Hiring Edubuntu Staff

[Ace Suares]

Please share with acesuares at gmail.com

thx!

ace

David Groos wrote:
> Jordan, I really appreciate your focus on community and working on 
> growing it.  As I believe Lns. once said, the thing special about 
> Edubuntu isn't the software but the community.  I've learned a lot about 
> the history of Edubuntu and the community which uses it and has 
> developed it.  To grow a community one must know the community and while 
> there may be a few people here who do know all, is there a page, a 
> single page, with an overview of the different categories of community 
> members, who they are, their needs, strengths and knowledge?
> 
> I've watched these many dozens of e-mails these last few days, pondering 
> my role in it all.  Still not sure but as a teacher one of my strengths 
> is organizing information, 'scaffolding' learning and growing 
> communities.  So... I propose that we need to increase our arsenal of 
> supportive software.  Really, the main collaborative tools of this 
> community are a wiki, list server, and launchpad, right?  We need tools 
> with additional affordances.  Googledocs is great with it's wysiwyg 
> editor, simultaneous editing, easy sharing and versioning.  I recommend 
> we use this googledoc: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgschn8x_11gtf4ddgc 
> to create an easily editable page to provide an overview of the people 
> who make up the community.  I'd like to 'share' this document so all 
> members of the edubuntu community can edit the document.  If you would 
> like to edit it, e-mail me and I'll share it with the e-mail you give me.
> 
> Yours in Education,
> 
> David
> 
> On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 6:54 PM, Jordan Mantha <laserjock at ubuntu.com 
> <mailto:laserjock at ubuntu.com>> wrote:
> 
>     On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 3:05 PM, R. Scott Belford<scott at hosef.org
>     <mailto:scott at hosef.org>> wrote:
>      > For what it is worth, it is now nearly a year since I tracked down
>      > every key Canonical employee I could find at Linuxworld 2008, both at
>      > the conference and at after-hours events, to communicate two
>     messages:
>      > the state of Edubuntu and its User community was having an *adverse*
>      > *impact* on the adoption of gnu/linux in education, particularly in
>      > thin-client environments,and that two people should be hired - Gavin
>      > and Asmo.  As Ace observed, he actually thought Gavin worked for
>      > Canonical.  I used to think so, too.  Asmo has been instrumental at
>      > greeting and inspiring new users and help-seekers on this list,
>     and he
>      > likes Frank Zappa.
> 
>     Gavin and Asmo are both great guys and I would love to see people like
>     them employed to work on Edubuntu. However, Mark Shuttleworth has
>     indicated to me that Canonical will not be employing anybody to work
>     on Edubuntu for the foreseeable future so I think any paid developers
>     are going to have to come from some other source. Edubuntu hasn't had
>     a paid developer in over a year and it has shown.
> 
>     The state of Edubuntu for the last year or so hasn't been that great.
>     I don't think anybody involved with the project would disagree. The
>     problem has been that every attempt to get development rebooted has
>     not gone so well. I don't expect every Edubuntu user to be a bug
>     filer, doc writer, packager, etc. but *some* people in the community
>     needs to step up to make things happen. There are way more good ideas
>     than hands to implement them.
> 
>     There seems to be this eternal struggle between Edubuntu users and
>     developers. Edubuntu users are frustrated with how slow development
>     goes and how bugs/issues critical to them are not being addressed.
>     They feel like their voices are not being heard and that perhaps
>     developers just don't understand their situation. Perhaps they feel
>     that Edubuntu's full potential is not being realized, especially if
>     they've invested a lot of time, effort, and reputation in Edubuntu.
> 
>     In contrast, Edubuntu developers see day after day where Edubuntu
>     could be improved, where cracks are showing, and where new features
>     could be developed but feel powerless to actually do anything about
>     it. They are frustrated to see the same complaints time and time
>     again. They are demotivated when 19 out of 20 times when a user comes
>     to them it is to report a problem, complain about Edubuntu, or even
>     attack the quality of their work. They may feel that users
>     misunderstand that resources are the limiting factor, not a lack of
>     recognition of problem or the desire to fix them. And when they try to
>     inspire the user community to contribute towards fixing those problems
>     that they are bringing they are met with a lackluster response.
> 
>     So the question that has been racking my mind for the last two years
>     or so is, how do we take these two populations of people who have a
>     lot of negative perceptions towards each other and towards Edubuntu
>     and turn them into a fun, functional, and productive community that is
>     well-placed to be a dominate force for bringing the best open source
>     has to offer to the world-wide educational community?
> 
>     Obviously I don't have a good answer to this as I've spent countless
>     hours working on and in the Edubuntu community of the last few years
>     and it has not really improved. I do have a few thoughts about what
>     possible solutions might look like though. I think there are both
>     technical and social solutions that could be involved:
> 
>      * evaluation of the current state of Edubuntu, what are its current
>     strengths and weaknesses?
>      * finish the Edubuntu Strategy Document, but maybe trying to involve
>     the user community more.
>      * perhaps going further and develop a roadmap that outlines
>     specific, actionable steps for the next couple releases that
>     emphasizes regaining ground in terms of quality and community
>     development.
>      * analysis of the current development processes and especially the
>     barriers to entry for contribution. Some barrier will always exist but
>     we should try to remove unnecessary ones
>      * assess the user < -- > developer communication channels to see if
>     a big disconnect exists
>      * encourage a positive, respectful, and constructive community.
>     Basically, if all you say is negative you end up just being a grumpy
>     negative person. If users can learn to trust that developers do indeed
>     want to do the best by their users and if developers can take a step
>     back and put themselves in the user's shoes for a bit I think we'd all
>     be better off. It's not like we're all running around yelling at each
>     other 24x7 but I think we could maybe try to improve the tone on the
>     mailing lists and IRC.
>      * encourage leadership and taking ownership of Edubuntu tasks
>      * develop decent documentation and procedures for handling drive-by
>     contributions
> 
>     I'm sure there are many others but that's what came from the top of
>     my mind.
> 
>      > Some of the Canonical staff who received my message last year are on
>      > this list.  I hope that someone is listening.
> 
>     They might be, but there's not a lot Canonical staff can really do at
>     this point.
> 
>      > Oh, and for the record, Most Schools Block IRC Making it an
>     Impossible
>      > Communication Venue for Teachers Needing Support.
>      >
>      > With Aloha and Respect and an Undying Passion for the Adoption of
>     FOSS
>      > in the the K12 Environment
>      >
>      > --scott
>      >
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