Canonical Voices

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Posts tagged with 'contributions'

Victor Palau

Ubuntu Commercial – Community Sourced!

January 24, 2011

by Victor Palau

Under contributions , general , ubuntu | Comment

I recently got this video forwarded to me and I think it’s incredible that this is done by someone in the community. Shows a lot of passion and talent! Well done InfinetlyGalactic!

Victor Palau

Making Ordinary Laptops Into Ubuntu Laptops

December 22, 2010

by Victor Palau

Under contributions , general , ubuntu | Comment

In previous posts , I have mentioned the certification efforts that Canonical is putting into Ubuntu. However, it takes more than running test to make sure that Ubuntu runs well in a system.

Systems get into the “Certified” list (once they pass the test criteria) for different reasons. One of them is because at Canonical we work with manufacturers to make sure that Ubuntu is pre-install with their hardware. Hence, you can go to a shop and buy a laptop with Ubuntu in it. But, what happens when you want to upgrade you laptop to the latest Ubuntu version?

Take the Dell Precision M6500 as an example. This systems has been certified as “Pre-install only”. This means that, in certain market areas, you can buy this laptop with Ubuntu 10.10 out-of-the-box. In order to achieve this the Canonical team ensures that drivers, BIOS and other quirks for that system are ironed out.

Ubuntu 10.10 is now in maintenance and it might not be appropriate to submit all these changes through Stable Release Updates (SRUs). The fixes that don’t make it into SRUs are introduced in the following release and contributed to upstream projects. The aim of the Hardware Enablement team is to make sure that users that buy a computer with Ubuntu pre-install can upgrade to the next release (Ubuntu 11.04 for the M6500) without problems.

So, How do we make sure this is happening? If you look at the certification website, you will see systems certified “pre-install only” for 9.04 that were never certified for later releases. Since then, we have been working hard to make sure that our processes and methods lead to support for new hardware always been added to “stock” Ubuntu (the downloadable ISOs).

To ensure that support for systems is reaching “stock” Ubuntu, we needed a litmus test for hardware enablement. The answer is as simple as Certification testing. Therefore, we will be testing all systems listed as pre-install only in 10.04 and 10.10 for certification in 11.04. This will not only allow us to share the results with the community, but will give us the feedback mechanism needed to keep improving the process.

Victor Palau

The value of the first contribution

July 9, 2010

by Victor Palau

Under contributions , english , open source | Comment

Since we started the BugSquad, we had many people come and go from the mailing list, some of them show to the IRC sessions… however most of the ones that do contribute at least once (raising or fixing bugs) always seem to stick around.

It is my experience that making an extra effort to support someone’s first contribution is key to them becoming a regular member of the community. So, what are my “lessons learned” from the BugSquad so far:

Getting started guides – It is crucial to have detailed step-by-step guides for newbies, if you are trying to attract people from outside that might not have an in-depth knowledge of the project. For example, we realised that we didn’t have a simple guide on how to raise a bug. We had tones of detailed information on obscure Bugzilla functionality but nothing on the basics!
Make it simple (effort) - the more time that is needed to be spend downloading , installing and configuring stuff the less likely people are to participate. For example, we split the kits down to smaller download files, and reduce by half the amount of MBs needed to set up a running emulator.
Not everyone is you! - It is easy to assume that everyone sits behind a fast , reliable and unlimited broadband connection, that everyone lives in a country with out export restrictions… and so on. Today, our top contributor lives in Pakistan, he wasn’t able to join the bugsquad at the start as some of the required .zip files were export control. There wasn’t any better reason than we had never got around fixing it, as it wasn’t a problem for us. (btw, we’ve fixed the issue since)
With just a little push… – Actually, I found that most of the time , and once you have done all the above, many people just need a little push to make the jump. In the Bugsquad, I have found that many members would like the first bug or patch to be reviewed by one of the Symbian staff members before submitting it. They might have some reservations about the quality of either their soft or technical skills. Most of the time, they are perfectly capable of contributing, they just need to hear it from you. So , go on… give them a little push

I should point out that you need to have an eye on the long term here.. sure this might sound as more effort that is worth for that initial contribution, but it is all about setting the snowball rolling.

Also, I find that putting this sort of effort into helping people allows you to find out who really wants to contribute but they are getting stuck vs people that have a flight of fancy but are not committed. Hence, you build a sense of trust on the community members and get a hands-on understanding of what does it take to contribute to your project.