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A Conversation with Ubuntu's Jono Bacon (Video)

You've probably heard Jono Bacon speak at a Linux or Open Source conference. Or maybe you've heard one of his podcasts or read something he's written in his job as Ubuntu's community manager or even, perhaps, read The Art of Community, which is Jono's well-regarded book about building online communities. Jono also wrote and performed the heavy metal version of Richard M. Stallman's infamous composition, The Free Software Song. An excerpt from the Jono version kicks off our interview, and the complete piece (about two minutes long) closes the video. Please note that this video is a casual talk with Jono Bacon, the person, rather than a talk with the "official" Ubuntu Jono Bacon. So please, pull up a chair, lean back, and join us. (Alternate Video Link)

53 comments

  1. had to be said by frovingslosh · · Score: 3, Funny

    mmmm Bacon

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
    1. Re:had to be said by CanHasDIY · · Score: 1

      Bacon with a side of Down syndrome. I feel sorry for the kid.

      Why? Have you accomplished more in life than he has? Probably not.

      Maybe he should be feeling sorry for you, eh?

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    2. Re:had to be said by LoRdTAW · · Score: 2

      Stop feeding the trolls. All it does is give them a laugh as they prepare to reap the butthurt they have sewn. The best way to deal with a troll is to NOT REPLY and let them get modded down. No butthurt = no joy for them. Total defeat.

    3. Re:had to be said by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Thanks a bunch, knobstick. This troll would have happily gone un-seen by me and countless others if you hadn't replied.

      Moderation works. Let it work.

      Now someone has to waste more mod points modding you down, and modding the guy who replied to you down. Brilliant.

    4. Re:had to be said by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      s/sewn/sown/. Jes' sayin'.

    5. Re:had to be said by korbulon · · Score: 1

      Now someone has to waste more mod points modding you down, and modding the guy who replied to you down. Brilliant.

      Mod parent up.

    6. Re:had to be said by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stop feeding the grammar-nazi trolls. All it does is give them a laugh as they prepare to reap the butthurt they have sown. The best way to deal with a troll is to NOT REPLY and let them get modded down. No butthurt = no joy for them. Total defeat.

    7. Re:Re:had to be said by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      *sown

  2. We don't do flash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Any chance slashdot can support the use of non proprietary formats for video?

    1. Re:We don't do flash by kthreadd · · Score: 3, Informative

      It actually gave me a "less evil" .mp4 when I changed the user-agent string to "iPad".

    2. Re:We don't do flash by theheadlessrabbit · · Score: 1

      As soon as the open source world produces something better than h.264, I'm sure everyone will rush to adopt it.

      Lots of people just want a tool that works, not a tool that functions better as an ideological statement than as a media player.

      I click the link, video looks decent enough, loads fast enough.

      --
      -I only code in BASIC.-
    3. Re:We don't do flash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      MP4 isn't a video format.

    4. Re:We don't do flash by kthreadd · · Score: 1

      The important thing was that it wasn't Flash. ./ refused to give me anything but Flash until I did that.

    5. Re:We don't do flash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry, my bad. I thought the OP asked about video formats. [hits himself in the face 3 times]

    6. Re:We don't do flash by VortexCortex · · Score: 0

      Any chance slashdot can support the use of non proprietary formats for video?

      It's Ubuntu, what do you expect? That's Swahili for switch/bait.

    7. Re:We don't do flash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I thought it was for "can't configure Debian".

    8. Re:We don't do flash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Any chance slashdot can support the use of non proprietary formats for video?

      Yeah, learn to read.

    9. Re:We don't do flash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a multimedia format, or in most people's parlance, a video format. Perhaps you were thinking about the video codec or video compression format.

    10. Re:We don't do flash by neonsignal · · Score: 1

      As soon as the open source world produces something better than h.264, I'm sure everyone will rush to adopt it.

      Because the market always chooses the best technology for the job? Next you'll be telling us that the best musicians end up at the top of the pop charts!

    11. Re:We don't do flash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is a container format. Much like a tar archive, it doesn't know or care what you store in it.

    12. Re:We don't do flash by Desler · · Score: 1

      Not entirely true. The container standard does actually specify supported formats. Now you can put unsupported formats into the container but there's no guarantee any specific parser written to the standard will support them.

    13. Re:We don't do flash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That was exactly my point.

    14. Re:We don't do flash by bloodhawk · · Score: 1

      As soon as the open source world produces something better than h.264, I'm sure everyone will rush to adopt it.

      Because the market always chooses the best technology for the job? Next you'll be telling us that the best musicians end up at the top of the pop charts!

      No they don't, but if you intend to replace an incumbent then you need to offer something better, not something "almost" as good.

    15. Re:We don't do flash by TangoMargarine · · Score: 1

      Haven't you heard? They're getting ready to roll out x265 now.

      --
      Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
  3. -_- by DrPBacon1294 · · Score: 0

    The voice of Ubuntu is named J Bacon? Bah.

  4. Nope by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You've probably heard Jono Bacon speak at a Linux or Open Source conference

    Nope.

    Or maybe you've heard one of his podcasts

    Nope.

    or read something he's written in his job as Ubuntu's community manager

    Nope

    read The Art of Community, which is Jono's well-regarded book about building online communities.

    Aaaaaaand, nope.

    1. Re:Nope by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're missing the point. Finally a Slashdot summary that actually defines its terms, tells us who it's talking about!

    2. Re:Nope by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Maybe it's just me, but Ubuntu seems to be the Art of how to piss off everyone else in the "Community."

    3. Re:Nope by TangoMargarine · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This Jono Bacon guy seems to be becoming the next Bennett Haselton. I don't know or care what his qualifications are and wish they would stop throwing his articles at my eyeballs. I'm suspicious of anyone in Ubuntu PR at this point. Maybe they're not Microsoft, Sony, or Google ("we're still not evil!"), but they're their own brand of spanner-in-the-works these days.

      --
      Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
  5. Re: ~~~~ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yup. Crisp, smoky bacon.

  6. Re:Obese by VortexCortex · · Score: 1

    Damn, I thought you were joking but his moobs put most women to shame.

    It is times like these I am reminded of the Orangutan.

    The lean younger and over active orangutan males fail to impress most females. Instead they seek out the longer survived, more experienced, and gentler male with his hair covered bigness and prominent cheek pads.

    If they could speak their ladies would say, "I want a real man, not a scrawny thin-headed sucker who's tits and tool-shed haven't come in yet and doesn't even reek."

    It's as if nature finds perverse pleasure in mocking us by keeping examples of happiness around in branches of life's tree to remind us of the price we paid for our souls.

  7. Do we care? by machineghost · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does anyone in the open source community even care what anyone from Canonica/Ubuntu has to say anymore? They've basically ostrasized themselves to anyone I know who cares about Linux.

  8. Unity Sucks! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This video is a total waste of time. Key point not discussed: UNITY SUCKS!

  9. Re:Obese by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    That's fine if you don't care about your health and you're trying to pick up on female monkeys.

  10. Unity is actually very nice. Its Dash that sucks. by Burz · · Score: 1

    Removing Dash/shopping and adding Classicmenu makes for a system that's easy to navigate.

    Having people text-search for everything all at once--when all they want is that banking or other occasional tool they run occasionally (what's the name?)--and getting tons of cruft in the results just isn't working.

  11. request: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    more sober interview next time

  12. He made/makes his videocasts on Windows by johnsie · · Score: 1

    I remember him saying that he did his video casts on Windows because Ubuntu wouldn't support his own hardware. I guess if your own dog food doesn't work you can't eat it.

  13. Re:Unity is actually very nice. Its Dash that suck by johnsie · · Score: 1

    I agree, I stopped using Ubuntu because of Dash, not really because of the sidebar. It's too big and bloated. I want a classic menu.

  14. Unsurprising by cynicist · · Score: 2

    Are the comments in this thread surprising? Nope.

  15. He's Redundant. by enter+to+exit · · Score: 1, Troll

    A community manager for a company that is discarding it's community. Bacon should polish his resume, he might need it.

    The comments (and lack of) aren't surprising, anything out of canonical is just noise. What's more, he's partnered with Bryan Lunduke to create a Linux podcast. A shock-jock broadcaster/writer and unabashed peddler of mediocre (junk, really) software, A man who flirts with open-sourcing his software on-and-off, with the sole purpose of scamming a few more people into giving him money.

    1. Re:He's Redundant. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, well this is what I remember the guy for. The book sucked.

  16. poor jono by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I really don't envy Jono Bacon. The guy doesn't have much in the way of marketable skills but he managed to land a good paying gig thanks to his LugRadio fame. Then Canonical went to the dark side and now every time Mark Shuttleworth does something evil, Jono has to go around apologizing. The day Mark starts eating children (or whatever), it'll be Jono going around saying: "Come on, what's the big deal? We've all thought about it."

  17. Re:Unity is actually very nice. Its Dash that suck by JRV31 · · Score: 1

    Removing Dash/shopping and adding Classicmenu makes for a system that's easy to navigate.

    If it was not for the quicklists I would dump Unity.

    How do you remove the dash?