Archives par mot-clé : ubuntu-co

Ubuntu Planet, Ubuntu, Communautaire, GNU/Linux, Logiciels Libres

An invitation to join Ubuntu’s Q&A group on Shapado.com

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This is an invitation to anyone interested in joining a multi-lingual, freely-licensed Ubuntu Q&A site to check http://ubuntu.shapado.com.

As a disclaimer I should mention that I work at Canonical as a senior support analyst for Ubuntu support (both desktop and server) and I also train other people to provide Ubuntu support. I am also the admin and creator of the Ubuntu group in Shapado (10 months ago). So I constantly switch my community and professional hats 🙂

I use the Answers system in Launchpad extensively (including its FAQ facility) but it lacks two big features:

  • Non-English language support – also known as « l10n » or « localization« . That would be Bug #81419.
  • A reputation / trust system

As you can see that bug report is in an odd deadlock. My interpretation of it is Answers and Launchpad itself were not planned from the beginning to be multilingual. It’s so big now that this can’t be done quickly or easily.

The reputation system or « making Launchpad more social » is a huge feature request too, perhaps traditionally out of scope for such technically-oriented online resources (at least in the traditional Free / Open Source communities). It’s also something I am missing from my daily interactions with customers when providing commercial support.

So when I learned about Shapado I found a nice tool that could complement my advocacy needs, and some more. How is it different than Launchpad’s Answers ? To me, it’s primarily the language support, but many other features are a bonus.

Regarding the recent proposal to have an Ubuntu community in Stack Exchange, see How does Shapado compare to StackExchange ?. I honestly don’t want to join yet another English-only site that runs on non-Free software that I can’t fix or translate myself. I can’t ask anyone around me to do that either. That proposal was forwarded to the LoCo Teams contacts mailing list, asking team contacts to forward it. I am sorry but as an Ubuntu Member and Ubuntu QC contact I won’t do that. I am sticking with my principles for now, and using any free, open source alternative I can get.

So if you’re interested in using Shapado for Q&As in English but also French, Portuguese and Spanish (for now), see http://shapado.com/pages/faq and http://ubuntu.shapado.com.

If you’re interested in setting up your own local, localized Shapado Q&A server, see the installation instructions, the question asking about Ubuntu/Debian packages, and the Shapado « needs-packaging » bug report.

Here is more information on Shapado:

In true dogfood fashion, one can report bugs or make suggestions at http://shapado.com directly, just by using the « bug » or « feature-request » tags 🙂 There is also a more traditional bug tracker.

How does Shapado compare to StackExchange?

 
Ubuntu Planet, Ubuntu, Conférences, GNU/Linux

Canonical AllHands meeting rocked

I am just a few hours from flying back to Montreal, after spending an amazing week with Canonical in Barcelona, at our AllHands meeting.

Open this post on my blog to see image captions.

Imagine a few hundred people gathered in a big conference were presentations go from Android on Ubuntu to Making Ubuntu family-friendly to Ubuntu One development to Mastering Unicode to project updates … well you get the point. Oh, and everyone of them is a colleague. The challenge here was to go beyond shaking as many hands as possible and trying to find out what we all had in common to best push Ubuntu forward, while looking at our best shots without losing sight on things to improve and innovate on.

Pfew! If that sounded like an intense few days, it was. I am glad I planned on sleeping very little.

I hope this gives a small insight into how great this big Canonical-family meeting was.

Now UDS follows, although I won’t be attending I trust my many mates will drive this one home too.

Cheers to all and see you soon, somewhere 🙂

 
Ubuntu, Ubuntu Planet, GNU/Linux

New Ubuntu mirror in Colombia now available!

See for yourself under System > Administration > Software Sources > Download from: Other…, scroll down the list and check under Colombia:

Ubuntu Colombian mirror

See the announcement here – great to see the Ubuntu Colombian LoCo team rocking! Thanks to the Mathematics department at Universidad Nacional in Colombia and for all involved in making this possible.

If you want to setup an official Ubuntu mirror, check:

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/mirror

 
Ubuntu Planet, Ubuntu, Annonces, Communautaire, GNU/Linux

Primera reunión de organización Ubuntu Honduras: Jueves Feb. 19, 9PM

I invite anyone interested in helping out organize the Honduras Ubuntu team to come and meet fellow users on the #ubuntu-hn IRC channel, next Thursday night February 19th.

When: 9PM, Tegucigalpa (UTC-6) time (click on the link to get the time in your time zone)

Anyone wanting to join can use their IRC client or the Mibbit service.

See the announcement thread at:[U-HN] Primera reunion de organizacion Ubuntu-hn

No, I haven’t moved to Honduras, just helping out there 😉

 
Ubuntu Planet, Ubuntu, Conférences, GNU/Linux

Ubucon Colombia this Saturday Nov. 29

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Ubucon ColombiaFollowing a long tradition, an Ubucon will be rocking Bogotá, Colombia no less! The date is this coming Saturday Nov. 29th. Save the date!

The Colombian LoCo Team has been very actively preparing for this event, they even lined up some sponsors. There will be 2 separate conference tracks and one workshop track, and the event will be streamed live. This looks to be a lot more than an informal gathering! All details are available on the website.

It’s exciting to see local business and enthusiasts getting together around Ubuntu. Make sure you file the registration form if you’re attending.