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DistributionsNews and Editorials An interview with openSUSE community manager Joe BrockmeierThe openSUSE project held a Community Week, May 11 - May 17, 2009. Community Week provided a chance for people from around the world to get together and focus on specific topics, to transfer knowledge about openSUSE to users and contributors and to help build teams. We talked with openSUSE community manager Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier about Community Week and the upcoming openSUSE Conference. This was an IRC conference, with different sessions on different channels. Was it possible to attend all sessions? How many sessions were there?
That's correct. It probably wouldn't be possible to attend all
sessions, since some were held simultaneously and they were also
across all different time zones. Since we have to accommodate people
from all time zones, it would have meant being up ridiculously early
or late to be in all sessions. However, we repeated many of the
sessions so that interested contributors didn't have get up at 4 a.m.
or stay up to 11 p.m. to get the session they wanted to attend.
How many sessions did you attend?
I was in quite a few. I was actually logged into several channels at
the same time, sort of watching one session while being more active in
others.
I read somewhere that this was the first annual event. Are there any specific plans for next year?
I don't think we said "annual," just first. We are discussing doing
this again, probably in a more limited scope, maybe one day a month
and one session a week.
How much participation was there?
Quite a bit. Some of the IRC channels had about 50% more users/nicks
than usual while sessions were going on, I'd guesstimate that we had
several hundred people turn out that aren't usually in IRC for
sessions.
Do you think it was a success? What was particularly successful about it?
I do think it was a success. It got people talking about how to
contribute to the project and gave us a chance to focus on new
contributors. What was really good in my opinion was that we had
several community members step up and plug in sessions where they felt
there was a need and take leadership to run their own sessions.
What didn't work as well?
The only real reservation I have looking back is that we probably
should have only run one session at a time, and that we bit off quite
a bit going a full week. The organization required to do it was fairly
heavy, and it'd be better to have a more lightweight process and
shorter schedule in the future -- but more often.
Was there a specific highlight or two of things that were interesting, useful, unexpected, etc?
Most of the sessions were useful, so I don't know if I'd call out any
as being more useful than others. As I mentioned, I was very pleased
to see some of the community just taking initiative and setting up
sessions on their own. That's great to see and I'd love to see more of
it.
For people who didn't participate, but are now interested in getting involved, where is the right place to go for info?
It's a bit outdated, but this is the best place to start:
http://en.opensuse.org/How_to_Participate
The mailing lists are also a good place to start. It can be a bit intimidating, asking a first question on a project mailing list, but we're happy to help people get started. If you're not sure which list to start with, then an introductory mail on the openSUSE-Project mailing list would be a good way to get started -- just say where you'd like to be involved and we'll help you get started. Tell us about the upcoming openSUSE Conference.
Sure. We're going to be running a four-day conference for openSUSE
contributors in Nuremberg, Germany from September 17 through 20th.
This is a free event, anyone can attend. openSUSE has contributors
from around the world, and this is a chance to get a bunch of
contributors together, meet face to face, and get some work done
together.
Befitting that, the conference will be partially dedicated to presentations and talks, but also have a huge amount of "unconference" time where attendees can plan their own sessions or have hacking/working sessions rather than just attending presentations. The call for participation is still open, so anyone who'd like to lead a session or give a presentation should sign up: http://en.opensuse.org/OpenSUSE_Conf_2009/Call_for_Papers It's open to anybody who is interested in contributing to openSUSE. We'll have sessions for newer contributors on packaging, etc. as well as a lot of hands-on activity. We'll also have an "Open Day" Saturday for new Linux users with some content for people who are new to Linux and openSUSE. Is there anything else you would like to add?
Sure - we just released openSUSE 11.2 Milestone 2 today [May 28]. This is
leading up to the openSUSE 11.2 release scheduled for November. This is an
ideal time for anybody who would like to start contributing to the
project. The release announcement is here.
Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions.
New Releases openSUSE 11.2 Milestone 2 releasedThe second openSUSE 11.2 milestone release is available. "Help us make openSUSE 11.2 the best release yet! Please run the release through your usual routine, and let us know about any bugs or other issues that you find. Remember that this is a milestone release, and is not suitable for use on production systems." Lots has changed since the first milestone; it has a 2.6.30-rc kernel, ext4 as the default filesystem, and a fair amount of other leading-edge stuff.
Celebrating the release of OpenSolaris 2009.06!OpenSolaris 2009.06, the third release of the OpenSolaris Operating System has been announced. Click below for more information.
Distribution News Fedora Fedora 11 slips againA last-minute installer bug has caused the Fedora 11 release to be pushed back one more week. "The change is important but invasive enough to require re-validating our storage tests. We were already late in producing the Release Candidate and there is not enough time to produce another one and validate it in time for next Tuesday's release date. Therefor we have decided to enact another week long slip of the release." The schedule now calls for a June 9 release.
Announcing Fedora Activity Day - Fedora Development Cycle 2009A Fedora Activity day is coming up soon. "This activity day is for maintainers, QA, and release engineering folks to meet and discuss ongoing issues with the Fedora Development Cycle and to create a proposal on how to fix many of the issues. Note, this is not an event to decide on a solution, it is an event to decide on a proposal, which will then be shared with the whole community for more input and work."
Gentoo Linux Gentoo council summary for May 28Click below for a summary of the Gentoo council meeting on May 28, 2009. Topics include Filling the empty council seat, EAPI 3 status report from Zac Medico, Removal of Old Eclasses, and Handling EAPI Versioning in a forwards-compatible way.
SUSE Linux and openSUSE Some openSUSE Factory changesThe openSUSE project has announced some upcoming changes to how its development distribution is managed in what appears to be an attempt to make it more flexible and open to outsiders. "Currently, we have some policies around the distribution that date back to the time when there was no openSUSE. Code contributions are only possible if you go through a Novell developer. The same thing is true if you want to make some technical decision." The plan calls for splitting Factory into a number of smaller units and allowing each one to make its own decisions on management and maintenance.
Ubuntu family Ubuntu hppa end-of-lifeUbuntu's hppa port will not be supported in the future. "This is to announce the end-of-life for ubuntu/hppa. The final release of ubuntu on hppa is jaunty. Builds will continue on a best-effort basis for dapper/hppa, hardy/hppa, intrepid/hppa, and jaunty/hppa until those releases go end-of-life."
Linux New Media Launches Ubuntu User MagazineLinux New Media USA, LLC, has announced the launch of a new print publication, Ubuntu User magazine. "Canonical's popular Ubuntu operating system continues to win followers around the world, and Ubuntu User is the first print magazine specifically for this rapidly growing audience."
Other distributions CentOS 2 i386 End Of LifeCentOS 2 has reached its end of life, updates for CentOS-2 ended on May 31, 2009. "It is recommended that any system still running CentOS 2 should be upgraded to a more recent version of CentOS to ensure continued security and bug fix support." Click below for more information.
Distribution Newsletters CentOS Pulse - The Bi-weekly CentOS Newsletter #0901The first CentOS Pulse newsletter has been announced. "This first issue centers around improving communication within the CentOS community and how that relates to the CentOS Promo SIG. We also look at the recent announcements regarding the CentOS LiveCD and the CentOS Directory Server. And dive into interesting community threads and the latest CentOS security updates."
Misc Debian developer news (#16)This issue of miscellaneous news for Debian developers covers GCC 4.4 related build failures tracked in the BTS, Debian is switching to EGLIBC, Debian Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) mailing list, New upload queue for European Developers, and Updates of LXDE.
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 305The DistroWatch Weekly for June 1, 2009 is out. "OpenSolaris 2009.06, the third official release of the increasingly influential UNIX alternative for the desktop, is here! With a large number of new features and updated applications, it is bound to excite everybody interested in free operating systems. But will it also entice the average desktop user? That remains to be seen. In other news, Fedora slips the release of version 11 "Leonidas" by another week, FreeBSD gets set to enter code freeze in preparation for version 8.0, NetBSD receives a new binary package manager to offer a more APT/YUM-like package management experience, Debian gets improved support for Eee PC netbooks, and the openSUSE community announces Goblin - a new Moblin and openSUSE-based distro for netbooks. Also in this issue, the feature article takes a look at a minimalist, yet highly usable and well-designed Debris Linux, while the tips and tricks section returns with an article on running "Factory", the openSUSE development branch. Finally, we are pleased to announce that the recipient of the May 2009 DistroWatch.com donations is SliTaz GNU/Linux. Happy reading!"
Fedora Weekly News 178The Fedora Weekly News for May 31, 2009 is out. "This week's issue starts off with some poetry on next week's expected Fedora 11 release, and much activity on upcoming Fedora activity days, dev cons, and events. In news from the Fedora Planet, we learn about SELinux sandbox, an overview on virtualization features in F11, several musings on aspects of open source projects/communities, and a feature interview with Fedora Project leader Paul W. Frields. The Quality Assurance beat details the QA weekly meeting leading up to F11 next week, F11 FAQ work, and release candidate testing detail. Development asks whether gNaughty is indeed a Hot Babe, detail on getting graphics support working for the Fedora Live USB with the Chrome9 Vx800 GPU, and suggestions on upgrading to F11 via yum. In Translation news, upcoming F11 website translation details and a new member of the Romanian translation team. This issue is rounded out with an overview of the security advisories for Fedora 9 and 10 this past week. Enjoy this issue and get ready for Fedora 11 a week from tomorrow!"
The Mint Newsletter - issue 85The Mint Newsletter for June 2, 2009 covers the release of Mint 7 Gloria and much more.
OpenSUSE Weekly News/73This issue of the OpenSUSE Weekly News covers Moblin v2.0 Beta on openSUSE, Andrew Wafaa: New openSUSE Netbook Images, Dominique Leuenberger : RPM packaging for beginners, Stephen Shaw: iFolder on openSUSE 11.1, eweekeurope: OpenOffice.org 3.1 - Better Performance, and more.
OpenSUSE Weekly News/74This issue of the OpenSUSE Weekly News covers the openSUSE Ambassadors Program, openSUSE Education, Gnome 2.26.2 for openSUSE 11.1, Ben Kevan : How to find out how long a process has been running, Duncan Mac-Vicar: Facebook on Kopete, take II, and more.
PCLinuxOS Magazine, Special issueA special issue of PCLinuxOS Magazine is available. Topics include PCLinuxOS is great, Impressive Quality, Testimonial, PCC, and more.
Ubuntu Weekly News #144The Ubuntu Weekly News for May 30, 2009 is out. "In this issue we cover Ubunutu Forums Tutorial of the Week, New Ubuntu One sub-forum, In The Press, In The Blogosphere, the latest Ubuntu-UK Podcast, Meeting Summaries, Lo``Co Teams, Upcoming Events, and much, much more!!"
Interviews Fedora 11: Raise thy Mighty... Finger? (MadRhetoric)Jack Aboutboul has interviewed Bastien Nocera. "Authentication is an aspect of computing which many take for granted. What's all the fuss? you think. Username, password and that's that. In the following Q&A session with Bastien Nocera, long time Fedora Contributor and Desktop Renaissance Man, we discover that when it comes to authentication, there is more than meets the finger!"
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol |
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