اوبونتو بالعربي

This interview with Ubuntu Community Manager Jono Bacon ,I’d like to thank Jono for taking the time to do this interview.  Interview by Mohamed Ayad.

M.A  :  Would you introduce yourself and tell us about yourself and interests?

J.B : I am Jono Bacon, the Ubuntu Community Manager working at Canonical. My role is to help enable and engage the Ubuntu community to perform enjoyable and productive work. I am really interested in the full-spectrum of challenges faced in community, from governance to conflict resolution to building non-bureaucratic and effects processes, events, technical workflow and more. I live and work in the East Bay in California and my other interests include Free Culture and music.

M.A : How did you first entered the world of Linux and how could you become the ubuntu community manager ?

J.B : I got started with Linux in 1998 when my brother installed Slackware on my computer: I was facinated and inspired at the concept of a global community that works together on software. I kicked off my own contributions with a UK based website for Linux users, then went to University and while there got involved in the KDE project. While at Uni I wrote Open Source articles for magazines and then became a full time journalist. I wrote a few books and then went to join a government-funded UK Open Source consultancy called OpenAdvantage. After a few years there I contacted Mark Shuttleworth to see if there was anything at Canonical for me and then interviewed for the new Ubuntu Community Manager role. I got it and have been here ever since.

M.A :  Since you had all this time as the ubuntu community manager leading its major activities, how would you describe any Arabic Language contributions, activities or may be even development in the community? Does Arabic language cooperates with the other communities?

J.B : We’ve got a good representation of Ubuntu LoCos in many of the Arabic-speaking countries: Algeria and Morocco for example, have got approved LoCo teams, whereas in other places such as Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan or Tunisia there are also very active teams getting organised around resources such as the Ubuntu forums, mailing lists, websites, wikis, etc. Some of these resources are hosted in the general Ubuntu sites, which helps interacting with the rest of the international Ubuntu community.

Another aspect of contributions from the Arabic community are translations. The Ubuntu Arabic translation team (https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-l10n-ar) is doing a very good job at translating Ubuntu, which can be seen by the level of translation of the main Ubuntu applications and desktop.

M.A :  Did the absence of Arabic language from these communities cause any negative effect or did it make any difference in terms of its success?

J.B : Generally, whereas local communities communicate obviously in their own languages, English is generally used for interaction between the different international communities. This does not necessarily affect the development of the local communities, but it is always good if at least some of their members can speak English for inter-loco collaboration, simply because of the fact that for now it is the lowest common denominator language.

Unfortunately, the lack of good Arabic fonts is a problem for Linux desktop, not only Ubuntu. The default font (Dejavu Sans) is far from ideal. Arabeyes provide a set of free Arabic fonts, but they are mostly decorative fonts which aren’t of much use. There is a project underway to develop a set of free, high quality Arabic fonts for printing and running text (a revival of an old metal typeface), but it is in early stages and will take few years to mature.

M.A :  What is the right and most appropriate way to join these communities? And how can the Arabic Ubuntu website contribute in that?

J.B : The best entry point is probably the list of loco teams at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoTeamList, which can help pointing users at resources in their local languages. The Arabic Ubuntu website could contribute in collecting the links of Arabic-speaking LoCo teams and presenting them to their visitors.

M.A :  Recently, you wrote your book /Art of Community, /would you kindly tell us about the key issues and points that the book discusses?

J.B : Sure, the book covers a wide range of topics that help people to build any kind of community, be it a local knitting group or a global software project. This includes topics such as strategic planning, processes, infrastructure, governance, measuring community, event organization, conflict resolution and more. The is published by O’Reilly but also made available under a Creative Commons license so all communities can share the content. More information can be found at www.artofcommunityonline.org.

M.A : In conclusion, what would you say to the Ubuntu community in Arabic ubuntu.ly?

I am so proud of all the great work being done by our awesome LoCo teams, and ubuntu-ly are no exception. Keep up the great work folks, and I hope to meet you all soon!