I’d like to apply for Ubuntu Membership. I’ve been a a user of Ubuntu since 2010, and since then it has powered an endless stream of servers, Raspberry Pis and and Docker instances for me.
In 2021 I started working at Canonical, where I lead documentation efforts for Canonical’s products and the whole Ubuntu ecosystem.
I see the work of documentation and community as very closely connected. When I was first an Ubuntu user, more than any technical difference what I noticed was the experience was that Ubuntu’s documentation offered, and how it seemed to be directly related to the standards of community that Ubuntu asserted - both of those informed my subsequent adventures in open-source software.
My contributions in brief
- Ubuntu documentation: since 2021, I’ve steered the documentation efforts of for all the key Ubuntu offerings - Desktop, Server, Core - and many more products in the wider ecosystem.
- Documentation as open-source participation: I helped establish Canonical’s Open Documentation Academy as a model for encouraging and sustaining OSS participation.
- Ubuntu Summit: I have attended and spoken at multiple Summits since 2022.
- UbuCon in Africa: I helped organise the first-ever UbuCon Africa in 2025.
Links
Contributions in more detail
Ubuntu ecosystem documentation
I’ve led the transformation of Ubuntu documentation across all its products in the last five years, to adopt and implement new standards (making each one better) and common patterns (so that they truly feel like a united family of products).
It includes the creation of new bodies of documentation that didn’t exist before, such as the Ubuntu Desktop documentation, and the Ubuntu Project documentation. In-flight are projects to unify some of this material further, most ambitiously into an over-arching Ubuntu OS handbook, to minimise repetition and overlap; Snap and other key elements will get a similar treatment.
Part of the project to reinvigorate Ubuntu documentation is the adoption of a new technical platform, for contribution, building and publishing, running on familiar tools such as Git/Sphinx. Now nearly all Ubuntu documentation is managed on the platform. It has successfully helped speed up work and draw in more community contribution.
Not least amongst the Ubuntu documentation efforts I have had a hand in is the brand new Ubuntu Wiki. In 2010, the Ubuntu wiki was a significant pillar in the Ubuntu community. By 2021, the platform had aged and the wiki was no longer providing the same value it once did.
It took a long time to establish a picture of the role a new wiki should play, and many other parts of the Ubuntu documentation landscape needed attention before we could see clearly what kind of space it should occupy. There are valuable contributions of knowledge that open-source participants like to share, and will if they have the opportunity. They help make other people’s experiences with Ubuntu more successful but they are not necessarily suitable for official technical documentation.
The new wiki will provide a central, visible place them. It will be organised and governed, with mechanisms to help maintain quality over time. It’s due to go live this very week.
Documentation as open-source participation
Community matters to documentation. In 2023 I encouraged the creation and development of Canonical’s Open Documentation Academy. It deliberately makes documentation a pathway to open-source contribution and recognition. It offers potential contributors resources and support from experienced contributors, and gives them real issues to work on.
From within Canonical, I made engagement with the Ubuntu community through the Academy a requirement for engineering teams. It has created and and sustained not just new community contributions, but as hoped, new community contributors - many of them people who would not otherwise have had a way to offer something to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu Summit participation
I was at the first Ubuntu Summit in 2022 and have participated in all the others since (except for one). I’ve run workshops and given talks at each; my favourite was having a room full of people all building open-source pen plotters in Prague.
UbuCon in Africa
I was one of the organisers of the first UbuCon Africa, in Arusha (Tanzania) in August 2025. At the suggestion of the Canonical Community team we co-located the UbuCon with DjangoCon Africa. I have a long history of engagement with open-source software communities in Africa. This was an effective way of giving the UbuCon a home, and also connecting two distinct but overlapping communities to strengthen both. In particular, it’s an excellent way of seeding event organisation skills into new parts of the global Ubuntu community.
UbuCon in Africa now has some momentum. The first event was followed by UbuCon Kenya earlier this year. UbuCon Cameroon takes place next week, colocated with PyCon Cameroon, and I will be speaking and hosting a workshop there too.
Plans for the future
I have some specific and concrete plans for Ubuntu in 2027. I visit Namibia each year to be part of PyCon NA, and I will extend that next year, based on the recent success we’ve had success joining Ubuntu and Python community events together.
Ubuntu community development goals
There is an active, purposeful open-source community in Namibia established around Python. Members of that community are already engaged in Ubuntu (participants in Extended versions of recent Summits, for example). I will help formalise and develop that engagement.
Specific objectives for 2027:
- formation and recognition of a Namibian Ubuntu community group
- Ubuntu installation parties, run by the local group, in Windhoek and other towns
- Ubuntu technical support events as follow-ups
Ubuntu computer labs
I know multiple organisations in Namibia with the familiar problem of having useful computers that aren’t used at all, because they are running outdated versions of the operating system they came with. I aim to unlock the value of computer hardware that is currently gathering dust, by introducing Ubuntu in a concrete practical way to multiple schools and libraries.
Specific objectives for 2027:
- creation of new computer labs running Ubuntu, in at least five schools and three libraries
- establishment of an Ubuntu Computer Lab network of open-source enthusiasts that actively supports installed labs
- the initiative and its results, featured in local news
The last point is significant, because awareness and understanding of open-source software in Namibia is a genuine barrier to its adoption - many conversations need to be preceded by lengthy explanations of open-source software before they can properly get started. A concrete reality of local community resources that can be seen and experienced will do a lot of that work instead.
Thanks for reading!
