The Ubucon Blog

Announcing: Ubucon Germany

2007-08-13T00:21:00.000-07:00

Ich liebe Deutschland... and I'm very excited to pass on some news regarding the latest announced Ubucon, which will take place in Germany. Specifically, it will be at the Hochschule Niederrhein in Krefeld, Germany, and it takes place on October 20 and 21.

For further info, see these links:

Ubucon Germany Home - register here
Ubuntu.com wiki page - includes links to brainstorming sessions
Blog post (in English) on the Ubucon Germany
Announcement on the Ubuntu Fridge

And of course, what would a Ubucon be without...
#ubucon-de - IRC channel on freenode.net

Edit: Oops - I corrected the IRC channel. I had erroneously listed it as #ubucon

The Ubucon is Covered in eWeek

2007-02-26T23:33:00.000-08:00

I was pleasantly surprised to find this writeup that appeared in eWeek last Friday.

It focused on Jay Sulzberger and Steve George, which covered the last 1.5 hours of the event. I wonder how much of the event the author had a chance to see?

The Great Ubucon Write-up

2007-02-21T17:08:00.000-08:00

After the fond greetings and farewells, and after everything has been said and done, another Ubucon has gone down in the history books. About 100 people, much more than assembled for the 1st Ubucon in California, came together to learn more about Ubuntu Linux, community-building, and free software. The more I do these events, the more I'm always intrigued by the spirit of those who are present and the positive feelings such events engender. Somehow, folks were kind enough to forgive my inability to remember names and faces.

I started things off with my usual "tell us your Ubuntu story, because I don't have enough things to say to make this interesting." I try to get people to speak up, because really, the success of the event depends on people sharing their stories for everyone else. For those who were present, we were privileged to have Mako Hill, who brought the latest prototype from the OLPC and gave the audience an overview of the Ubuntu community. Gerals Carter, SAMBA man extraordinaire, presented on interoperability with SAMBA. Rocky had a nice session going in the breakout room on command-line tools and debuggers. Mako had a breakout session on Debian packaging, which I'm sad to have missed, as I could use some pointers! Selso had a great session on Linux graphics tools - Gimp, Inkscape and Blender. Bradley Kuhn was kind enough to come by and talk about the Software Freedom Law Center. Fabian Rodriguez led a question and answer session on Ubuntu support. At some point, we had a bit of controlled chaos called a key-signing party... speaking of which, I need to sign my keys and send them out! Somewhere in the breakout room, Joey Stanford led a small group of brave people in a breakout session on Launchpad. And while that was still going on, Jay Sulzberger decided he had waited long enough and started in on his talk - on free software history and how it came to be. It was a perfect way to end the day.

Actually, the perfect way to end the day would have been over drinks with the others, but alas, I was unable to follow directions and I'll have to take a rain check for next time.

It turns out that some folks are interested in creating an Ubuntu LoCo team for New York, and I hope that comes to pass. Another good thing is that one individual managed to make good use of the event to become a card-carrying certified member of the Ubuntu community. And that, my friends, is what it's all about.

I'm happy to tell you that there will be more and more Ubucons in the future, with one in Sevilla currently in the works.

For now, you can still take a look at the wiki pages for the Ubucon New York. It won't be there forever, so visit it while you still can. There will be videos posted in the very near future, and I'll update this blog once those are online. If you're interested in putting on your own Ubucon, there are folks willing to help out. Come on down...

-John Mark

Be an UbuCon Evangelist!

2007-02-05T22:31:00.000-08:00

I've posted a list of organizations and media that we should target to attend. If you contact anyone there, please indicate you have done so on the wiki.

UbuCon Speakers: Bradley Kuhn, Jay Sulzburger, Mako Hill, and more

2007-02-05T21:50:00.000-08:00

It's a pleasure to announce that Bradley Kuhn of the Software Freedom Law Center, Jay Sulzberger, a long-time free software advocate and general troublemaker (in a good way), and Benjamin "Mako" Hill of the MIT Media Lab (and longtime Debian and Ubuntu leader) have all agreed to speak at The UbuCon. There are more on the way. Make sure to visit the schedule wiki to see who else will show up.

Update: Google Logistics

2007-02-05T21:43:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy time here at UbuCon central. First the venue - Leslie kindly updated the wiki to include the latest:

Google's NYC office is located at 76 9th Avenue in Chelsea, Manhattan, between 8th and 9th Avenue and 15th and 16th Street. Please enter the building on the northwest side (16th Street & 9th Avenue). A Google representative will be on hand to greet you, provide you with a building badge, and direct you to the 8th floor.

To get to Google New York, take the A/C/E or L subway to 14th Street, and exit onto 8th Avenue. Alternatively, the 1/2/3 subway lines and M11, M14, and M20 buses service the surrounding area. If you are driving, the closest parking lot is located in the building, accessible from 15th or 16th Street.

Note that we will have to supply video cameras if we want to record any sessions. Please let us know if you would like to volunteer for this - we will set you up with the Google AV staff to discuss logistics.

Registration and More

2007-01-25T19:46:00.000-08:00

The building where Google NYC is located requires all visitors to be pre-registered with security, so make sure to register on the RSVP page. Registration is free of charge and all are welcome to attend, but we'll need you to register by 5 PM Eastern time on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 to get you on the guest list. If you've already registered, take another look at the page, as a great deal of additional detail has been added.

We've also added a section for proposed session topics to the conference schedule page, including hours for the Ubucon NY. If you'd so like to give a talk at the Ubucon NY, add your thoughts to this page. In true unconference style, we'll finalize the agenda following the opening remarks.

For folks hoping to share a ride from the airport, find housing or organize another activity around the Ubucon, we've added a meetups page. Subscribe to this page for updates and use this page to organize anything you want before or after the conference; we'll use the mailing list for planning any activities during the day.

See you tomorrow at 6 PM Eastern for the first Ubucon NY IRC planning meeting - #ubucon on irc.freenode.net.

Cheers,
Leslie Hawthorn, wearing both my Ubuntu and Google hat

The UbuCon New York Wiki

2007-01-24T23:09:00.000-08:00

The wiki is coming along. There is now the beginnings of an RSVP list. If you'd like to attend, please add your name to the RSVP.

Moving Ahead With the UbuCon New York - February 16

2007-01-24T02:43:00.000-08:00

I'm happy to say that things are moving forward on the ubucon planned for February 16 at Google's offices in Manhattan. It will be a mixture of un-conference, installfest and user group meeting for Ubuntu users, developers and the simply curious.

Visit the wiki
Join the mailing list

And stop by #ubucon on irc.freenode.net. We will have the first IRC get-together for anyone interested on Friday, January 26 at 6pm ET.

Misunderstandings of Mark Shuttleworth

2007-01-24T01:39:00.000-08:00

Matt Asay had a mild critique of Mark Shuttleworth to which I responded in the comments. Read Matt's critique first, and then I'll repost below what I wrote there:

I think his [Mark's] main point is that it's difficult to get a polished, end-user friendly product out of the other guys. I agree that the "going from shrink-wrap to shrink-wrap" is a bogus comment, but I don't think that was the real point. The real point is that he's slamming other community editions and stating that Ubuntu is a better supported and more polished community distro.
I happen to agree - not because Ubuntu is perfect, which it certainly is not, but because I'm a former Fedora user who was ultimately frustrated by the lack of devotion to something that actually worked for end-users.

I agree that Red Hat has every right to charge for services and must do that in order to survive. I think Mark is just trying to position Ubuntu favorably against the other guys. Whether he's successful at that is another question. IMHO, Linux supporters and distros will have to work very very hard to offer a compelling reason for Windows users and sysadmins to switch, and I don't feel that the current tactics of either Red Hat or Novell do that. In my mind, they have to have a compelling community edition in order to seed the earth in preparation for enterprise upselling.

I have long been a proponent of Ubuntu's community-based approach, mostly because I feel that the larger distributions get it wrong and aren't really helping win more market share for Linux.

Viva la Ubuntu!

Announcing The UbuCon NY!!!!

2006-10-04T23:02:00.000-07:00

More details coming very, very soon. Rest assured, this will happen, and things are coming together rather quickly.

Live on the Edge! Install Edgy Beta!

2006-10-04T22:55:00.000-07:00

You know you want to do it... Here's a page where you can start.

"Edgy Edge" will be the next version of Ubuntu, and it's scheduled to ship this month. Kudos to the Ubuntu folks for sticking with the original release schedule - as you may recall, 6.06 was orginally supposed to be 6.04, but then it was delayed for 2 months. Sticking to Ubuntu's mandated 6-month release cycle means that Edge will be 6.10, although I don't think anyone would give them too much grief if they had decided to make this one 6.12 instead. Confused? Meh, just download it and don't worry about it :@)

Relax... don't worry... ~~have a homebrew~~ install Ubuntu

:D :D :D

Ok, I'm an Idiot: Blogs of Note

2006-09-08T22:17:00.000-07:00

Now I know why someone asked if I knew this was a Blog of Note. Hey, it was only on the right-hand side of blogger.com under the big heading "Blogs of Note". Nope, don't know how I could have known that :(

Thanks to whoever put it there, and please forgive my ignorance.

The Ohio Linuxfest

2006-09-08T15:05:00.000-07:00

The Ohio Linuxfest: Coming to an Ohio near you!

JM's Good Times: On Red Hat and Commercial Open Source

2006-09-08T15:01:00.000-07:00

As a follow-up to my thoughts on Ubuntu, I posted my thoughts on Red Hat.

Basically, Red Hat is the standard-bearer for commercial open source, and they appear to be stumbling in that role, suffering from an acute case of myopia and fighting battles that never really existed.

Forbes: Ubuntu is More Free?

2006-09-06T21:47:00.000-07:00

Forbes magazine online has been publishing a series of articles on open source. Most of them have been decent, but Daniel Lyons continues, annoyingly, to persistently get certain things wrong. Today's article is on Shuttleworth and our favorite Linux distro, Ubuntu. I must say that it strikes me as odd that the same type of FUD used by RedHat and others against Ubuntu seems eerily similar to Microsoft's FUD against Linux in general circa 1998 - 1999. Back then, it was all the rage for folks who didn't think Linux would survive to talk about how the enterprise would never buy into something with no guaranteed viability. Of course, we see how that changed over time. In fairness to Ubuntu critics, things will certainly have to change in the future. After all, losing money can only be fashionable for a limited time. However, it would seem to me that Mark is looking at this as a long-term gig and understands what needs to happen.

To me, it would seem that Ubuntu is in what I consider the pyramid-building phase - building a solid user base, some percentage of which will eventually represent annualized revenue as a result of upselling. The idea is that if your base is large enough (or wide enough, continuing with the pyramid analogy), the top of the pyramid will provide the revenue needed for future growth. This, of course, carries with it a certain amount of risk, the largest being that the height of your pyramid will be too small as the result of too few users converting to paying customers. In any case, I would estimate that Ubuntu is at least a full year away from really needing to convert users en masse to paid customers. Right now, they just want the largest base possible to build on. The larger the base, the more leverage you have.

Notes from LaserJock (Jordan)

2006-08-22T16:39:00.000-07:00

Jordan Mantha, aka LaserJock, gave 2 great talks at The UbuCon, both on how to contribute to the Ubuntu project. One was more technical going into detail regarding the various aspects of Launchpad, and the other was targeted to a beginner audience, who wanted to learn what this Ubuntu thing is. He was kind enough to send his notes on the conference, so I'm posting them here:

from Jordan:
- Google rocked, it was awesome to see the place and see Google people
there. Plus the food and rooms were really good
- Great mix of attendees (beginners all the way to the CTO of
Canonical). The "What non-geeks want" session was really good because
lots of non-geeks showed up and in the end we were able to have some
things to take to the developers to get into Edgy
- Great talks. Mostly informal, quite a bit of discussion. I think the
Beginner Track was especially successful. People seemed excited and
wanted to make Ubuntu even better. However, it didn't seem like an
Ubuntu love-fest either. People had tough questions and discussion was
often about to current problems in Ubuntu (and Linux in general) and how
to overcome them
- T-shirts, CDs and books, way cool!

Overall, it was lots of fun and should definitely happen again. The only
thing I would like to see for the next one is earlier planning. There
were a few people I know who would have liked to have come (from all
over the US) but needed more notice to make arrangements. If it is going
to be after LWE again then it shouldn't be too hard get the date out
there for people. Thanks again for all the hard work, it's not easy at
all. Rock on!

The UbuCon Was a Blast!

2006-08-22T15:59:00.000-07:00

What a weekend. The UbuCon turned out better than I could have possibly imagined. With little promotion, not to mention a minimum of planning, at least 60 and possibly up to 70 total showed up to discuss various topics, mostly specific to Ubuntu but also about Linux and free software in general. A huge huge show of gratitude goes out to Leslie Hawthorn, who spared no effort in making sure that things went swimmingly on the conference host side. Google was a splendid host (and many remarked how the food was top-notch), and Leslie put some great finishing touches at the site - handy signs directing people to the right place, food layout, and just being an all-around cool person.

I could write up a description of the conference, but someone already beat me to it, and I couldn't possibly do a better job than that. So, I'll just note that the speaker and session lists are now complete if you visit the UbuCon schedule. You can also find Corey Burger's UbuCon writeup here.

Oh, and look, Andrey posted pictures!

Group shot:

Thanks go out to all the speakers who pitched in, some of whom did so at the very last minute.

Also, a special thanks goes out to whiprush, binbrain, and Chris D. who all stepped in and saved the conference when it was in danger of dying.

And finally, here are the companies who contributed time, money, and/or people:

1. Google - Absolutely fantastic hosts. Thank you, Chris and Leslie. Donated food, rooms, and people time. In addition to Leslie, there were two other Googlers who showed up at 8am on Friday to help out. (when I get their names, I'll add it here)

2. Canonical - It was great to see them at LinuxWorld and The UbuCon. Didn't get to meet the crazy spaceman (har har) but I got to meet Jane, Matt, Malcolm, and another gentleman whose name I cannot recall. They donated a bunch of CD's and on Friday afternoon came in with boatloads of t-shirts for everyone.

And in alpha order:

No Starch Press - donated 5 copies of Ubuntu for Non-geeks
Open Country - donated some snazzy screwdriver kits. At least 3 of them attended, and Christian H. spoke on Saturday.
O'Reilly Media - donated 10 copies of Ubuntu Hacks

Arr! Some Loot for Ye!

2006-08-01T14:58:00.000-07:00

Here's a list of the fine companies that are supporting this event:

Google - They're hosting the event. 'nuff said. Kudos to Chris and Leslie for being the champions there.
Canonical - aka the Ubuntu company. They're supplying CD's to hand out for the install fest.
No Starch Press - They're giving away hot-off-the-press copies of Ubuntu Linux for Non-geeks
O'Reilly - the standard bearer for geek tech books. They have generously decided to donate copies of Ubuntu Hacks.

The UbuCon RSVP Page

2006-08-01T14:55:00.000-07:00

Hello all, if you're going to The UbuCon please visit the RSVP page.

The UbuCon: It's Going to Happen! Woo!

2006-07-31T23:09:00.000-07:00

So after being too drunk/stoned/busy/tired/out-of-town, I let this project lie fallow for a bit too long. But now that I've come back to my senses and started working on this again, I'm very very happy to report that some very cool people will drop by the UbuCon the day after LinuxWorld.

So right now, The UbuCon schedule is for Friday and Saturday August 18 and 19. And if you visit the wiki, you'll see some ideas for talks posted.

I think this will be quite a bit of fun, and I hope you can make it. If you intend to drop by, please do edit the RSVP page.

Announcing New Ubuntu Conference: The Ubucon

2006-05-22T09:12:00.000-07:00

The Ubucon (rhymes with Rubicon) is a free conference for Ubuntuusers, developers and admins. Many many thanks to Google for hosting this.

The Ubucon will be held at Google headquarters in Mountain View, CA, August 18 and 19, the days immediately following LinuxWorld San Francisco.

The conference wiki is the center of all the action. I also put up a pointer on the Ubuntu wiki.

As you can see, the schedule's not filled in yet, but that will change as speakers are rounded up.

There is a mailing list - theubucon@linuxpip.org, and you can subscribe at
theubucon-request@linuxpip.org or go to
http://www.linuxpip.org/mailman/listinfo/theubucon

Look forward to seeing you there!