Ubuntu has been around for just over a decade. That's a long time for a project built around a field that evolves at such a rapid pace as computing. And not just any computing –software made for (and by) human beings, who have also inevitably grown and evolved with Ubuntu.

Over the years, Ubuntu has changed and has lead change to keep thriving in such a competitive space. The first years were particularly exciting: there was so much to do, countless possibilities and plenty of opportunities to contribute.

Everyone that has been around for a while has fond memories of the Ubuntu Developer Summit, UDS in short. An in-person event run every 6 months to plan the next version of the OS. Representatives of different areas of the community came together every half year, somewhere in the US or Europe, to discuss, design and lay out the next cycle, both in terms of community and technology.

It was in this setting where Ubuntu governance and leadership were discussed, the decisions of which default apps to include were made, the switch to Unity's new UX, and much more. It was a particularly intense event, as often discussions continued into the hallways and sometimes up to the bar late at night.

In a traditionally distributed community, where discussions and planning happen online and across timezones, getting physically together in one place helped us more effectively resolve complex issues, bring new ideas, and often agree to disagree in a respectful environment.

Change takes courage, it takes effort in thinking outside the box and going all the way through, but it is not always popular. I personally believe, though, that without disruptive changes we wouldn't be where we are today: millions of devices shipped with Ubuntu pre-installed, leadership in the cloud space, Ubuntu phones shipped worldwide, the convergence story, Ubuntu on drones, IoT... and a strong, welcoming and thriving community.

At some point, UDS morphed into UOS, an online-only event, which despite its own merits and success, it does admittedly lack the more personal component. This is where we are now, and this is not a write-up to hark back to the good old days, or to claim that all decisions we've made were optimal –acknowledging those lead by Canonical.

Ubuntu has evolved, we've solved many of the technological issues we were facing in the early days, and in many areas Ubuntu as a platform "just works". Where we were seeing interest in contributing to the plumbing of the OS in the past, today we see a trend where communities emerge to contribute taking advantage of a platform to build upon.

Yet Ubuntu is just as exciting as it was in those days. Think about carrying your computer running Ubuntu in your pocket and connecting it to your monitor at home for the full experience, think about a fresh and vibrant app developer community, think about an Open Source OS powering the next generation of connected devices and drones. The areas of opportunity to get involved are much more diverse than they have ever been.

And while we have adapted to technological and social change in the project over the years, what hasn't changed is one of the fundamental values of Ubuntu: its people.

To me personally, when I put aside open source and exciting technical challenges, I am proud to be part of this community because its open, welcoming, it's driven by collaboration, I keep meeting and learning from remarkable individuals, I've made friendships that have lasted years... and I could go on forever. We are essentially people who share a mission: that of bringing access to computing to everyone, via Free Software and open collaboration.

And while over the years we have learnt to work productively in a remote environment, the need to socialize is still there and as important as ever to reaffirm this bonding that keep us together.

Enter UbuCons.

The rise of the UbuCons

UbuCons are in-person conferences around the world, fully driven by teams of volunteers who are passionate about Ubuntu and about community. They are also a remarkable achievement, showing an exceptional commitment and organizational effort from Ubuntu advocates to make them happen.

Unlike other big Ubuntu events such as release parties -celebrating new releases every six months- UbuCons happen generally once a year. They vary in size, going from tens to hundreds to thousands, include talks by Ubuntu community members and cross-collaboration with other Open Source communities. Most importantly, they are always events to remember.

A few months back, at the Ubuntu Community Team we started thinking of how we could bring the community together in a similar way we used to do with a big central event, but also in a way that was sustainable and community-driven.

The existing network of UbuCons came as the natural vehicle for this, and in this time we've been working closely with UbuCon organizers to take UbuCons up a notch. It has been from this team work where initiatives such as the UbuContest leading to UbuCon DE in Berlin were made possible. And more support for worldwide UbuCons general: in terms of speakers and community donations to cover some of the organizational cost for instance, or most recently the UbuCon site.

It has been particularly rewarding for us to have played even a small part on this, where the full credit goes to the international teams of UbuCon organizers. Today, six UbuCons are running worldwide, with future plans for more.

And enter the Summit

But we were not content yet. With UbuCons covering a particular geographical area, we still felt a bigger, more centralized event was needed for the community to rally around.

The idea of expanding to a bigger summit had already been brainstormed with members of the Ubuntu California LoCo in the months coming to the last UbuCon @ SCALE in LA. Building up on the initial concept, the vision for the Summit was penciled in at the Community Leadership Summit (CLS) 2015 together with representatives from the Ubuntu Community Council.

An UbuCon Summit is a super-UbuCon, if you will: with some of the most influential members of the wider Ubuntu community, with first-class talks content, and with a space for discussions to help shape the future of particular areas of Ubuntu. It's the evolution of an UbuCon.

As a side note, I'm particularly happy to see that the US Summit organization has already set the wheels in motion for another summit in Europe next year. A couple of months ago I had the privilege to take part in one of the most reinvigorating online sessions I've been in recent times, where a highly enthusiastic and highly capable team of organizers started laying out the plans for UbuCon Europe in Germany next year! But back to the topic...

Today, the first UbuCon Summit in the US is brought to you by a passionate team of organizers in the Ubuntu California LoCo, the Ubuntu Community Team at Canonical and SCALE, who hope you enjoy it and contribute to the event as much as we are planning to :-)

Jono Bacon, who we have to thank for participating in and facilitating the initial CLS discussions, wrote an excellent blog post on why you should go to UbuCon in LA in January, which I highly recommend you read.

In a nutshell, here's what to expect at the UbuCon Summit:

• A two-day, two-track conference
• User and developer talks by the best experts in the Ubuntu community
• An environment to propose topics, participate and influence Ubuntu
• Social events to network and get together with those who make Ubuntu
• 100% Free registration, although we encourage participants to also consider registering for the full 4 days of SCALE 14x, who are the host to the UbuCon

I'm really looking forward to meeting everyone there, to seeing old and new faces and getting together to keep the big Ubuntu wheels turning.

Starting on Tuesday 3rd to Thursday 5th of November, a new edition of the Ubuntu Online Summit is taking place next week.

Three days of free and live content all around Ubuntu and Open Source: discussions, tutorials, demos, presentations and Q+As for anyone to get in touch with the latest news and technologies, and get started contributing to Ubuntu.

The tracks

As in previous editions, the sessions runs along multiple tracks that group related topics as a theme:

• App & scope development: the SDK and developer platform roadmaps, phone core apps planning, developer workshops
• Cloud: Ubuntu Core on clouds, Juju, Cloud DevOps discussions, charm tutorials, the Charm, OpenStack
• Community: governance discussions, community event planning, Q+As, how to get involved in Ubuntu
• Convergence: the road to convergence, the Ubuntu desktop roadmap, requirements and use cases to bring the desktop and phone together
• Core: snappy Ubuntu Core, snappy post-vivid plans, snappy demos and Q+As
• Show & Tell: presentations, demos, lightning talks (read: things that break and explode) on a varied range of topics

The highlights

Here are some of my personal handpicks on sessions not to miss:

• Opening keynote: Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical and Ubuntu founder will be opening the Online Summit with his keynote, on Tuesday 3rd Nov, 14:00 UTC
• Ask the CEO: Jane Silber, Canonical's CEO will be talking with the audience and answering questions from the community on her Q+A session, on Wednesday 4th Nov, 17:00 UTC
• Snappy Clinic: join the snappy team on an interactive session about bringing robotics to Ubuntu - porting ROS apps to snappy Ubuntu Core, on Tuesday 3rd Nov, 18:00 UTC
• JavaScript scopes hands-on: creating Ubuntu phone scopes is now easier than ever with JavaScript; learn all about it with resident scopes expert Marcus Tomlinson on Thursday 5th Nov, 15:00 UTC
• An introduction to LXD: Stéphane Graber will be demoing LXD, the container hypervisor, and discussing features and upcoming plans on Thursday 5th Nov, 16:00 UTC
• UbuCon Europe planning: a community team around the Ubuntu German LoCo will be getting together to plan the next in-person UbuCon Summit in Europe next year on Wednesday 4th Nov, 18:00 UTC

Check out the full schedule for more! >

Participating

Joining the summit is easy. Simply remember to:

• Register for free >
• Learn how to join a session >

Once you've done that, there are different ways of taking part online event via video hangouts and IRC:

• Participate or watch sessions – everyone is welcome to participate and join a discussion to provide input or offer contribution. If you prefer to take a rear seat, that’s fine too. You can either subscribe to sessions, watch them on your browser or directly join a live hangout.
• Propose a session – do you want to take a more active role in contributing to Ubuntu? Do you have a topic you’d like to discuss, or an idea you’d like to implement? Then you’ll probably want to propose a session to make it happen. There is still a week for accepting proposals, so why don’t you go ahead and propose a session?

Looking forward to seeing you all at the Summit!

I am thrilled to announce the next big event in the Ubuntu calendar: the UbuCon Summit, taking place in Pasadena, CA, in the US, from the 21st to 22nd of January 2016, hosted at SCaLE and with Mark Shuttleworth on the opening keynote.

Taking UbuCons to the next level

UbuCons are a remarkable achievement from the Ubuntu community: a network of conferences across the globe, organized by volunteers passionate about Open Source and about collaborating, contributing, and socializing around Ubuntu. The UbuCon at SCALE has been one of the most successful ones, and this year we are kicking it up a notch.

Enter the UbuCon Summit. In discussions with the Community Council, and after the participation of some Ubuntu team members at the Community Leadership Summit a few months ago, one of the challenges that we identified our community is facing was the lack of a global event to meet face to face after the UDS era. While UbuCons continue to thrive as regional conferences, one of the conclusions we reached was that we needed a way to bring everyone together on a bigger setting to complement the UbuCon fabric: the Summit.

The Summit is the expansion of the traditional UbuCon: more content and at a bigger scale. But at the same maintaining the grass-roots spirit and the community-driven organization that has made these events successful.

Two days and two tracks of content

During these two days, the event will be structured as a traditional conference with presentations, demos and plenaries on the first day and as an unconference for the second one. The idea behind the unconference is simple: participants will propose a set of topics in situ, each one of which will be scheduled as a session. For each session the goal is to have a discussion and reach a set of conclusions and actions to address the topics. Some of you will be familiar with the setting :)

We will also have two tracks to group sessions by theme: Users, for those interested in learning about the non-tech, day-to-day part of using Ubuntu, but also including the component on how to contribute to Ubuntu as an advocate. The Developers track will cover the sessions for the technically minded, including app development, IoT, convergence, cloud and more. One of the exciting things about our community is that there is so much overlap between these themes to make both tracks interesting to everyone.

All in all, the idea is to provide a space to showcase, learn about and discuss the latest Ubuntu technologies, but also to focus on new and vibrant parts of the community and talk about the challenges (and opportunities!) we are facing as a project.

A first-class team

In addition to the support and guidance from the Community Council, the true heroes of the story are Richard Gaskin, Nathan Haines and the Ubuntu California LoCo. Through the years, they have been the engines behind the UbuCon at SCALE in LA, and this time around they were quick again to jump and drive the Summit wagon too.

This wouldn't have been possible without the SCALE team either: an excellent host to UbuCon in the past and again on this occasion. In particular Gareth Greenaway and Ilan Rabinovitch, who are helping us with the logistics and organization all along the way. If you are joining the Summit, I very much recommend to stay for SCALE as well!

More Summit news coming soon

On the next few weeks we'll be sharing more details about the Summit, revamping the global UbuCon site and updating the SCALE schedule with all relevant information.

Stay tuned for more, including the session about the UbuCon Summit at the next Ubuntu Online Summit in two weeks.

Looking forward to seeing some known and new faces at the UbuCon Summit in January!

Picture from an original by cm-t arudy

The 15.04 release frenzy over, but the next big event in the Ubuntu calendar is just around the corner. In about a week, from the 5th to 7th of May, the next edition of the Ubuntu Online Summit is taking off. Three days of sessions for developers, designers, advocates, users and all members of our diverse community.

Along the developer-oriented discussions you'll find presentations, workshops, lightning talks and much more. It's a great opportunity for existing and new members to get together and contribute to the talks, watch a workshop to learn something new, or ask your questions to many of the rockstars who make Ubuntu.

While the schedule is being finalized, here's an overview (and preview) of the content that you should expect in each one of the tracks:

• App & scope development: the SDK and developer platform roadmaps, phone core apps planning, developer workshops
• Cloud: Ubuntu Core on clouds, Juju, Cloud DevOps discussions, charm tutorials, the Charm, OpenStack
• Community: governance discussions, community event planning, Q+As, how to get involved in Ubuntu
• Convergence: the road to convergence, the Ubuntu desktop roadmap, requirements and use cases to bring the desktop and phone together
• Core: snappy Ubuntu Core, snappy post-vivid plans, snappy demos and Q+As
• Show & Tell: presentations, demos, lightning talks (read: things that break and explode) on a varied range of topics

Joining the summit is easy, you'll just need to follow the instructions and register for free to the Ubuntu Online Summit >

UOS highlights: back to the desktop, snappy and the road to convergence

This is going to be perhaps one of the most important summits in recent times. After a successful launch of the phone, followed by the exciting announcement and delivery of snappy Ubuntu Core, Ubuntu is entering a new era. An era of lean, secure, minimal and modular systems that can run on the cloud, on Internet-enabled devices, on the desktop and virtually anywhere.

While the focus on development in the last few cycles has been on shaping up and implementing the phone, this doesn't mean other key parts of the project have been left out. The phone has helped create the platform and tools that will ultimately bring all these projects together, into a converged code base and user experience. From desktop to phone, to the cloud, to things, and back to the desktop.

The Ubuntu 15.10 cycle begins, and so does this exciting new era. The Ubuntu Online Summit will be a unique opportunity to pave the road to convergence and discuss how the next generation of the Ubuntu desktop is built. So the desktop is back on the spotlight, and snappy will be taking the lead role in bringing Ubuntu for devices and desktop together. Expect a week of interesting discussions and of thinking out of the box to get there!

Participating in the Ubuntu Online Summit

Does this whet your appetite? Come and join us at the Summit, learn more and contribute to shaping the future of Ubuntu! There are different ways of taking part in the online event via video hangouts:

• Participate or watch sessions - everyone is welcome to participate and join a discussion to provide input or offer contribution. If you prefer to take a rear seat, that's fine too. You can either subscribe to sessions, watch them on your browser or directly join a live hangout. Just remember to register first and learn how to join a session.
• Propose a session - do you want to take a more active role in contributing to Ubuntu? Do you have a topic you'd like to discuss, or an idea you'd like to implement? Then you'll probably want to propose a session to make it happen. There is still a week for accepting proposals, so why don't you go ahead and propose a session?

Looking forward to seeing you all at the Summit!

Nearly two years ago, the Ubuntu Community Donations Program was created as the framework behind the donations page on the Ubuntu site. Time to look back, listen and adjust.

With the Ubuntu Community Donations Program those individuals who download Ubuntu for free can choose to support the project financially with a voluntary contribution. In doing so, they can use a set of sliders to determine which parts of the project the amount they donate goes to (Ubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu for phone, Ubuntu for tablet, Ubuntu on public clouds, Cloud tools, Ubuntu Server with OpenStack, Community projects, Tip to Canonical).

While donations imply that donors trust Canonical to act as a steward to manage their contributions, the feedback from the community was that the Community slider required a deeper level of attention in terms of management and transparency.

With community being such an integral part of Ubuntu, and with the new opportunity to financially support new community projects, events or travel, it was just logical to ensure that the funds allocated to them were managed fairly and transparently. This required:

• public reporting every six months and
• a way for Ubuntu members to request funding.

Although the regular reports already provide a clear picture where the money donated for community projects is spent on, today I'd like to give an update on the bigger picture of the Community Donations Program and answer some questions community members have raised.

A successful two years

In a nutshell, we're proud to say that the program continues to successfully achieve the goals it was set out for. Since its inception, it has given the ability to fund around $70,000 worth of community initiatives, conferences, travel and more. The money has always been allocated upon individual requests, the vast majority of which were accepted. Very few were declined, and when they were, we've always strived to provide good reasoning for the decision.

This process has given the opportunity to support a diverse set of teams and projects of the wide Ubuntu family, including flavours and sponsoring open source projects and conferences that have collaborated with Ubuntu over the years.

Program review and feedback

About two years into the Program, we felt a more thorough review was due: to assess how it has been working, to evaluate the community feedback and to decide if there are any adjustments required. Working with the Community Council on the review, we've also tried to address some questions from Ubuntu members that came in recently. Here is a summary of this review.

The feedback in general has been overwhelmingly positive. The Community Donations Program is not only seen as an initiative that hugely benefits the Ubuntu project, but also the figures and allocations on the reports and are a testament to this fact.

Criticism is also important to take, and when it has come, we've addressed it individually and updated the public policy or FAQ accordingly. Recently, it has arrived in two areas: the uncertainty in some cases where the exact cost is not known in advance (e.g. fluctuating travel costs from the date of the request until approval and booking) and the delay in actioning some of the requests.

In the first case, we've updated the FAQ to reflect the fact that there is some flexibility allowed in the process to work with a reasonable estimate. In the second, we've tried to explain that while some requests are easy to approve and actioned in a matter of a few days (we review them all once a week), some others take longer due to several different factors: back and forth communication to clarify aspects of the requests, the amount of pending requests, and in some cases, the complexity of arranging the logistics. In general, we feel that it's not unreasonable to expect sending a request at least a month in advance to what it is being planned to organize with the funds. We're also making it clear that requests should be filled in advance as opposed to retroactively, so that community members do not end up in a difficult position should a request not be granted.

One of the questions that came in was regarding the flavour and upstream donation sliders. Originally, there were 3 community-related sliders on ubuntu.com/download:

1. Community participation in Ubuntu development
2. Better coordination with Debian and upstreams
3. Better support for flavours like Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu.

At some point during the 14.04 release sliders 2) and 3) were merged into a single category: Community projects (1). Overall, this didn't change the outcome of community allocations: since its beginning, the Community Donations Programme amounts have only come from the first slider, which is what the Canonical Community team are managing. From there, money is always allocated upon request fairly, not making a difference and benefiting Ubuntu, its flavours and upstreams equally.

All that said, the lack of communication regarding the removal of the slider was something that was not intended and should have been consulted with the Community Team and the Community Council. It was a mistake for which we need to apologize. For any future changes in sliders that affect the community, we will make sure that the Community Council is included in communications as a key stakeholder in the process.

Questions were also raised about the reporting on the community donations during the months in 2012/2013, between the donations page going live and the announcement of the Community Donations Program. As mentioned before, the Program was born out of the want to provide a higher level of transparency for the funds assigned to community projects. Up until then (and in the same way as they do today for the rest of the donation sliders) donors were trusting Canonical to manage the allocations fairly. Public reports were made retroactively only where it made sense (i.e. to align with fiscal quarters), but not going back all the way to the time before the start of the Program.

All in all, with these small adjustments we're proud to say we'll continue to support community projects with donations in the same way we've been doing these last two years.

And most especially, we'd like to say a big 'thank you' to everyone who has kindly donated and to everyone who has used the funds to help shaping the future of Ubuntu. You rock!

Over a week ago, we announced the Ubuntu Scope Showdown: a competition to write a scope for Ubuntu on phones in 5 weeks and win exciting prizes.

Scopes are Ubuntu's innovative take at revolutionizing the content and services experience. For users, they provide quick and intuitive access to content without the need of loading an app. For developers and operators, scopes provide an easy path to surface their content and customize the UX in a way that is very flexible and integrated.

Scopes are Ubuntu's innovative take at revolutionizing the content and services experience

After the initial contest kickoff, we've already had a number of participants blogging, sharing updates and teasers about their work. Here's a peek at some of their progress.

A variety of scopes

In the words of Robert Schroll, of Beru fame, e-mail apps are just passé. So much that he decided to explore an interesting concept: reading your e-mail with a scope. With a nice extra touch: Ubuntu Online accounts integration.

Because e-mail apps are so 90s - the Gmail scope

After listening to one of Daniel Holbach's mixes, scope pioneer Bogdan Cuza thought they alone deserve a scope, and so the Mixcloud scope was born. The rest, as they say, is history.

Can't get enough of those Balkan Beats - the Mixcloud scope

You don't know where to eat tonight? No worries, Sam Segers has you covered. Check out his Google places scope to easily find somewhere new to go.

Your cooking skills not up to your date's expectations? The Google places scope comes to the rescue

Developer Daniele Laudani has a treat for all of us movie lovers: the Cinema scope. Features categories and departments, with settings, TV series and genres coming up soon! Check out the details on his blog.

Helping Ubuntu users watch stuff dreams are made of since 2014 - the Cinema scope

Riccardo Padovani is bringing the dark horse -or well, duck?- of search engines into Ubuntu. Armed with the DuckDuckGo scope, get results like a pro with "real privacy, smarter search and less clutter".

Duck is the new black - the DuckDuckGo scope

A wishlist of scopes

As Alan Pope and Michael Hall, I do have my wishlist of scopes for content that I'd like to have accessible at a flick of the finger on my phone. Maybe someone of you can make our day?

• 8tracks scope: I love music, and I love mixes. 8tracks is a music streaming service to listen to the mixes their community members create and to get creative submitting mixes. As an avid mixer and listener, I'd be using this all of the time, especially if it came with Online Accounts integration that showed me content relevant to my interests.
• Ask Ubuntu scope: the biggest Ubuntu Q&A site. I regularly check the 'application-development' tag there to see any new questions and if I can help a fellow Ubuntu developer (and you should too). It'd be absolutely awesome to get those updates easily on my phone screen, with settings to filter on tags and the ability to upvote/downvote questions and answers.

Not sure what to write a scope for yet? Well, check out the ideas over at the Showdown reddit, or let your imagination run wild with a comprehensive list of APIs to get more inspiration!

A prize for your scopes

It's not too late to enter the Showdown, you too can write a scope and win prizes! Here are some tips to get started:

• Get familiar with the contest rules
• Get started with the scopes tutorials
• Watch the Scopes Workshops
• Stay tuned for more workshops at the Ubuntu Online Summit
• Ask your questions and get help on scopes development on Ask Ubuntu, G+, Reddit, IRC, or the Ubuntu phone mailing list

Looking forward to seeing the next batch of scopes participants come up with!

Jono's leadership, passion and drive to continually push the boundaries have been contagious over the years, and have been the catalyst for growing the unique community of individuals that defines Ubuntu today.

He is now joining the ranks of non-Canonical Ubuntu members, and while this will change the angle of participation, I'm certain that it won't change his energy and dedication one bit. But most importantly, it's a testament to his work that his former team will continue to thrive and take up the torch in pushing those boundaries.

For us, it will be business as usual. As such, we will be executing our roadmaps, continuing to grow a strong and open community, being innovative in how we do it, and coordinating the logistics around our plans. Not much will be different in that regard, but obviously some organizational bits will change.

As part of the transition, the Ubuntu Community Team at Canonical in full, that is, Michael Hall, Daniel Holbach, Alan Pope, Nicholas Skaggs and myself, will now be hosting the weekly Ubuntu Q&A, starting today at 18:00 UTC on Ubuntu On Air (click here for the time at your location).

The Ubuntu Community Team Q&A

Openness, both in being a transparent and welcoming community, is one of the core values of Ubuntu, and we believe the channels should be always open for a healthy information flow and to help contributors get involved.

As such, the Ubuntu Community Team Q&A will continue to provide a weekly, 1-hour-long session open for participation to anyone who wants to ask their questions about Ubuntu. In fact, as in former editions, you can ask the Community Team just anything about Free Software, Technology, or whatever you come up with. As before, the only questions we won't answer are those related to technical support, where you'll be much better served using Ask Ubuntu, the Ubuntu forums or IRC.

Join the Ubuntu Community Team Q&A and ask your questions >

The Ubuntu Online Summit is coming soon!

Also, following the thread of events and participation, the new Ubuntu Online Summit (UOS) is coming up very soon, and it's an excellent opportunity to learn about getting involved in Ubuntu, organizing or presenting the plans of the different Ubuntu teams for the next months.

UOS will be held on June 10th – 12th and it will be a combination of the former Ubuntu Developer Summit and the more user-facing events we've been organizing in the past. This opens the door to a wider audience that can follow a richer mix of developer and user or contributor content.

If you want to learn about the details, check out Michael's UOS post on how it's going to work. If you want to contribute and make a difference in Ubuntu, do register a session too!

Looking forward to seeing you soon!

As part of the Ubuntu App Developer Week, I just ran a live on-air session on how to internationalize your Ubuntu apps.

Some of the participants on the live chat asked me if I could share the slides somewhere online. So here they are for your viewing pleasure :)

If you've got any questions on i18n or in Ubuntu app development in general, feel free to ask in the comments or ping me (dpm) on IRC.

The video

The slides

Enjoy!

Després d'anunciar la versió per a mòbils i tauletes en l'anterior edició, l'Ubuntu, patrocinat per l'empresa Canonical, torna al Mobile World Congress a Barcelona. Aquest cop amb més força, més novetats i a punt de presentar la que en serà la versió nova: 14.04 LTS.

Ubuntu és molt més que una plataforma: és un projecte obert que disposa d'una extensa comunitat d'usuaris, desenvolupadors i voluntaris que s'agrupen en equips locals arreu del món per col·laborar-hi i promocionar-lo.

Aprofitant la celebració del Mobile World Congress, el dissabte 1 de març l'equip català de l'Ubuntu organitza la primera Escola d'aplicacions Ubuntu a Barcelona, un esdeveniment gratuït on es presentaran amb detall els conceptes de disseny i d'arquitectura de l'Ubuntu en mòbils i tauletes. Per completar la jornada, els participants aprendran a crear diferents tipus d'aplicacions per a l'Ubuntu en el taller de desenvolupament d'aplicacions natives i web.

Contingut de la jornada

Fonaments de la plataforma Ubuntu

• 11:00 - 11:55 Fonaments: la plataforma Ubuntu
• 12:05 - 13:00 Fonaments: l'Ubuntu SDK com a entorn de desenvolupament

Taller de creació d'aplicacions

• 15:00 - 15:55 Aplicacions: el model d'aplicació i aplicacions natives
• 16:05 - 17:00 Aplicacions: aplicacions web i publicació d'aplicacions

L'Escola d'aplicacions Ubuntu està dirigida a desenvolupadors i usuaris amb perfil tècnic, per la qual cosa s'assumeixen uns coneixements mínims de programació.

Es recomana dur un portàtil amb Ubuntu 12.04 o superior, tot i que és possible participar amb altres sistemes a través d'una imatge virtual que es proporcionarà en el taller. Aquells participants que duguin un dispositiu Nexus 4, Nexus 7 (razor) o Nexus 10 tindran l'opció d'instal·lar l'Ubuntu com a sistema únic o bé com a arrencada dual.

Quan i on

• Escola d'aplicacions Ubuntu
• Ponent: David Planella (Canonical)
• Data: dissabte 1 de març de 2014
• Lloc:
  MOB (Makers Of Barcelona)
  C/ Bailén 11, baixos
  08010 Barcelona

Organitza: www.ubuntu.cat

Registreu-vos!

La jornada és gratuïta, amb places limitades a 40 participants.

Registreu-vos en línia per participar-hi >

Actualització

Aquí teniu un àlbum de fotos de com va ser la jornada

Core Apps Hack days are an easy way for app developers to get started contributing to one of the most important and visible parts of Ubuntu, and learn and share knowledge with an exciting community of some of the best Open Source developers around. As core app developer Riccardo Padovani, puts it:

I started contributing to Ubuntu Touch with a Core App Hack Day in July and I still have not stopped!

Driven by the success of previous editions, we're thrilled to announce another week of Ubuntu Core Apps Hack Days starting tomorrow, Friday the 24th of January

The goals

In one month's time, the Mobile World Congress will bring a unique opportunity to present the Ubuntu phone and tablet to some of the most influential names in the mobile industry. It is also an opportunity to showcase a truly free OS and the stunning work our community of core app developers (and many others!) have already achieved.

Thus we'd like to set the theme for these Hack Days to Sprinting to MWC, and use them to focus on convergence and finishing off the set of features agreed upon at the last Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS).

The schedule

We'll be running a week's worth of Hack Days, online at the #ubuntu-app-devel IRC channel, from 9:00UTC to 21:00UTC, focusing on two apps a day:

• Friday, 24th January: Reminders and Music
• Monday, 27th January: Calendar and Shorts
• Tuesday, 28th January: Clock and Calculator
• Wednesday, 29th January: File Manager and Doc Viewer
• Thursday, 30th January: Weather and Terminal

Get involved

There are many ways to making core apps even more awesome! If you want to contribute, choose the one that best matches your interests or skills. The first thing I'd recommend would be to run the apps on a device to get a feel for how they work. If you don't have a real device to test, a good alternative is to use the Ubuntu emulator.

Once you're familiar with them, here's how you can start your journey to becoming a core apps contributor:

1. Join the #ubuntu-app-devel IRC channel and say hi! >
2. Find something to work on or ask someone on the channel. Here are some examples to get started
   • File a bug >
   • Pick a bitesize bug and fix it >
   • Contribute code - read the Development guide first! >
   • Pick a work item and complete it >
   • Translate an app! >

To learn more about contributing, check out the Hack Days page >.

Looking forward to seeing the new faces in the core apps project!

Following the call for volunteers to organize App Dev Schools across the globe, we're excited to say that there are already events planned in 3 different countries. Every single App Dev School will help growing our community of app developers and drive adoption of our favourite free OS on all devices, everywhere.

Our LoCo community has got an incredible track record for organizing release parties, Ubuntu Hours, Global Jams, and all sorts of meet-ups for Ubuntu enthusiasts and folks who are new to Ubuntu. Ubuntu App Developer Schools are very new, but in the same way LoCos are, they're going to become crucial in the new era of mobile devices and convergence. So we would like to see more of them and we need your help!

You can run an App Dev School too

If you've already organized an event, you already know the drill, but if it's your first one, here are some guidelines on how you can put one together:

1. Find a place to run an event and pick a date when to run it.
2. Find some other folks in your LoCo who would be interested in helping.
3. To promote it, remember to add it to the LoCo Directory
4. Get the material and tune it for your event if needed.
5. Promote the event locally and encourage people to join.
6. Practice the material a few times before the big day, then show up, run the class and have fun.
7. Take lots of pictures!

The ever awesome José Antonio Rey has made it even easier for Spanish-speaking LoCos to run events by having translated the materials into Spanish, so do get in touch with him if you'd like to use them.

And finally, for those of you who don't have mobile devices to show Ubuntu on, the emulator is a nice alternative to use for app development and presentations. To help you get started, I've put together a quickstart guide to the Ubuntu emulator.

If you're thinking about organizing one and you've got questions or need help, get in touch with me at david.planella@ubuntu.com

Looking forward to seeing all your App Dev Schools around the world!

Following the initial announcement, the Ubuntu emulator is going to become a primary Engineering platform for development.

Quoting Alexander Sack, when ready, the goal is to

[...] start using the emulator for everything you usually would do on the phone. We really want to make the emulator a class A engineering platform for everyone

While the final emulator is still work in progress, we're continually seeing the improvements in finishing all the pieces to make it a first-class citizen for development, both for the platform itself and for app developers. However, as it stands today, the emulator is already functional, so I've decided to prepare a quickstart guide to highlight the great work the Foundations and Phonedations teams (along with many other contributors) are producing to make it possible. While you should consider this as guide as a preview, you can already use it to start getting familiar with the emulator for testing, platform development and writing apps.

Requirements

To install and run the Ubuntu emulator, you will need:

• Ubuntu 14.04 LTS or later (see installation notes for older versions)
• 512MB of RAM dedicated to the emulator
• 4GB of disk space
• OpenGL-capable desktop drivers (most graphics drivers/cards are)

Installing the emulator

The installation is as easy as opening a terminal, pressing Ctrl+Alt+T and running these commands, followed by Enter:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-sdk-team/ppa && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-emulator

Alternatively, if you are running an older stable release such as Ubuntu 12.04, you can install the emulator by manually downloading its packages first.

Installation notes

• Downloaded images are cached at ~/.cache/ubuntuimages –using the standard XDG_CACHE_DIR location.
• Instances are stored at ~/.local/share/ubuntu-emulator –using the standard XDG_DATA_DIR location.
• While an image upgrade feature is in the works, for now you can simply create an instance of a newer image over the previous one.

Running the emulator

The ubuntu-emulator tool makes it again really easy to manage instances and run the emulator. Typically, you'll be opening a terminal and running these commands the first time you create an instance (where myinstance is the name you've chosen for it):

sudo ubuntu-emulator create myinstance --arch=i386
ubuntu-emulator run myinstance

You can create any instances you need for different purposes. And once the instance has been created, you'll be generally using the ubuntu-emulator run myinstance command to start an emulator session based on that instance. Notice how in the command above the --arch parameter was specified to override the default architecture (armhf). Using the i386 arch will make the emulator run at a (much faster) native speed. Other parameters you might want to experiment with are also: --scale=0.7 and --memory=720. In these examples, we're scaling down the UI to be 70% of the original size (useful for smaller screens) and specifying a maximum of 720MB for the emulator to use (on systems with memory to spare). There are 3 main elements you'll be interacting with when running the emulator:

• The phone UI - this is the visual part of the emulator, where you can interact with the UI in the same way you'd do it with a phone. You can use your mouse to simulate taps and slides. Bonus points if you can recognize the phone model where the UI is in ;)
• The remote session on the terminal - upon starting the emulator, a terminal will also be launched alongside. Use the phablet username and the same password to log in to an interactive ADB session on the emulator. You can also launch other terminal sessions using other communication protocols –see the link at the end of this guide for more details.
• The ubuntu-emulator tool - with this CLI tool, you can manage the lifetime and runtime of Ubuntu images. Common subcommands of ubuntu-emulator include create (to create new instances), destroy (to destroy existing instances), run (as we've already seen, to run instances), snapshot (to create and restore snapshots of a given point in time) and more. Use ubuntu-emulator --help to learn about these commands and ubuntu-emulator command --help to learn more about a particular command and its options.

Runtime notes

• Make sure you've got enough space to install the emulator and create new instances, otherwise the operation will fail (or take a long time) without warning.
• At this time, the emulator takes a while to load for the first time. During that time, you'll see a black screen inside the phone skin. Just wait a bit until it's finished loading and the welcome screen appears.
• By default the latest built image from the devel-proposed channel is used. This can be changed during creation with the --channel and --revision options.
• If your host has a network connection, the emulator will use that transparently, even though the network indicator might show otherwise.
• To talk to the emulator, you can use standard adb. The emulator should appear under the list of the adb devices command.

Learn more and contribute

I hope this guide has whetted your appetite to start testing the emulator! You can also contribute making the emulator a first-class target for Ubuntu development. The easiest way is to install it and give it ago. If something is not working you can then file a bug.

If you want to fix a bug yourself or contribute to code, the best thing is to ask the developers about how to get started by subscribing to the Ubuntu phone mailing list.

If you want to learn more about the emulator, including how to create instance snapshots and other cool features, head out to the Ubuntu Emulator wiki page.

And next... support for the tablet form factor and SDK integration. Can't wait for those features to land!

With our favourite OS expanding to yet another order of magnitude, every contribution is becoming even more important. And with phones shipping all over the globe, multilingual support and Ubuntu translators are going to be one of the keys to Ubuntu's success.

In the same way you've helped us bring an excellent localized experience to the desktop throughout the years, we now need your help ensuring the phone reaches that level of excellence too. Once more, you can bring Ubuntu on phones to millions in their language.

To make it easier to focus on the most important parts, here's a summary of the main Ubuntu components that can be translated in Launchpad, our collaborative translation tool.

And if you're new to translating Ubuntu, you can also help! Check out our Translations Quickstart guide >

Unity and scopes

Unity is essentially Ubuntu's UI, and version 8 is what is currently running on the phone and will ultimately run on all form factors once we achieve full convergence.

By translating Unity, the most visible user interface parts will appear in your language. Scopes are also part of Unity, and enable bringing content to users in a natural and organized way. The Click Update Manager is launched in the Applications scope when you install a new app.

• Translate Unity >
• Translate the Unity scopes >
• Translate the Click Update Manager >

Indicators

Indicators are another Unity technology that enables quick access to system settings that you access every day, such as networking, location, sound, etc., as well as the messaging menu. Translating indicators will localize their menus when you swipe from the top edge.

• Translate the Bluetooth indicator >
• Translate the Date and Time indicator >
• Translate the Power indicator >
• Translate the Sound indicator >
• Translate the Network indicator >
• Translate the Location indicator >
• Translate the Messages indicator >

Core and system apps

You can think of core and system apps as being the same thing: a set the essential apps every user would expect preinstalled on their devices. Translating core apps, you'll make it possible to have a richer localized experience with clock, camera, weather, calculator and more.

• Translate core apps >
• Translate system apps >
• Translate the System Settings app >
• Translate the Online Accounts app >

Testing translations

With the addition of multiple supported form factors, testing is important not only to ensure that translations are correct, but also that they fit in UI components of different widths. So please double-check that long texts fit in in the smaller factors such as the phone.

Translation testing on a running phone or on the emulator deserves an article of its own, so please stay tuned for the next update coming soon.

Happy translating!

Image: Human touch, by David Planella, under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license

We've been making good progress with Reminders, the Ubuntu app powered by Evernote. While our team of developers have been busy working on the UI, a set of other equally awesome individuals have been working in parallel to implement the backend pieces.

Today, I'm thrilled to announce that the Evernote Online Accounts provider is now available for Ubuntu as a preview. This plugin enables secure login to Evernote via OAuth, and handles the authentication process via the standard Ubuntu platform APIs, so that the Reminders app does not even have to care about the logic.

Big thanks to Alberto Mardegan and Chris Wayne for making this possible.

For developers only

At this point, the authentication plugin is provided for the purpose of developing the Reminders app only, and it will intentionally not work with regular Evernote accounts. Support for regular Evernote accounts will be enabled when the Reminders app reaches the stable release status.

The plugin talks to the Evernote sandbox service, so before using it you'll need to create a developer account there first. Create a free Evernote developer account ›

Installing the Evernote account provider

As the required packages have not yet landed in the archive, we'll need to install them from the core apps repository. You can open a terminal and run these commands to do the installation, either on the phone or on the desktop:

On the phone, before you can install a package you will need to switch to RW mode

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-touch-coreapps-drivers/daily
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install account-plugin-evernote signon-plugin-oauth2

Logging into the Evernote sandbox

The next step in using the plugin is to log into the Evernote sandbox. The Evernote login process, as for any other Ubuntu online account, takes place in the System Settings app. Once the plugin is installed, you'll be able to add new Evernote accounts from the New Account screen. While the screenshots above show how to do it on the phone, this works equally well on the desktop.

Using the Evernote account provider

To enable Evernote account support in QML apps, you'll only require an instance of the Ubuntu Online Accounts AccountServiceModel. You should check out the online API reference for more information, but in essence, an adapted version of the snippet from the documentation will do the trick:

Item {
    AccountServiceModel {
        id: accounts
        // Use the Evernote service
        service: "evernote"
    }
    ListView {
        model: accounts
        delegate: Rectangle {
            id: rect
            Text { text: rect.model.displayName }
            AccountService {
                id: accountService
                objectHandle: rect.model.accountServiceHandle
                // Print the access token on the console
                onAuthenticated: { console.log("Access token is " + reply.AccessToken) }
                onAuthenticationError: { console.log("Authentication failed, code " + error.code) }
            }
            MouseArea {
                anchors.fill: parent
                onClicked: accountService.authenticate()
            }
        }
    }
}

With this code, you'll get your Evernote account listed in the UI. Clicking on it, and upon successful authentication you'll obtain an Evernote authentication token, that can then be passed to the Evernote API to access the NoteStore and manage notes for the account associated to that token.

This is however the first step, as you'll need a working backend to pass that token to and to talk to the Evernote API before you can manage any notes. Read on to learn more on this.

Setting up the Evernote API Taskforce

The next phase in the project is now to focus on the creation a QML plugin that will talk to the Evernote service. This is a key piece of the infrastructure that will enable performing the essential operations of fetching, modifying and updating notes while online.

The unstoppable Michael Zanetti has been helping us bootstrapping the process, and he's already put together an Evernote API QML plugin that performs the basic communication with the Evernote servers.

Taking this work as a foundation, we want to extend the plugin to perform all necessary operations to cover the needs of the Reminders app. With this goal in mind, we're putting together the Evernote API taskforce: a team of developers tightly focused in developing the Evernote API QML plugin and working very closely with the Reminders app developers to ensure backend and UI perfectly fit.

So if you've got Qt and C++ experience, this is a call for you: join the team of core developers who bring Evernote support to Ubuntu and millions of users!

If you're interested in participating, let us know in the comments or or drop us an e-mail on the Core Apps mailing list. Looking forward to welcoming new developers to the team, and stay tuned for more updates!

With Ubuntu now running across all form factors and devices and entering the mobile space, a new era begins.

The challenge

While our values remain the same, we've now faced with a unique opportunity to drive adoption of our favourite Free Software OS to a user base that could potentially be one or two orders of magnitude bigger.

We've layed out the foundations of an innovative and scalable platform that provides a stunning experience for regular and power users, and that is a delight for developers to use. Years of experience, user testing and design on the desktop, pioneering work on the cloud and the app development story for the phone are some of the key aspects that have made it possible.

In this new era our community is more important than ever, with LoCo teams and the LoCo Council at the forefront. Ubuntu contributors, enthusiasts, evangelists, advocates... with your events, initiatives across the globe you are all making it happen.

With virtual UDS happening this week, we'd like to kick off a series of discussions to come up with a solid plan on how to re-energize and empower LoCo teams to scale up to these new challenges, and to involve them in the technologies and projects that are driving this new chapter in Ubuntu. The contribution of leaders in our LoCo community and the LoCo Council will be key to our success here.

The sessions

From the 19th to 21th of November, both the Community and the App Development tracks at UDS will be full with LoCo team sessions, and we'd like all advocates and everyone involved in Ubuntu local community teams to participate and contribute to our LoCo plans this cycle. Here are the sessions this week:

LoCo projects

An initiative to work with LoCos to provide projects and outcomes for those teams and individuals looking for ways of contributing to Ubuntu. We'd like to create "LoCo projects", a pool of projects LoCo teams can participate in as a team.

Join this session >

LoCo Portal promotion

The LoCo Portal is the window to the vibrant activity of our Ubuntu teams, and we want to come up with a plan to promote it and use it to highlight the awesome work that's going on in the LoCo world.

Join this session >

LoCo Leadership growth

New challenges require leadership, and we'd like to work with the LoCo Council to grow a team of leaders to drive the global LoCo community.

Join this session >

LoCo community involvement in App Development

App development is an exciting new area that is becoming key to the success of Ubuntu among mobile users. We're at a point where the platform and infrastructure is ripe for LoCo teams to get involved and start spreading the word and running Ubuntu app development events.

Join this session >

Build materials for the App Dev Schools initiative

Growing the number of learning materials to write apps for Ubuntu will be a key focus for next cycle, and it offers a great opportunity to share knowledge and help others getting started creating content for the platform. Join us to discuss the plan to create a set of materials and presentations for the App Dev Schools.

Join this session >

Campaign to grow the number of tutorials videos

As an extension to the App Dev Schools initiative, we'd like to come up with a plan to publish a series of short, topic-based app development tutorial videos.

Join this session ›

Looking forward to seeing you all at UDS this week!

Image 'Photo de groupe' by rocknpol under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0