Simplement libre

Tomorow saturday November the 17th the Ubuntu Party 12.10 open its doors in the Cité des sciences et de l'industrie at 11h00 to the visitors who will come to discover Ubuntu, the new features and the free softwares. Around one hundred volunteers are mobilised to guide you inside the Carrefour numérique² and show you the conferences room, the short talks room, the class room, the workshop space, the demonstration area or to present you the different groups with a booth like Mozilla, Wikimedia, Framasoft and the April.
I'm excited to assist to the presentation of ASUS France who come to talk about how one of the best computer manufacturer came to Ubuntu. We will have also some computers lended by them on the venue for you to try them with the help of our volunteers. I'm also excited to see STEAM in action, the beta started few days ago, and yes we have a key to participate to this bêta and show you everything. I hope I also have the time to go to the selft-hosting workshop but I know I'll not have the time to follow the entire session, and the room will be certainly full.
Another thing and not the smallest, with the astonishing help of awesome people likeJoseph Mills, David Callé and cm-t alias Rudy who will be at the Ubuntu Party, we will present an Ubuntu TV to show you the possible evolutions of Ubuntu in the future who will come to your televisions. You will be able to try the tv from tomorow and have all your media life on your livingroom. But don't forget it's just a preview and there is still a lot of work before this to be available on your next television. But who knows… And you will be able to try also Ubuntu on touch screens and start to dream of your future tablet.
It is just a small preview of the giant program of this Ubuntu Party 1210. I will be on the event the two days and if you want to talk with me, just ask one orange tshirt to find me.
Last word, if you can't come to Paris this week-end, perhaps there is another Ubuntu Party near you in France or near you in the world.

Only a few days to wait before the release of the expected Ubuntu 12.04 LTS  code name Precise Pangolin, which at first glance seems very neat and erase a lot of the past "defects" in Unity. I just tested it two weeks ago and everything worked fine. No bugs came to disturb my 20 minutes of discovery. Dozens of other blogs will speak about this version much better than me.

What I like the most is the Ubuntu community, to work with this group of enthusiasts, sharing good moments on the net or in front of a drink. Many people have already organized an event to celebrate this release, and to encourage everyone to join them, we have to promote them. My team, the French Team, has open its new mini launch site, listing all the events organized in France to celebrate the release of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. For events in the world, the LoCo Team Portal also lists all these events.

I will go to the two events in Paris. First to the Flam's St Lazare on April 27th during the evening which is always very friendly and where we have fun, and then at the Ubuntu Party on May 12th and 13th, 2012, at the Carrefour numérique,  the Cité des sciences et de l'industrie in Paris. Everyone is welcome to join us.

If you are organizing an event, don't forget to report it to the LoCo Team Portal. And if you need advices, tips, a registration form (this is already provided by the LoCo Team Portal) or have other questions to help you organize an event, you can directly ask to the IRC channel #ubuntu-locoteams or the channel and mailing list of your local community team.

Great Release Party to everyone.

picture cc-by-sa didrocks

Everyone has already heard about our little Ubuntu Party in Paris (France) organized every 6 months to celebrate the new release of Ubuntu.

We are always trying to do more, and for the Ubuntu 11.10 release, the France LoCo Team is planning 3 days of conferences, classes, workshops, demonstrations and even an install party. Everyone is invited and its free to the public. So if you are in Paris during this weekend, starting from 11/11/11, join us!

We need your help though, so today, I'm posting on the Ubuntu Planet, to make sure as many of our French Ubuntu users are aware of our event. Please help us spead the word.   If you are living in or near France,  we want you to attend and participate.  If you are interested in volunteering we need your help with that as well. We have created an online form for  registration, please take time to register your participation -- http://participer.ubuntu-paris.org/. We are looking for new subjects for our conferences, our workshops, and lot of demonstrations.

You can ask all your questions by mail to participer11.10[AT]ubuntu-paris.org

When : November 11th, 12th and 13th 2011
Where : Cité des sciences et de l'industrie, Paris, France

(picture by rocknpol under cc-by-nc-sa)

Last weekend there was an Ubuntu Party 10.10 in Paris. This was the first time for me on the role of the big chief to organize this event. Everything went well, and I had a lot of positive feedback, and some remarks to improve the event for the next time. Of course, I am not alone, and I could count on great people to prepare everything before, and an army of volunteers from the four corners of France, and even further to ensure that everything works for the 3 days of the Ubuntu Party. I do not forget the valuable assistance of David Forgeron who works at the Carrefour Numérique and the all the people who help us at the Cité des sciences et de l'industrie, and who always welcome us warmly. Yes, 3 days, we are a bit crazy, but it's worth it.

If I count correctly, between the excellent speakers that we had, the associations who support us like April, Mozilla, Wikimédia, Bépo, La Quadrature du Net, Framasoft, In Libro Veritas and Parinux, OxyRadio who covered the event, and the volunteers, on the weekend it must have been around 150 people who are there to help present Ubuntu and the free softwares to the visitors. This time, we have counted around 3000 visitors on the 3 days. It's less than the last editions, you can see that, but for my first time, it's a good number, and surprisingly, the Sunday registered more visitors than the Saturday, it was the opposite in the last editions. I'm sure, for the next time, we break the record.

The Friday went well, like a crowded Premier Samedi du libre, but with conferences, perhaps a bit calm on the conferences, we have to work on this point. The Saturday was more like the other times and the actual theme Science Fiction in the venue was perfect. The Saturday night, after taking a picture of the team, we finished on a Korean restaurant. Finally, the Sunday, went well like the Saturday but with more visitors. The day and the party finished on the conference of Benjamin Baillart from FDN which lasted an hour longer with a full room. After cleaning the spaces, we finished at the restaurant, exhausted.

The date for the next Ubuntu Party 11.04 is Paris is fixed to May 2011, the 27th, 28th and 29th. We'll try to reach again a different kind of visitors on the Friday, and particularly students to make them aware of the free culture.

You can see below some of the pictures from the event where I pick up my illustrations.

• OxyRadio licence not defined.
• Rock'n'pol in CC-BY-NC-SA
• FUN in CC-BY-NC-ND
• ricomotrad in CC-BY-NC-ND
• I add more if I found more

Next week end, in Paris, the french community invite you all to come join us for 3 crazy days.
The 5th, 6th and 7th novembre, to celebrate the release of the new Ubuntu 10.10, the french community is ready to offer you 22 hours of workshops, 17 hours of conferences, 10 hours of  class, 3 days of install, 2 days of continuous demonstrations on ubuntu and Ubuntu studio, 1 community village and 1 ubuntu games space. All the event is covered by the webradio OxyRadio. More than one hundred benevolents are ready to welcome everyone.

The programme :

Friday, the 5th

Conferences

• 11h30 : Ubuntu introduction
• 12h30 : What's new in Ubuntu 10.10
• 13h30 : Wikimedia introduction
• 14h30 : Free software presentation
• 15h15 : Framalang project
• 16h30 : Free software in business

Workshops

• 14h30 : The terminal, making the programer life easier
• 15h00 : Internet workshop for schoolkids

Saturday, the 6th

Conferences

• 11h15 : Ubuntu, simple and efficient
• 12h00 : Install démonstration, a beginner testimony
• 13h00 : What's new in Ubuntu
• 13h30 : Ubuntu Netbook Edition
• 14h00 : Framakey Ubuntu-fr Remix
• 15h00 : Internet and liberties : stakes, threats and action
• 16h00 : Participate in Firefox bêta test
• 16h15 : Your first Mozilla patch
• 16h30 : Ubunchu, translation of a free manga
• 17h00 : History of the free softwares

Introduction class

• 12h00 : Introduction to Ubuntu
• 13h00 : First step with the command line
• 14h00 : Costumize Ubuntu
• 15h00 : Introduction to Ubuntu
• 16h00 : The command line, let's go further

Workshops

• 11h30 : Releasing work (art, books, texts, ...)
• 13h00 : Hackability
• 14h00 : Hosting your wordpress
• 15h00 : Ubuntu Server, Installation and use
• 15h30 : Customize your FUR

Sunday, the 7th

Conferences

• 11h15 : Ubuntu, simple and efficient
• 12h00 : Xubuntu and Lubuntu : the light editions
• 12h20 : Kubuntu, an user interface choice
• 12h40 : Jabber, communicate freely
• 13h00 : How to make a free software
• 14h00 : Accessibility and free softwares
• 15h00 : Play on Ubuntu
• 16h00 : Women in Mozilla
• 16h15 : Firefox 4 for mobile phone
• 16h30 : Internet, democraty, hazards

Introduction class

• 12h00 : Introduction to Ubuntu
• 13h00 : First step with the command line
• 14h00 : Costumize Ubuntu
• 15h00 : Introduction to Ubuntu
• 16h00 : The command line, let's go further

Workshops

• 12h00 : How to become a floss speaker
• 14h30 : Progamming discovery
• 15h30 : Accessibility, some rules to write documents

All these activities in one place, the Cité des sciences et de l'industrie, Carrefour numérique, niveau -1

And why i'm writting all this in my blog ? Because this year I'm in charge of this event with my team, taking the place of olive who was in charge since the first Party in Paris.

A big thanks to all the people who make this event possible.

Les Vieilles Charrues had their festival on the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th of July this year, and invited us to hold a webcafe on Ubuntu. It was a pleasure to take over from olive who had organised everything but couldn't attend this event.  We took over in the webcafe with the valued help of kinouchou, Lust, Snip and spineaker, and with the two Eric from Infothema, Didier from Linux MAO, and Julia, Sonny and Kevin from Mozilla. Olive was with us all the time online to monitor the computers and guide us.

This webcafe for the festival-goers was the space where they can check their mails, their facebook account, twit or do everything they want on internet. We haven't put any restrictions, only no saving of the history and the passwords on firefox. For the same reasons, we haven't configured Ubuntu to let people try it. We only made a custom start page for Firefox.

We have been received like princes by the whole team, Stéphane and Arzhel answered all our needs and much more. We discovered on our arrival that a prime location and a huge hexagonal pavilion was here for us. We arrived on Thursday, planted the tent in the vonlunteer's camping already full. Then we took sandwiches for the dinner outside, took a tour to found the booth, tables, boards and breezeblocks to make the counter. Then we went to see Muse concert under a pouring rain.

First night under the rain, but when we woke up to a bright morning we were able to unload the car. We put everything in place but the wiring and configuration of the computers took us more time, and we only had few sets available at the opening. We were ready with all the computers sets one hour later. Pleasant first day at the webcafe, the people like this internet point and ask gladly some informations. Facebook is everywhere. The tatoos are very popular and after some licks, we put in place a mug with water and wipes to put them on.

The sun shone on Saturday, it was hot, we take the way to the webcafe to put everything in place. The computers power up without difficulties, we verified the configurations, and are we're ready for  the opening. People came rapidly, the webcafe was full all the day, we had a live feed via a webcam also. Mozilla joined us at the opening, they displayed their goodies which sold out in one hour. Sonny put on the Firefox suit and go offer some free hugs. At the end of the afternoon, I went with spineaker to the Geek Charrues, it's a walk througt the place with the sponsors. Time to discuss and share with all the organisers of this great event, and to discover the wings of the festival.

Last day, we woke up tired. Power up, ready to open one hour before the opening. It was great because we had already had people invited earlier by one of the sponsors. We also had the visit of the technical chief and the director Loïc, it's was an opportunity to present our webcafe to them and to thanks them for the warm welcome. Like the other days we had a lot of people. We were tired but relaxed. The festival-goers are great also. We finished the day at 21h30, loaded the car and took a break for a drink. Monday it's time to leave with great memories.

Awesome festival, my first one, i wish it's only the fisrt of a long series. Thanks to everyone.

More photos on the forum and at infothema and on their forum.

New trial, perhap's it's the last, to write a blog. This time I choosed Dotclear2 I already have discovered in the past.
Well, it's the first post, so... I haven't that much to say :p
PS: sorry for my terrific english ;-)