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| kaydsoft | kaydsoft.com | 15:25 |
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| kaydsoft | http://www.google.com | 15:25 |
| kaydsoft | http://20thingsilearned.com/ | 15:26 |
| Omega | 30 minutes to go! | 16:12 |
| jono | hi folks, apologies, due to an error with DST, the session was incorrectly announced an hour early - mdz will be doing the Q+A in an hour at 5.30pm UTC | 16:22 |
| crimsonmane | is there a live stream? ie, mic broadcast? | 16:32 |
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| medberry | crimsonmane, no, IRC text. Ask questions in #ubuntu-classroom-chat | 16:33 |
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| jono | 17mins until Matt Zimmerman's Q+A! | 17:13 |
| brobo | 13 minutes! :D | 17:17 |
| * jcastro taps the mic | 17:25 | |
| jcastro | 5 minute warning folks! | 17:25 |
| brobo | yayz | 17:25 |
| jono | folks, tell your friends about the session, tweet, facebook, open the window and shout out if needed | 17:25 |
| Omega | Alright! | 17:27 |
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| jono | hey folks! | 17:30 |
| jono | alright let's give it a few mins for late stragglers | 17:30 |
| === ChanServ changed the topic of #ubuntu-classroom to: Welcome to the Ubuntu Classroom - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Classroom || Support in #ubuntu || Upcoming Schedule: http://is.gd/8rtIi || Questions in #ubuntu-classroom-chat || Current Session: Q & A with Matt Zimmerman - Instructors: mdz | ||
| jono | hi everyone, and welcome to another Ubuntu Q+A session! | 17:32 |
| jono | today I am delighted to introduce a special guest; someone who has been with Ubuntu since the very beginning, and a person who has always provided strong guidance in the project | 17:32 |
| jono | it is of course Matt Zimmerman, also known as mdz, who is the Ubuntu Chief Technical Officer | 17:33 |
| jono | Matt is not only CTO, but comes from a long heritage in Debian, and he also has a position on the Ubuntu Technical Board | 17:33 |
| jono | so let me explain how this works: | 17:33 |
| jono | to ask a question, simple start it with QUESTION. as an example: QUESTION: I read about DEX recently...what is it? | 17:34 |
| jono | you can ask the questions and also talk about the session in #ubuntu-classroom-chat | 17:35 |
| jono | ...so without further ado, over to mdz! | 17:35 |
| mdz | Hello, everyone! | 17:35 |
| mdz | this is the first opportunity I've had to do a session like this in a while, so it's very good to be here | 17:36 |
| mdz | as jono mentioned, I've been working on Ubuntu since the very beginning, and with Debian for years before that | 17:36 |
| mdz | I'm passionate about free software, and happy to take questions on a wide range of topics | 17:37 |
| mdz | though if there are a lot of questions, I'll focus on the ones which are related to Ubuntu itself | 17:37 |
| ClassBot | popey asked: Is Ubuntu losing its ideals? With the pre-installation of Ubuntu One, advertising of Landscape on the server, and the request to install non-free software by default (bug 723831), aren't we losing sight of our guiding principles? | 17:39 |
| mdz | hi popey :-) | 17:40 |
| mdz | my first reaction is that when it comes to ideals, they belong to people, not projects | 17:41 |
| mdz | we publish information about our values as a way of communicating what people in the project believe | 17:41 |
| mdz | but this is just window dressing | 17:41 |
| mdz | what counts is what is in the hearts and minds of the individual people who make up Ubuntu | 17:42 |
| mdz | and how we choose to act | 17:42 |
| mdz | bug 723831 is certainly not the first time someone has suggested that Ubuntu should include non-free software by default | 17:42 |
| mdz | it's been happening since day one | 17:42 |
| mdz | because we care about our users, and making their lives easier | 17:43 |
| mdz | and it's an objective fact that pre-installing some popular proprietary software would make users' lives easier | 17:43 |
| mdz | however | 17:43 |
| mdz | we care about more than just short term convenience | 17:44 |
| mdz | and we want to keep users' long-term interests in mind as well | 17:44 |
| mdz | and we believe that it's important to have the choice | 17:44 |
| mdz | and by maintaining a standard for freedom in Ubuntu, we help make it possible for people to have that choice | 17:44 |
| mdz | Debian is a fantastic example of this: by holding the line on freedom, they show everyone what's possible with free software, and provide motivation for more free software to be created | 17:45 |
| mdz | we want to do the same in Ubuntu | 17:45 |
| mdz | but it's not a black and white decision | 17:45 |
| mdz | from the beginning, we made the compromise of including proprietary drivers | 17:45 |
| mdz | because otherwise, too many people would be unable to use a free operating system at all | 17:46 |
| mdz | it wouldn't just be inconvenient, but virtually impossible | 17:46 |
| mdz | so we made that compromise | 17:46 |
| mdz | we've since been able to remove some of that proprietary software, as free alternatives have become available, and we should continue to re-evaluate what we're doing as the situation changes | 17:47 |
| mdz | I do not take this suggestion lightly: it would be a significant shift in our position to install the software referred to in that bug | 17:47 |
| mdz | it's only recently come up and the technical board will provide a thorough response to it, given a few round tuits | 17:48 |
| mdz | we can come back to the more historical parts of the question later if we have more time. thanks for the question! | 17:48 |
| ClassBot | Omega asked: I remember some mention of 'Ubuntu Light,' the optimized version of Ubuntu for OEMs, when will we start seeing Ubuntu Light equipped machines? | 17:48 |
| mdz | Ubuntu Light was developed for use as an "instant on" operating system, in a dual-boot configuration (usually alongside Windows) | 17:49 |
| mdz | where the main operating system might be slow and cumbersome to bring up *cough*, people felt it would be convenient to have a second OS which was fast to boot, simple to use, and offered basic internet functionality | 17:50 |
| mdz | this was a very popular idea at the time, and there were a few companies which sprung up which specialized in this kind of OS | 17:50 |
| mdz | but there are tradeoffs: having two operating systems can be awkward, people need ways to share data between them, and it's twice as much work (or more) to get both of them working well on the hardware | 17:51 |
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| mdz | so while it was very well received in the beginning, there's less demand for such "instant on" operating systems now | 17:52 |
| mdz | fortunately, the technical and creative work did not go to waste, and has made its way into things like Ubuntu Netbook Edition and Unity | 17:53 |
| mdz | which offer the same kind of simplicity and speed, but have a "full" OS experience, not just a stripped-down one | 17:53 |
| mdz | thanks for the question | 17:53 |
| ClassBot | Yash asked: SD card readers worked fine with previous versions of ubuntu, but on updating, none work, and USB flashdrives don't automount. When will that be fixed? Makes ubuntu less user friendly. | 17:53 |
| mdz | I'm sorry to hear that these features aren't working properly for you | 17:54 |
| mdz | there are a lot of possible explanations for what could have gone wrong | 17:54 |
| mdz | but it is definitely NOT the case that it's because we stopped caring about those things | 17:55 |
| mdz | most problems of this kind are specific to a particular computer type or configuration, and can be fixed once we become aware of them | 17:55 |
| mdz | for every Ubuntu certified system, we make sure that those things work reliably out of the box | 17:55 |
| mdz | but for everything else, we rely on people like you to tell us when it doesn't work, and help diagnose the problem | 17:56 |
| mdz | so please report a bug to Launchpad with all of the details | 17:56 |
| mdz | I would appreciate if someone would provide more instructions for this in the chat channel | 17:56 |
| mdz | thanks! | 17:56 |
| ClassBot | shan asked: Redhat recently announced it will undercut kernel patches. How is ubuntu affected? | 17:56 |
| mdz | what Red Hat changed was the way that they distribute their kernel patches in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) | 17:57 |
| mdz | instead of cleanly separating them out, which makes them easy to share, they have mixed them all together | 17:58 |
| mdz | at least, that's what I've read. I haven't looked to see exactly what's changed | 17:58 |
| mdz | I don't know if they've made a statement about why they are doing this, and there could be many reasons, so I won't try to guess | 17:59 |
| mdz | but as far as Ubuntu, I don't think this affects us really | 17:59 |
| mdz | Ubuntu and RHEL are usually on very different kernel versions, and there are other reasons why it might be inconvenient to share patches | 18:00 |
| mdz | the kernel team might have more to say about it, but I see no reason to be concerned. Ubuntu's kernel is based on the upstream tree from kernel.org, not on Red Hat's | 18:01 |
| ClassBot | gaberlunzie asked: why do text2speech development seem lagging? | 18:01 |
| mdz | I'm not too familiar with this area, but I'll give it a shot | 18:02 |
| mdz | I learned recently that in Ubuntu 10.10, the screen reader did not fully support installing Ubuntu, as it did in 10.04 | 18:03 |
| mdz | this is regrettable, and we'll need to do more testing in the future to make sure that it doesn't regress | 18:03 |
| mdz | I believe the accessibility team announced earlier this year that there would be more consistent testing during the Natty cycle, so that we would catch problems like this earlier | 18:04 |
| mdz | here's a post from a few days ago from Penelope Stowe of the accessibility team which explains some of the plans: | 18:05 |
| mdz | http://ubuntuaccessibility.wordpress.com/2011/03/14/accessibility-testing-part-i/ | 18:05 |
| mdz | I hope I've answered the right question :-) | 18:05 |
| ClassBot | Omega asked: What do you think about the move away from X11 to Wayland? | 18:05 |
| mdz | I think we're still some "way" off from the "land" where we can leave behind X11 | 18:06 |
| mdz | the X code base may be old, and crufty, and have its limitations, but it provides many essential services we need to run the Ubuntu desktop | 18:06 |
| mdz | Wayland is a very interesting project, and we're following it closely | 18:06 |
| mdz | but it would be premature to predict such a move, and what the effect would be | 18:07 |
| mdz | we love to adopt cool new open source technology, of course, but as always, we should put the needs of users first, and make sure that when we do switch, users continue to have a great experience | 18:07 |
| ClassBot | adminjs asked: Why does Ubuntu not support the enterprise better regarding autofs and hooking up to LDAP? | 18:08 |
| mdz | Ubuntu gets used in a lot of different settings, from individual home users through large enterprises with many thousands of computers | 18:08 |
| mdz | it's even used in some pretty unexpected places, for very specialized and custom computers | 18:09 |
| mdz | or things which don't look like computers at all | 18:09 |
| mdz | if we try to serve every possible scenario, we will do at best a mediocre job of all of them | 18:10 |
| mdz | so we need to make choices | 18:10 |
| mdz | there are a lot of factors which influence those choices | 18:11 |
| mdz | including what's happening in our upstream projects, who's joining Ubuntu and contributing to it, what kind of business opportunities there are for Canonical, and so on | 18:11 |
| mdz | individual contributors, of course, are free to work on whatever is most important to them | 18:12 |
| mdz | but where we try to focus a general effort on a particular area, we try to choose the one which will best advance Ubuntu's goals | 18:12 |
| mdz | those which will enable Ubuntu to make the biggest difference, for the greatest number of people | 18:13 |
| mdz | as you can imagine, this isn't an exact science | 18:13 |
| mdz | doing anything well requires a deep investment of attention, and there's only so much to go around | 18:13 |
| mdz | there are plenty of great ideas out there | 18:14 |
| mdz | and taken individually, it's easy to say "of course that's a great idea!" | 18:14 |
| mdz | and it is! | 18:14 |
| mdz | but collectively, we can't do justice to all of the good ideas, and we need to make choices | 18:15 |
| mdz | we need to be disciplined, and try to take on challenges that we are willing to work hard at and do well | 18:15 |
| mdz | not just do the minimum needed | 18:16 |
| mdz | enterprises come in different shapes and sizes. the word means different things to different peolpe | 18:16 |
| mdz | to you, it means autofs and LDAP. to another person, it might mean thin clients, or the ability to lock down configurations, or the ability to use Windows applications, etc. | 18:17 |
| mdz | so these aren't simple yes/no answers | 18:18 |
| mdz | to do a good job, we need to deeply understand the user and what their requirements are | 18:18 |
| mdz | and that's a case we haven't spent too much time on | 18:18 |
| mdz | perhaps that's a long-winded answer to a short question, but I hope I've done it justice :-) | 18:18 |
| ClassBot | Spyder asked: I am a user of a netbook. Ubuntu thought the netbook niche important enough to release a targeted version, however it seems that one of the largest problems was a lot of core UI windows were still too large for the screens. Is the netbook niche market still a concern for the project? And if so, will this be addressed? | 18:19 |
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| mdz | there is a lot of talk about netbooks being "dead", and we don't see a lot of new product launches happening in this area | 18:19 |
| mdz | but meanwhile there are still a lot of netbooks being sold | 18:20 |
| mdz | I use a Dell mini 10v when I'm traveling, and the form factor is very convenient | 18:20 |
| mdz | but you're right, there are applications which aren't so well suited for use on a netbook | 18:20 |
| mdz | for reasons of performance, or user interface considerations | 18:20 |
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| ClassBot | There are 10 minutes remaining in the current session. | 18:21 |
| mdz | we do still care about netbook users, and one of the principles behind Unity was to maximize the available screen space for applications | 18:21 |
| mdz | we may not be able to fix every application in Ubuntu to fit on every netbook | 18:21 |
| mdz | but with a bit of bug fixing, and perhaps slightly larger screens becoming cheaper over time, I think this problem will sort itself out | 18:22 |
| mdz | where you're aware of specific problems, please do file them in Launchpad so that we can track them, though we can't guarantee they will be addressed in a specific time frame | 18:22 |
| ClassBot | sebsebseb asked: Why did you join Canonical? | 18:22 |
| mdz | I didn't technically join Canonical, because at the time I joined, it didn't have a name yet :-) | 18:23 |
| mdz | I joined because it seemed like an incredible opportunity to advance free software | 18:23 |
| mdz | it had the potential to reach so many people, and that was inspiring | 18:24 |
| mdz | it was also a chance to work with some very talented people, who I respected from their work in the free software community | 18:24 |
| mdz | I was also interested in the idea of a partnership between a company and a community, and how these two paradigms could work in harmony | 18:25 |
| mdz | this has obviously been a great challenge as the company and project have grown! | 18:25 |
| mdz | thanks for the question | 18:25 |
| ClassBot | There are 5 minutes remaining in the current session. | 18:26 |
| ClassBot | shan asked: I noticed that Natty is going to have enhanced chroot support. How different it is from debootstrap? | 18:26 |
| mdz | I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to here, but I think you might be talking about LXC | 18:27 |
| mdz | if so, LXC is a container system, which allows you to have a chroot which is a bit more like a virtual machine | 18:27 |
| mdz | chroot only affects the filesystem, but LXC "contains" other aspects of the system, like the process table, network namespace, etc. | 18:27 |
| mdz | if that's not what you meant, sorry :-) | 18:28 |
| ClassBot | cmrd_ asked: i'm intersted in developing applications for ubuntu but i have a little knowledge of C programming lang can anyone suggest me how do i proceed in order to develop apps. | 18:28 |
| mdz | short answer: ask rickspencer3 about quickly! | 18:28 |
| ClassBot | digikwondo asked: first of all, <3 ubuntu and open source, ubuntu studio made it possible to record my bands first demo and now we are working on our first album all mixed with help of the open source hackers and community!! Now the question. What is your main motivation for working with open source and why did you choose the ubuntu dist ?;) | 18:29 |
| mdz | first of all, awesome! | 18:29 |
| mdz | I'm a musician myself and love to hear about people making music with Ubuntu | 18:29 |
| mdz | I spoke about my motivation for joining Canonical earlier, but more generally for open source... | 18:29 |
| mdz | I work with free software because I'm fascinated by two things: technology and people | 18:30 |
| mdz | open source is an opportunity to work deeply in both areas, and in the intersection between them | 18:30 |
| mdz | software, hardware, communities, social issues... | 18:30 |
| ClassBot | Logs for this session will be available at http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2011/03/18/%23ubuntu-classroom.html | 18:31 |
| mdz | I guess I'm done :-) | 18:31 |
| === ChanServ changed the topic of #ubuntu-classroom to: Welcome to the Ubuntu Classroom - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Classroom || Support in #ubuntu || Upcoming Schedule: http://is.gd/8rtIi || Questions in #ubuntu-classroom-chat || | ||
| crimsonmane | thank you mdz | 18:32 |
| mdz | crimsonmane, my pleasure! | 18:33 |
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