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GNOME Marketing Hackfest Day 1

Ten brave souls have gathered in windy Zaragoza, Spain for a GNOME Marketing Hackfest to work on a marketing plan and materials for the upcoming GNOME 3.0 launch.

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Day one is already done and we’re well on our way into day two and we’re getting a lot of stuff done.

Sumana has done a great job at summarizing our first day and she’s jumped in and volunteered to act as our project manager.  She’s making sure we’re staying on topic and focused.  (Thanks Sumana!)

We’re working on a GNOME 3 website where we can host some cool videos showing the features and benefits of GNOME 3 as well as making it easy to represent GNOME at events.  We’re working on presentations and templates you could use to give a talk about GNOME, materials to host a booth at a conference such as SCALE or Ohio Linux Fest and more.

Even Vincent is surprised how much we are getting done:

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We have two more days of work ahead of us and Friday we will be meeting and giving talks with a number of local government and business community members about free software in the community, business and education. (More photos here too, will be updated throughout the week).

Sponsored by GNOME

  • in GNOME
  • 1 min read

GNOME Developers – We need your help!

The Marketing Hackfest kicked off a few hours ago and we need your help.

As we build the marketing plan for the GNOME 3.0 release one of the focus areas we want to talk to users about is GNOME apps.

Do you work on a GNOME application and have some cool features planned?  Updated user interface?  Something cool to tell GNOME users that you’d like to see included in the the GNOME 3.0 marketing?  Tell us!  Leave a comment here, add to the Roadmap on the wiki or email the marketing list.

Being an avid reader of Planet GNOME I’ve heard about Tomboy Online (in Beta hopefully for 3.0), collaboration in gedit and more.  Now is a great time to let the Marketing team know with what’s going on with the apps you work on and where they’re going so we can include that information as we work on our marketing plans.

We need your help!  And thank you in advance.

Hobbyists & Hackers

Dave Neary wrote an interesting blog post yesterday commenting that the recruitment of new developers appears to be slowing.

I’ve had similar a similar thought on my mind for a while but coming from a different angle.

First though, revisiting Dave’s thought, he writes:

But it was a learning experience. Installing Linux was the period in my life where I learned the most about how computers worked, hardware and software. Back then, if you wanted to try out an application you heard about, there was only one way to do it – download the source code and compile it.

I had a conversation with Jono Bacon and Opportunistic Development (more on this in a different post) at the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit two weeks ago that comes to mind.  Jono and I were talking about how kids in the 80’s had a chance to learn to program through BASIC, LOGO or other languages.  I remember using my first computer and buying magazines that had the machine code you’d program in by hand to create a game.  (Ok, I’m old).

But it leads me to an interesting thought about the evolution of younger users and how they are introduced to computers, becoming programmers and ultimately hackers or makers.

  • In the early 80’s we had the TRS-80, Commodore or Apple II (and later the Atari ST or IBM PC) computers and were encouraged to learn Basic or LOGO
  • In the 90’s we saw the beginning of Linux and other free software tools that raised a different generation of hackers.  We had the World Wide Web explode creating a generation of Web programmers.
  • And in the first decade of the 21st century, especially the second half, we saw the rise of the smartphone and the app store.

Dave asks the question:

Is it any wonder that recruitment of developers appears to be slowing, that prominent older projects are suffering something of a demographic crisis, with hoary old 30 year olds holding down the fort, with no young fiery whippersnappers coming up to relieve them?

(And I encourage you to read the comments on his blog as well).  I don’t know if that’s the right question – I think the fiery whippersnappers have more choices today for development – web apps, iPhone or Android apps, Linux and more.

For the GNOME community specifically, I wonder if we could make it easier for new developers or projects.  As an upstream project, I understand we don’t want to make it too easy and have a wasteland of abandoned projects hosted on our infrastructure, but I also see innovative new projects like Zeitgeist or Getting Things GNOME! using Launchpad instead.  I think the recent Zeitgeist proposal highlights both the benefits and challenges of using one or the other platforms for development.  I don’t know what the answer is, but I’d be curious to hear the communities opinion on it, whether it’s opening a GNOME branch on Gitorious or other ideas.

From whatever direction you come at these questions, it is an interesting challenge to have.

  • in GNOME
  • 1 min read

GNOME Foundation Board Affiliations Update

With the recent additions to the Board in the last couple of months and some job changes (including myself last week) since the elections last year, we wanted to provide a quick update on current Board affiliations:

  • Brian Cameron (Oracle)
  • Jorge Castro (Canonical)
  • Paul Cutler (Novell)
  • Diego Escalante Urrelo (Igalia – Internship)
  • Germán Póo-Caamaño (No affiliation)
  • Srinivasa Ragavan (Intel)
  • Vincent Untz (Novell)

The Foundation Board election process started in May last year – if you haven’t renewed your Foundation membership or wish to become a Foundation member now is a great time to apply (and save the Membership committee some work!)

GNOME Journal Issue #19 is out!

The latest GNOME Journal is out!

We have six articles in this issue:

  • Will Kahn-Greene writes his first article for GNOME Journal about the GNOME Miro Community. Want to watch videos about GNOME? Will has all the information you need.
  • GNOME Bugzilla was upgraded late last year. Sumana Harihareswara writes up the case study on the partnership between the GNOME Foundation, Canonical and Everything Solved, a consultancy focused on Bugzilla.
  • Stormy Peters interviews Juan José Sánchez Penas, who works at Igalia and sits on the GNOME Advisory Board.
  • Jono Bacon writes about a topic I’m personally passionate about – tools for opportunistic developers who want to write small, focused and fun applications for GNOME.
  • And another topic I’m passionate about – Shaun McCance introduces Mallard, the new XML schema we’re using to write help and documentation in GNOME.
  • And last, but not certainly not least – Jim Hodapp writes a Letter from the Editor – thank you Jim for all your hard work on GNOME Journal as Editor in Chief and your kind words.

Thank you to all our writers and editors for this release. Want to write an article or get involved? Join the mailing list here.

Go read it!

  • in GNOME
  • 2 min read

GNOME Fundraising

Thank you to everyone who has worked, and more importantly, donated to to the GNOME Sysadmin campaign that was launched this week. Special thanks to Vinicius, Lucas, Stormy and everyone who has helped develop the ruler that is displayed on the family of GNOME websites.

It’s been almost a year since J5 blogged about the GNOME Foundation needing help – and since then we saw a lift in donations via Friends of GNOME. Thanks to Jaap Haitsma and the marketing team (I’m sure I’m forgetting somebody) we also launched Friends of GNOME buttons for blogs and Amazon referrals to help raise money for GNOME.

While we’ve seen a slight dip in Friends of GNOME subscriptions in the last couple of months with subscribers who have reached the one year mark, we should all be proud and thankful for the money raised over the last year. We raised more money in 2009 than the last couple of years combined.

We’ll be launching a GNOME store soon to also help raise money (and help you get cool GNOME stuff!) and we have some ideas for 3.0 as well.

The Sysadmin campaign has been a great success and we want to be careful with specific fundraising campaigns going forward. There’s no question that marketing and promoting a fundraising campaign does have an effect based on this success!

Again, I’d like to thank everyone who has helped support GNOME financially. This is important to help fund hackfests around the globe which helps GNOME develop new features, applications and provide a better experience for all of our users. Thank you again.

(And check out Roberto Galoppini’s blog too about the ruler).

Upcoming GNOME Marketing Hackfest

Stormy was kind enough to announce our next Marketing hackfest this week while I was out sick. (I’m such a slacker, always have an excuse!)

This hackfest is all about GNOME 3.0 marketing planning, preparation and execution. GNOME 3.0 coming this fall is a huge milestone for GNOME and our role as a marketing team is to have marketing and promotion materials ready to introduce our users to what GNOME 3.0 is and what it means.

The regional governments of Zaragoza and Aragon had previously reached out to GNOME as they are deploying free software within their governments and have kindly offered to help with hosting. Part of our role will also be to discuss GNOME and free software with them.

The hackfest is scheduled May 5th through the 7th and the details are on the hackfest wiki page. You will also find the agenda, hackfest goals and travel information.

If you are interested in coming, please add your name to the wiki page and please review the GNOME Travel policies if you would like to request a travel sponsorship / subsidy.

The first Marketing hackfest late last year was a success and we learned a lot doing it. I’ll be working over the next week or two to make sure all of the previous hackfest work and information is updated and shared. (One thing I learned I could do better!)

Plan your writing

I’ve been meaning to follow-up on Shaun’s recent bog post about “Explain More” when writing user help. Zonker’s blog post this morning on how to write an interview finally motivated me to get this blog post done.

One of my favorite sayings in a work environment is “Plan the work and work the plan”. This applies to writing as well.

One of the two major takeaways I had last year after attending the first Writing Open Source conference was the importance of planning. At least for me, almost of all the heavy lifting and hard work is done in the planning phase. (Not that writing and editing are easy either, but the planning for me is where my brain works the hardest).

When I was in school, especially high school, all of my English teachers required an outline when writing a term paper. School was fairly easy for me and I’d just write the paper and then do the outline. Oh, how I wish I had listened to them and learned those skills then!

It’s fascinating to me reading novels and then reading about or listening to an author talk about the years they spent researching their book. After last year, it’s finally clicked for me. (Having just finished io9‘s recent book club selection, The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi I found his answers in the book club Q&A session fascinating, especially his research on Thailand and the Thai culture).

Planning your writing will help you connect with your readers, stay on message and help you faster. (Faster isn’t always better but you may spend less time getting stuck or if you do get stuck, be able to write the next section that you’ve planned and come back and finish where you were stuck).

Whether it’s user help, a blog post or an interview, spend some time thinking about what you want to write about and who your audience is. Your readers will thank you.

  • in General
  • 1 min read

The Day the Saucers Came

Neil Gaiman continues to be one of my favorite authors (and tweeters). I bought a print of his poem “The Day the Saucers Came” in 2007 when it first came out and finally have gotten around to having it framed. (And I have #69 of 750 made, a nice low number!)

“The Day the Saucers Came” was originally published in Neil Gaiman’s short story collection, “Fragile Things” and was one of my favorite stories included. The fact that it became the first print available illustrated by Jouni Koponen was even better.

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  • in GNOME
  • 2 min read

GNOME Sysadmin team update

(This is reposted from an email earlier this evening)

Hi all, I wanted to give you a brief update on the GNOME Sysadmin team.

Last April, Owen sent out an email outlining changes to the Sysadmin team and a goal of hiring a part-time System Administrator to help coordinate the Sysadmin team. (And we’re getting closer to be the goal every day!)

Last year John Carr oversaw the team and the Sysadmin team was able to work on a number of improvements to the GNOME infrastructure, including a Bugzilla upgrade, installing a CRM system and web analytics application for the Marketing team and Plone, a CMS for a new www.gnome.org.

In October I volunteered to help with coordinating the team as John stepped down and with a new year starting a couple other members have indicated they don’t have time to help right now as well.

We have lots of improvements planned for this year such as bringing a brand new server online (thanks to Jeff Schroeder’s donation!) and migrating services from older servers to the new one, Git and Damned Lies integration, integrating all GNOME servers with Puppet and scoping Tomboy Online. That’s just to name a few – we also have a number of tasks open in Bugzilla in the sysadmin component.

We are looking for two volunteers to join the team to help with these projects and more. As Owen mentioned last year, team member responsibilities include:

  • Attending the IRC meetings
  • Regularly spending time handling routine tasks
  • Volunteering for infrastructure development projects as needed

We have a number of projects planned for this year, so that 3rd bullet is important!

If you are interested in joining the team, please join the gnome-infrastructure mailing list and introduce yourself, why you want to join and any relevant skills or experience you have. It is helpful if you have been active in other GNOME teams and can have someone vouch for you. (We are talking about giving you root access to GNOME servers, after all!)

If you have any questions, please feel free to send me an email, email the infrastructure list or stop by the #sysadmin IRC channel on GIMPNet IRC.