Hacking Ashley Highfield

Some might say I've been overly critical of the BBC's digital boss, Ashley Highfield (no, no). Be that as it may, it's certainly true that I've not offered any concrete solutions for changing his mind about the urgency of divorcing iPlayer from Microsoft (and no, Macintosh implementations do *not* count). Maybe this is the way:

The BBC's George Wright and Ubuntu Community Manager Jono Bacon offered to install the OS on a laptop for Ashley to take home and experiment with. We're hoping that both George and Ashley will be posting about the experience.

Nice move, Jono.

Community Managers Become More Common

On Open Enterprise blog.

Open Enterprise Interview: Jono Bacon

On Open Enterprise blog.

Open Source's Big Opportunity has a Tiny Problem

I've been extolling the virtues of the Asus EEE PC and its ilk as exemplars of an important new class of computers; but Jono Bacon has spotted a problem:

One of the distinctive traits of EEE PC, and many other sub-notebook, MID and smaller computing devices, is that they run with a smaller screen resolution than typical desktop machines. I am pretty sure that most desktop machines that people are running Linux on will be running on a minimum of 1024×768, and likely a higher resolution. One of the things that I have noticed in recent years is that an increasing number of Open Source applications look terrible on lower resolutions.

Fortunately, it's readily solvable:

We need better testing, bug-reports being filed, and users actively checking and ensuring that software works well in lower resolutions. I also believe it forces us all into a world of more intelligent, usable design - hugely tall windows crammed with a million preferences or super-thick toolbars are not usable interfaces. One could infer that having to be conscious of lower resolutions will make us think more about the usability of our applications and ensure we don’t cram a million-and-one buttons into a window.

Amen to that.

What's New at Ubuntu

You don't have to be Nostradamus to predict that Ubuntu is well on the way to joining the front rank of distros, along with Red Hat and SuSE. By that I mean not just that it is popular - as the Distrowatch rankings already show - but that it is, or will be, fully capable of satisfying enterprise users too. In part this is a technical issue, but it's also cultural too: Ubuntu is consistently one of the most interesting in terms of how it is approaching the whole process of creating a distribution.

The latest proof of this is the appointment of a "community manager". As Ubuntu's founder and main sponsor Mark Shuttleworth explains, this post is

"uniquely Ubuntu" in that it brings together professional management with community integration. This job has been created to help the huge Ubuntu community gain traction, creating structure where appropriate, identifying the folks who are making the best and most consistent contributions and empowering them to get more of their visions, ideas and aspirations delivered as part of Ubuntu - release by release.

It’s unusual in that it’s a community position that is not an advocacy position. It’s a management position. Our community in Ubuntu is amazingly professional in its aspirations - folks want to participate in every aspect of the distribution, from marketing to artwork to sounds to governance and beyond. And we welcome that because it means we share the ownership of the project with a remarkably diverse and mature team. In the past six months I’ve noticed a number of people joining and having an impact who are mature professionals with great day jobs and a limited ability to contribute in terms of time - but a strong desire to be part of “this phenomenon called Ubuntu”. The job of the community manager will be to make it possible for these folks to have an amplified impact despite having time constraints on their ability to participate.

The job has been given to fellow Brit Jono Bacon, and I wish him well in what sounds like an interesting challenge. (Via DesktopLinux.com.)