Who am I?
Hi! My name is Nathan Haines, and I’m nominating myself for re-election to the Ubuntu Community Council.
I’ve worked in IT professionally since I was 15. Now, I do freelance support as well as technical writing, and professionally writing and translating fiction.
I have been a very happy Ubuntu user since a couple of weeks after Ubuntu 5.04 came out. I’d used Linux a decade before that, and was fascinated by it, but Ubuntu was the first time it seemed polished enough and reliable to not only be productive on my laptop as the main operating system for the span of a release, but also supported upgrades. It’s been my primary operating since Ubuntu 6.10, both personally and professionally as an IT professional and a technical and fiction writer.
I quickly realized the Ubuntu community was as warm and friendly as was promised, and I saw this as a perfect opportunity to increase my Free Software advocacy. So in 2007, I joined the nascent Ubuntu California LoCo and have been a staunch advocate for Ubuntu ever since.
- I’ve been a part of the Ubuntu community since 2005, and an Ubuntu member since 2008.
- I’ve been a core member of the Ubuntu California LoCo since its inception and spent time as its leader.
- As a LoCo member, I not only participated in IRC but also forged close relationships with local Linux User Groups and conferences.
- I became a member of the Ubuntu LoCo Community Council (LCC), and later, a member of the Ubuntu Community Council when it needed rebuilt. We took on LCC duties until things were stable enough to reestablish the LCC, which is now flourishing and revitalizing the LoCo teams project.
- I have run the Ubuntu booth at SCaLE for 16 years and established the first large UbuCon as well as hosted the first UbuCon Summit at SCaLE, and helped with the first UbuCon Europe events.
- I have been a public speaker and event organizer for Ubuntu at SCaLE and UbuCons and Ubuntu Summit, including an opening talk at UbuCon Summit 2023 in Riga.
- I have written blog posts, magazine articles, and a book about Ubuntu. I was a tech reviewer for the Ubuntu Phone segments of The Official Ubuntu Book and wrote Beginning Ubuntu for Windows and Mac Users, now in its third edition.
- I am the primary moderator of /r/Ubuntu on Reddit, and have kept it a consistently friendly and welcoming place (although the subreddit community deserves credit for embracing that goal). There is constant feedback from new users that this is their first contact with the Ubuntu community or sometimes any Linux community, and how much they appreciated the warm reception.
- I succeeded Alan Pope as the English voice for uNav for the Ubuntu phone.
- I created the beloved Ubuntu Through The Years video shipped with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. It only took 2 days for viewers to start realizing that the time in the desktop screenshots match the Ubuntu versions they were showcasing.
Why do I want to be re-elected?
The Ubuntu community is a dynamic community unlike any I’ve ever seem formed around a technical product, comprised of both amazingly smart technical wizards and incredibly cheerful advocates and a ton of happy users. I’ve never seen such a vibrant and friendly community last for 20 years without becoming cynical and jaded. And as the initiatives that we’ve seen or started begin to grow and take shape, I want to be part of the community governance. A reminder of where we started and what we hold as our core goals, while encouraging new contributors and directions to flourish.
- At 20 years, communities must adapt and evolve, and I would like to be a voice of old wisdom while continuing to work with community efforts both old and new.
- I want to help the Ubuntu community to continue to improve, for example:
- The Ubuntu LoCo Community Council and the new Ubuntu Communications Council are charting a new path forward as the definition of “community” continues to evolve in a post-pandemic world, and the way we communicate and interact is currently undergoing modernization. I want to help foster Ubuntu’s unique goal of remembering the human in interactions as we adopt new technologies for communication.
- Reddit continues to be a first contact with the community for new Ubuntu users and I want to continue to improve that experience.
- Collaboration between the Ubuntu community and Canonical has never been stronger, and I want to continue to foster that relationship. After my opening talk in Riga, the Canonical Ubuntu Community Team were approached by many Canonical employees who wanted to become more active in the Ubuntu community and that’s the type of inspiration I want to continue to foster.
- I want to continue to encourage new Ubuntu contributors from the wider community as well.
- I want to improve the ease of Ubuntu advocacy, specifically in the area of documentation (which has greatly improved in the last couple of years) as well as community-oriented ways such as merchandise and other ways to proudly show off the Ubuntu spirit.
I can be reached at nhaines@ubuntu.com, and while voting will be over before then, I will be at the Ubuntu Summit 2024 in The Hague and likely to be found at the Community Booth along other amazing flavor and community leaders if you’d like to chat.