Ubuntu Open Week Encourages New Contributors to Get Involved

Ubuntu community manager Jono Bacon announced Wednesday the Ubuntu Open Week schedule for the Jaunty release. Ubuntu Open Weeks are routinely held right after a release to welcome and encourage new contributors to get involved in work on the next release.

The Open Week for Jaunty takes place next week (November 3rd through the 7th) on the #ubuntu-classroom channel on IRC.

There are a number of events held hourly each day (usually in a presentation or classroom lecture type format with an open question and answer session at the end). Events typically start at 15:00 UTC and end at 21:00 UTC (planning ahead with a time zone calculator is advisable). The full event schedule is available on the Ubuntu wiki as well as in an ICS format.

The topics covered are varied enough so that participants (whether new to Linux, or just new to Ubuntu) should find at least a few sessions of interest. Topics include how to report, triage, and fix bugs in Ubuntu (and the kernel), packaging applications, media production, virtualization, netbook-centric talks, and question and answer sessions with Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth and the Ubuntu Open Week organizers.

Past Open Week discussions are also available for those wanting to get a feel for how events work and the way information is shared. The Ubuntu Open Week wiki has further instructions on joining events with an IRC client for both Linux and Windows users.