Benjamin Kerensa dot Com » Open Source

We should keep Firefox as default browser in Ubuntu

Benjamin Kerensa — Wed, 15 May 2013 07:49:48 +0000

I think that Firefox should stay as the default browser in Ubuntu for the following reasons:

Mozilla has a vibrant open source community and many of our contributors are active in both Ubuntu and Mozilla.
Mozilla’s mission is to promote openness, innovation and opportunity and Firefox encompasses all of those goals.
Chromium as a package has fell behind in the past while Firefox has team of contributors in the Ubuntu Community who keep it up-to date every cycle.
Firefox is perhaps one of the most popular open source browsers.
And most importantly in my opinion Mozilla by default respects user privacy and choice.

Why fix something if it’s not broken? If others prefer Chromium well then “sudo apt-get install chromium-browser” and I guess that’s just my two-cents on the topic.

Good Solutions, More Reflection and an Apology

Benjamin Kerensa — Wed, 15 May 2013 06:12:35 +0000

So I recently created the bug regarding the Canonical Design Team removing the community link and also blogged about it. I created a thread on forums and whenever I discuss a topic as important as this I try to reflect on whether my intentions will have the appropriate results and also try to keep my emotions in check. Indeed, I am so passionate about open source communities I’m involved in that I feel the need to advocate for the community in the face of all challenges.

But admittedly, I think my individual response to the removal of the community link has fired some people up to think that Canonical is anti-community which it is not. I do think that Canonical is a business and that businesses do sometimes make decisions that suit them best and may not take into regard how it impacts the people surrounding that business. Perhaps that’s what I thought was going on here, but it has become evident that this was not Canonical’s intention.

So, going forward, I will more deeply reflect on blog posts and discussions and try to take into account that sometimes there are benign factors at play that might seem like fire and brimstone at first. I am also conscious of the fact that I need to set a good standard in our community and reaction over this incident was somewhat reactionary, which in turn generates other reactionary responses, not helping to solve the problem, but more get in the way. I want to additionally apologize for this bit which I take full responsibility for: I would like to note that the video did not specifically refer to Canonical. The same day it was posted, I immediately deleted the video because it was not appropriate for public and I should not have created it.

Ubuntu is Community

Benjamin Kerensa — Fri, 10 May 2013 14:00:39 +0000

Update: Canonical has released stats showing the removal of “Community” has resulted in a 1/3 drop-off in page views to the community related portion of the site including the links that get new contributors involved.

This is how I felt when I found out Community was removed.

So as many of you are aware the ~~Ubuntu~~ Canonical Design Team a few weeks back decided to revamp Ubuntu.com which is all fine and well but they decided when doing the re-design to remove “Community” from the place it has sat for years: that being the header menu of the site. Indeed, Canonical received some immediate outcry from myself and other Ubuntu Community members including members of the Ubuntu Governance and for very good reason.

After all Ubuntu is a community-driven ~~Linux distribution~~ operating system powered by hundreds of contributors many of which are strictly Community Members and not employed by Canonical. So I ask those of you reading this whether you think Canonical should have informed the Community of its intentions or at the very least informed the Community Council and whether the Community deserves to stay in the prominent place is has for years?

But before you formulate an answer I ask you to take into consideration that a good majority of open source projects of the scale that Ubuntu is do indeed prominently have a link to a page discussing and highlighting their community and some examples of that can be found right here.

Lets dig in a bit deeper though and try to understand what kind of websites don’t have a Community link at the top of their page and some examples that come to mind are Apple and Microsoft but of course they don’t because they are focused on making money and do not have an open source culture.

Canonical Design Team: By focusing our site navigation on the products themselves, we aim to make it clear for someone who is new to the site that Ubuntu is about all of these things: PCs, phones, tablets — you name it.

So focus on products and not Community? I don’t think that’s ok.

What do we do about this?

Well, we have a variety of options:

We can stomp our feet and be upset
We can say were leaving the community
We can switch to Arch Linux (or not!)

But in reality I think the one productive option we have as a community is to discuss this at next weeks vUDS (Virtual Ubuntu Developer Summit) and ask Canonical’s Design Team and the Canonical Community team why they made a decision to “spring clean” the Ubuntu Community right off Ubuntu.com.

But better yet let’s discuss what our expectations are and come to a consensus as a community. After all, vUDS is where the community comes together to make decisions. Let’s not leave vUDS without a solid timeline as to when we will see the “Ubuntu Community” having an equal and prominent placement on Ubuntu.com among Ubuntu TV and Mobile.

Be part of the discussion!

You can mark this bug as affecting you and you can also register to attend vUDS and mark yourself as attending the session scheduled to discuss this blueprint. You can also discuss it on Ubuntu Forums here.

Ubuntu Documentation vUDS Session

Benjamin Kerensa — Fri, 10 May 2013 06:00:06 +0000

Ubuntu Community by Doctormo

Just a friendly reminder to those interested in the future of the Ubuntu Documentation Team and helping improve the process for on-boarding new users that we have a session called “Shaping a plan for the future of Ubuntu Documentation” which is scheduled for next Wednesday at 19:05 UTC.

Even if you cannot commit to becoming a Ubuntu Documentation Contributor we would love to have you sit in the session and tell us how we can improve the process for new contributors.

Tell us what makes the process difficult and how we can make it easier and share your experiences for on-boarding if you help lead a team.

See you all there and Ubuntu Doc for Saucy is now open for commits!

Firefox OS on Slashdot

Benjamin Kerensa — Thu, 02 May 2013 06:36:53 +0000

Slashdot.org is featuring an interview I did with the Slashdot TV folks at LinuxFest Northwest 2013 where I had an opportunity to discuss Firefox OS and why it has a great chance at slapping down the mobile duopoly that’s currently got mobile users trapped. You can read the post and watch the video right here.

One common question I was asked at LFNW was what I thought of Ubuntu Touch and how will is stack up to Firefox OS. I simply think that Firefox OS will be good for a certain audience and that Ubuntu Touch also has the potential to cater to its own audience much like iOS and Android currently do. More open source platforms are always good especially when it means disrupting a tightly held market like mobile.

Interview with Linux Action Show: Firefox OS, Ubuntu Touch and Mir

Benjamin Kerensa — Wed, 01 May 2013 19:05:43 +0000

At LinuxFest Northwest last weekend I had an opportunity to sit down with a number of folks and do interviews and talk about everything from Firefox OS to Ubuntu Touch. I have grown really fond of Linux Action Show and it was great to sit down with these guys and talk shop.

If you are viewing this post from a Planet please click here to watch on YouTube and don’t forget to subscribe to their show here.

LinuxFest Northwest 2013: Recap of Day 1

Benjamin Kerensa — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 07:13:23 +0000

Linux Fest Northwest Expo Hall before opening!

Welcome to the first daily recap of LinuxFest Northwest 2013 (LFNW). I’m up in Bellingham, Washington evangelizing Firefox OS, WebFWD and Mozilla Reps. Just in the first few hours we had close to 50% of LinuxFest Northwest attendees visit the Mozilla booth and a majority of those people who visited the booth said they are long time Firefox users many of whom also use Firefox for Android and many of them have heard about Firefox OS but had not had the opportunity to actually get more information. This presented an excellent opportunity to let visitors check out Firefox OS running on one of the developer handsets and then educate them about the platform and how to get involved.

Mozilla Booth

Me showing attendees the Firefox OS platform

We were lucky to be in a nice area of the expo floor and just to the left we had folks from the EFF and just across was the Ubuntu booth ran by the Ubuntu Washington LoCo and the Greater Seattle Linux User Group (GSLUG). Lanyards and buttons were really popular and we gave almost all our lanyards out during the first few hours of the expo hall opening.

Geeksphone

Although I do not yet have a Geeksphone but instead have another handset running Firefox OS one of the most popular questions I got asked was “Where can I buy a phone running Firefox OS?” This started the discussion about the recent Geeksphone launch and in turn people were really surprised to hear how affordable those phones were.

Highlighting MoCo Session and Other Tidbits

LFNW Attendee shows Firefox shirt he won.

I want to suggest to those who will be at LFNW tomorrow that they try and make it to Spencer Krum and Ben Kero’s session about Git on the server. Ben Kero is a Mozilla Systems Administrator and well known in the Pacific Northwest Open Source community and his session should be informative for those who are interested in getting started with Gitolite.

One other thing I got to do today was to sit down with Thomas from Slashdot to do an interview about Firefox OS. I also went on Linux Action Show live to discuss Firefox OS and even discuss Ubuntu for a bit.