team to
>     help promote it, a weekly bug report/summary for Xubuntu would be
>     helpful. Maybe we could get some sort of competition going? What
>     other ideas can we brainstorm?
>      
>     == Website ==
>      
>     The Ubuntu website has just migrated to Drupal and apparently the
>     web engineers responsible are going to make the Drupal theme
>     available. Lucky us, we use Drupal too! I think it would be a good
>     idea to consider adapting the theme (ie. Changing colors, etc.) and
>     using it for the Xubuntu website.
>      
>     If we don't go down this road, then I think we need to look at
>     spicing up our theme anyhow and rewriting parts of the website to be
>     more helpful and more professional.
> 
>     We need more brainstorming! :)
> 
>     == Mailing List ==
> 
>     In this release cycle, we created a new mailing list called
>     xubuntu-users for Xubuntu User Support and Discussion. I think it
>     would be hard to argue that this hasn't been a huge success.
> 
>     At this time I don't think we need anymore mailing lists but I'd
>     still like to hear from people about this issue.
> 
>     == IRC Channels ==
> 
>     Several weeks before I disappeared off the face of the earth, there
>     was some trouble brewing in ubuntu-irc team. Before the incident, I
>     was the contact for the Xubuntu channel namespace. Long story short,
>     I'm no longer the contact and there is no one in the Xubuntu
>     community currently filling this position. However, I think that it
>     is important that the xubuntu namespace be under xubuntu community
>     control. However, since I've been in the hospital, I haven't had the
>     chance to resolve this issue. I'm not sure what will be required to
>     resolve the issue but if it does require going before the CC, I'd
>     want the support of the Xubuntu community. If the Xubuntu community
>     feels that I'm "unfit" to fill the position, then I'd ask that we
>     select someone within the Xubuntu community to be my successor.
> 
>     == Getting Involved ==
> 
>     I've already tackled this for specific groups but I think we should
>     evaluate how we can improve the process of "getting involved" in
>     regards to the entire project. I know from personal experience that
>     sometimes the hardest part of getting involved in what you want to
>     get involved with is getting in contact with the right person. Maybe
>     some sort of "contacts" page would be appropriate?
> 
>     Any other ideas?
>      
>     == Meetings ==
>      
>     I think it would be nice if Jani could show up to these. ;)
>      
>     I would also like to see these meetings become more productive. How
>     do you think we can accomplish this?
> 
>     == Xubuntu Council ==
> 
>     This has been brought up before and as our project grows we should,
>     naturally, discuss it again. It would be hard to argue that Xubuntu
>     has not grown in size over the last six months and hence I'd like to
>     propose that we discuss this more formally. Direction is VERY
>     important – even in Open Source Projects – and I think this would
>     assist in making "getting involved" easier which is critical to the
>     success of Xubuntu at this point.
> 
>     Is an Xubuntu Council similar to the Edubuntu and Kubuntu Councils
>     required?
> 
>     Please refrain from discussing who might be on the council or what
>     the exact mandate of the council would be. I think it is first
>     important to simply discuss if it is required at this point and time
>     or not.
> 
>     == Conclusion ==
> 
>     I've /lightly/ touched in this e-mail on several important
>     social/community topics. Hopefully it will spark discussion that
>     will be productive and meaningful. I'd encourage you to discuss the
>     points I've brought up here in IRC and then try to be as
>     comprehensive as possible with your e-mail replies. :)
> 
>     Thank you for your time (please excuse my typos),
> 
>     Cody A.W. Somerville
> 
> 
>     --
>     xubuntu-devel mailing list
>     xubuntu-devel at lists.ubuntu.com <mailto:xubuntu-devel at lists.ubuntu.com>
>     https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/xubuntu-devel
> 
> 
> I don't have much to comment, except for that I stand 100% behind you
> regarding that IRC thingy ;)
> Plus, I think assigning "contacts" for certain areas of the Xubuntu
> development is an excellent idea!
> 
> Thanks for your efforts,

Good points, I like the ideas. I also have a lot of ideas of my own. And
I feel attracted to lead a bug team and/or marketing team for xubuntu,
However currently I have 6 project running, and being human I need to
sleep to survive. I can't do anything more on this moment. Also I have
the feeling that when I point out nasty problems in packages I am
ignored due to the complication of the problems. Leaving me with
problems I am very unhappy with.

Also I think there should be a big skill management system for
linux/ubuntu. That makes it possible to form groups with good contact
persons for specific problems and requests.

Just some thoughts, have some more but time is missing right now.

Best regards,

Jelle