Friday was the last day of UDS (sad!) and it once again started off with some tasty breakfast and by me attending the Community Roundtable. One of the things that was discussed at length is making attending UDS for the first time easier for people. I really liked the suggestion of hosting an Ubuntu Classroom event a few weeks prior to UDS for newcomers and for Sunday night of doing a get-together for non-Canonical folks where we’d have some more Q&A for everyone, teaching each other how UDS works is easily something the community could handle.
– Hall of Fame plans for the O cycle –
The Ubuntu Hall of Fame is a site hosted by Canonical but largely unmaintainable, and thus, unmaintained. They are working to moving it to Django and in this session they re-identified the current blockers and a new project lead took the helm. I’m looking forward to seeing the progress they make by next UDS! Session notes available here.
The Improving Ubuntu Server Documentation session was at the same time as the Hall of Fame one and I was quite torn about which to attend. Just before UDS the server guide was split into its own project so contributors would not need to pull the whole doc tree just to work on server. I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes, the server documentation is important and will only increase to be as Ubuntu pushes further into the cloud realm. Session notes available here.
During a break I spent some time chatting with Hajni and toros to thank them for the previous evening, and I was surprised with a lovely gift – an Ubuntu Women bottle opener + magnet! Best thing ever!
It reminded me that the International UW team hasn’t done a great job in the schwag department. These days there are lots of places to get custom goodies made for cheap and I really should start exploring them to do a few runs of items to give out at conferences or ship off around the world. Suggestions welcome :)
– News Team improvement goals –
Prior to UDS the team worked out a timetable for relaunching the Ubuntu Weekly News on June 6th. This session was designed to explore and identify the problems with the current format (why does it take 36 hours to prepare? have we identified the correct pressure release valves?) and work out what we need to do in the next couple weeks to be ready for our June 6th relaunch, including making sure the new template is ready to go. We also discussed a more formal freeze structure so that translations could be submitted prior to the actual newsletter release to give teams a better opportunity to release their translated revisions with the English version. My main task between then and now is working through the long process document and splitting out specific “Jobs” each week that can easily be delegated to volunteers so less of a burden is placed on the editor. Session notes available here.
The last session of the day! The session primarily revolved around issue tracking and reporting. Decisions can take time to make, how can the governance councils do a better job of communicating when things are being worked on? The IRC Council has a ticketing system and some other councils have shared documents. All the Councils should be completing reports now, so we’re going to work harder to make sure that happens. There were also suggestions about how to make Team Reporting easier and the possibility of giving the Councils access to a mumble server if talking would help push through some issues. Session notes available here.
It was then time for us all to gather in the ballroom for the UDS Wrap-up!
At 7PM the UDS Party began at a club downstairs. I had some great conversations, was able to catch up with Charlie Kravetz to warn him that I’d be filing a pile of bugs against the Xubuntu website in the next couple weeks as I identify and work on updates. There were lots of great conversations had until I met up with Cheri and we headed out around 8:30 to visit the hotel pool (and sauna, and hot tubs..). They closed at 10 and Cheri and I hung out upstairs swapping stories and having fun, it was really a pleasure to meet her and get some new perspective on being a newcomer to the community, I’m so happy she was able to come.
I had a leisurely morning on Saturday. I woke up around 8AM and finished packing, headed downstairs for breakfast and to say a few goodbyes. I got my postcards sent and was able to go out for a bit to pick up some souvenirs and small gifts. I caught the shuttle at 10AM.
My flights home were largely uneventful, there was a slight delay in Munich due to rain but my flight was direct to San Francisco so I wasn’t largely inconvenienced by it.
I have to say, I already miss everyone. Exchanges like “Hello awesome people!” “Hello other awesome person!” are easy to get used to :)
The rest of the photos from my trip have been uploaded here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/sets/72157626601526507/
Thank you awesome people for another great UDS!