One of the great things about the online community is the speed at which an idea can spread. Barry Smyth, a member of the local community team in Ireland who is working on a masters degree in computing is looking at ways to improve community involvement as a part of his course. He came up with the idea of focusing on one member each day in order to help everyone get to know each other better through a profile of the day project. This seems like a fine idea, so we have picked it up in the UK LoCo and added a few extra twists. In order to document stuff you do relating to Ubuntu everyone can create their own personal page on the Ubuntu Wiki, mine is here so you can see the sort of stuff that goes on it. People can edit other people’s pages if they want, it is a wiki after all. If you like something that someone has done, you can leave them a testimonial on their wiki page. These are looked at when people apply to be an Ubuntu Member or go for a position on any of the various governance boards and committees in the community.

We have now launched Profile Roulette!

This is a game that everyone can play, you can subscribe to the Profile Roulette page to get an email each time the wheel spins, every day it will point to the personal wiki page of someone in the UK LoCo. You can see who the person of the day is, maybe you would like to leave them a testimonial or help them fix up their wiki page in some way. If you want to be on the page then what you have to do is create your personal wiki page (just go to wiki.ubuntu.com/YourName and create a new page there) and at the bottom of the page add the text:

 ----

[[CategoryUKTeamProfile]]

Then when the Profile Roulette wheel spins it might be your turn under the spotlight, don’t forget to subscribe to the Profile Roulette page so you get notified when it is your turn.

If any other LoCo teams want to join in then please feel free to give me a shout in the #ubuntu-locoteams IRC channel on Freenode if you want some help setting up the wiki pages. Once you have got it set up, do add a link to it on the Irish team Profile of the Day page, it helps us find them all and will also help Barry with his degree.

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Birthdays happen – with five children, often;) Yet it means what – recognition of another year, yes. To them, a chance for parties and presents, sure. To me, it means more, so much that they cannot understand.

Each birthday is a reminder of the day my life changed utterly, irrevocably. Their new life created a new version of me. Each birth (and each lost sibling, for I never forget my other five) brought me new life, new meaning, new lessons. A mother of one, of two is not the same as a mother of three, or four – or five.

Yet his birth was the most profound of them all. It was the most traumatic. The whole birth was dangerous and traumatic in many ways for us both. I hovered in a place between being and not being, life and death. He did die, and was resurrected. I remember looking over in a haze, receding, the theatre feeling distant, and seeing him held up briefly to me. (Then they needed to save him, i suppose, i did not find out until after what had happened. He stopped breathing on the way to NICU, but the angels that work there gave me my son back).

Oddly, in the moment of eternity that lasted less than a few seconds, lasted forever, stretched into eternity, sharply etched in my memory, we seemed to lock eyes, and I promised him I would try if he would. I had been terribly unhappy at home, all I lived for was my children, now I would fight for them too – for him. I heard a voice telling me I could not leave, calling my name. It was the silver thread back, or so it seemed at the time. My sister friend was calling me back, holding my hand, as anesthetists argued over my head about dosages, someone worried about me, losing me. Their argument struck me as funny at the time…and I owe her my life, in so many ways.

My son had a two week stay in NICU, where he thrived and never looked back. He was vast in a world of miniatures, he thrived there, but he had not thrived in utero, it had been a most difficult pregnancy, I lost weight, was very stressed, and he was underweight at nearly 6 pounds. This was bad enough, but not enough for NICU – but he had been breathing fluid in the three attempts to extract him, in a transverse position, head against the existing Caesarian scar, about to rupture and almost certainly kill us both. The resulting lung infection from drowning in fluid was what he needed to recover from.

I did not thrive post birth, I was torn between two worlds, there and home with my other children – and the distant partner, angry and unsupportive emotionally, who I found then was having an affair with a friend. It is just detail now, then it was soul crushing. Not unexpected, not even unusual, but still, it was too big then. So, I put it aside. My poor ex, so unhappy in himself. I feel sorrow for him now, what a confused place he found himself in. A good man but wounded. That is all of his tale, for that is my side I can share, the rest, that is is his to keep.

I was almost numb with sorrow and exhaustion, recovering from a surgical birth, a hugely difficult Caesarian after a difficult tenth pregnancy. I was visiting the hospital, twenty minutes away, every four hours, like a mechanical device, clockwork automatic, stumbling in a haze. If not for my sister friends, with food and visits, my guardian angels, his godmothers, my own personal support team, I would not have made it.

With their help, and my own determination to help him any way i could, I went, with reserves I did not know I had, refusing painkillers so they would not affect my son through the breast milk I would express in a room, on an impersonal, sterile, not him machine. This dragged through a lifetime, an epoch, a mere week. Any parent with a child in NICU tells you the same, time becomes different, meaningless. This dragged on in a seemingly unending churn of days and nights, light and dark, what did it matter, the alarm said time, go.

Until the precious day he was a week old, and I held him, skin to skin, awkward and oddly scared, with his tubes and oxygen mask to be near his face at all times. I held him, and he turned and fed, naturally, and I cried. Tears streamed down my face, and I didn’t know until a nurse handed my a tissue.

Her silence and understanding I will never forget.

The joyful day I was allowed to stay in with him, to get the doctors to sign off if we were successful feeding overnight, was the day of the mistress calling me to apologize, of confrontation and argument. My relationship with my partner was probably, in hindsight, over from that day, not that I think it ever stood a chance. We did go on to marry, I was numb, so dead inside, but it was inevitably doomed. There is more, so many mistakes on both sides, but let those ghosts lie, for it is not about him any more, ever again, I have forgiven and moved on. He is merely a person who happens to be the much loved father of two of the most important people in my life, and as such, he gets that respect. His failures as a partner to me, mine to him, are history now.

Once my son came home, I began to physically heal. It was years before I felt fully healed, I think when I was on my own again, and could stop and breathe and grieve for what I wished I had known, not what was. Peace, a chance to build a new life.

The accident I had had a few years earlier decided my new life was to take a different form than I imagined, as i deteriorated. So it is, here I am, another birthday. Yes, I have daily chronic pain physically, but not emotionally as I had at his birth. I do not merely exist anymore. I live, fully and joyfully.

I look at all my children with an unceasing sense of joy and wonder. These amazing individuals, these brilliant shining people came from me? Not one of them fails to be a joy.

My son, the only boy after four girls, was a shock to my feminine world, but oh! How wonderful, how lucky it was:) He was my surprise, my bonus, my unexpectedly conceived gift. I am so lucky with all of them, but there is a special sense of extra fortune smiling on me when I look at him, so strong and sturdy, my indestructible prodigy, crawling at 5 mths, running at 7 mths, no surface left unclimbed before he was 1 year old…

I am lucky the accident happened before he was two, but held off really crippling me until now. He was a bundle of anarchy, an intrepid explorer who knew no boundaries, who could count to 100 when he was less than 2, could figure out any damn child proof lock or gate or device invented, and has a mind that even now, astounds me with his leaps of intuitive understanding, especially in logic and maths. I suspect he is, as everyone who sees and knows him says, much like his father and mother in his geeky heritage, his intense absorption in anything computer related, and curious to a fault. He is a curious blend in looks of being both the spitting image of his dad and my brother somehow. I was part of it, dammit, none of them look like me!! Probably for the best;)

Perpetual motion next to his sisters...

And thank heavens for a 1/3 acre, with swings and cubby house and sand pit and trampolines, dogs to run with, a grandfather on hand who teaches him about wood working in the shed, as his father also does. Male friends of many years, who teach him paper planes, video games, and kicking the ball delights.

Today we have his family party. Next week, his friends party, at McDonalds (by request), and will have to get further invites tomorrow, as ten friends seems to have, as ever in these cases, grown to 14 must haves. (next month, the social butterfly, HRH Princess turns 9, and I shudder at the various plans she is making. Worst is currently a sleepover. Very little sleep is EVER gotten on those damn things, especially by parents and grumpy older sisters, who are actually real dears with them. I wonder if Ms 24 would like to attend? ) )

The real celebration of the event is here, in my heart. I do not think anyone can truly understand the depth of meaning when i say – Happy birthday, my son.

- posted from K9, my companion iPad

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It has been a week. One would expect that. Ok, not entirely a week in date terms, if one is to be fussy, its just feels that way. Much other people’s stuff and comings and goings and thinkings and wantings and not wantings and loving but not in the way they wanted and loving is just enough kind of ways and oh my. I love where i probably shouldn’t, and that is my own business and a pattern i see no reason to change now (the shouldn’t i mean, never been good at shoulds), don’t love where it is probably wanted (at least how it is wanted), but love is what love wills itself into being.

A wilful child, love, best thing is just to get on with it, like life, and see where it does or doesn’t go. However, the constant touchstone of my life, i always love my beloved family, my dearest friends, and my children – well, they are my literal raison d’etre. My wayward heart does its own thing beyond those absolutes.

Eb (Evil Back) is my most faithful companion, and all efforts to persuade him to be otherwise are to no avail. This is discouraging but am attempting further ways to persuade him that he is not what i want in a devoted lover, thank you. Attempting hydrotherapy, physiotherapy, and accupuncture in upcoming weeks, may keep you posted, or not as i do or don’t think of it. I don’t tend to do much of that here, why would that interest you? It doesn’t do much for me either!

However, for Facebook refugees bemoaning that i no longer am there, and somehow failing to be able to live in a  world where simple hi how are you works into increasingly busy lives, i made rash promises to the effect of updating here occasionally. Consider it an occasion.

I try to post things of interest. I have too many interests, and too much that is demanding of my time. I have taken to the step of rebelling against that strange sense of obligation to finish reading all my feeds (like unwanted vegetables to children at dinner), even if Feedly makes it so nice an experience, and to post to social networks regularly, (i remain a solitary monster who reaches out in bits and pieces. Mostly pieces, though some are quite pretty held up in the light). Finiding posting time is hard enough, and takes a combination of Zemanta, Shareaholic, WordPress tools, and Evernote. Oh, and strange feeling that this looks interesting finds that seem to call a theme together enough to make me post.

I am addicted to podcasts, but also gleefully decide this week they will be marked as watched despite not having been. Oh the anarchy. I tend not to miss Boxcutters ever, and they mentioned me very nicely this week, and i got a warm chocolate fudge gooey kind of aww moment from that – thanks guys.

Trying to squeeze in half an hour a day for guitar practice is a battle i do not always win but i do try so hard, for i love Fergus the wonder guitar. I am fascinating by the strange numb blistery feeling on my left hand fingers, where i hold the strings for chords. Having played the violin, i think i have finally persuaded my wrist to settle down and just let my fingers decide placement, don’t be so damn rigid. Feels still a tad anarchic. I use a few really good apps, such as Guitar Toolkit and Chords on the iPhone.

Being a book addict, audiobooks (thanks Audible.com ) are a constant companion, i try for two a week. Used to read a book a day, still do if i decide i am allowing myself a hide form the world (despite it knocking urgently at my door and emailing and ringing and messaging) day when the kids are not around. This is increasingly hard to find.

I have made two gift quilts for baby and toddler, and have two play mat/snuggle rugs for small ones, and two baby ones to make as gifts. I have made an intensely bright tye died rainbow fleece winter coat that just needs lining and buttons, and hurts your eyes like sunshine on a bright day, and is very warm,therefore perfect. I started my quilt (design below), and am starting to make pet beds with the So So Sisters, (my partners in crime and dear sisters of the heart and material), as local pet shelters are in need for these colder days.Also two double, one queen to king sized quilts of various bizarre designs for three eldest daughters, five or six knitting projects, made fleecy pjs for two smallest, and and am hand stitching in bed (i do spend a large amount of time stuck here or in a wheelchair with EB after all), a hex pieced bag for me to carry my iPad (love it still)  and iPhone (love it too!) and other general stuff around in. Must be mad. I keep promising to resurrect the photos of collected works we had up on Facebook, i will get there. Maybe on weekend if someone reminds me. I am using my IPad a lot oddly in quilting, and Dropbox, and running EQ7 (via Parallels) on my Macbook Pro, so technology seems to be my thing no matter what I do.

Timelady Quilt

Also working on several webdev projects for work, and one for a not for profit i shall be talking a lot about very soon, as soon as i get the content finished for the site – i have written in my todo list by weekend, so it must be done by then. It is amazing, and has huge potential to save AND enhance lives, so am very very excited to be a part of it.

I have had one thing mostly distracting my thoughts the last few months, i am hoping i have reached a resolution, a place of rest and peace and a point to start growing and evolving with it, rather than struggling with it, but time will tell, it always does. It is still background noise, but hopefully the playlist has hit more of an upbeat but ambient vibe, suitable for joy and acceptance and potential, less for worry and fear and pain.

In short, like all of us, i have a lot on the surface, and far more brewing underneath. The brave face is necessary to function. I am not that good at it in my writing, hence these updates are irregular. I am too honest in my writing, and have found it hard enough to not be more detailed and open. However, tis is not a bare my soul blog. It is whatever it feels like it is at the time. It feels like i have said enough:)

This article is part of a series of articles about why I feel Launchpad is a great home for your Open Source project. I am writing these articles not as an employee of Canonical, but instead as a happy Launchpad user who gets agitated that not enough people know how cool Launchpad is.

Open Source is fundamentally driven by gifts. People contribute translations, documentation, artwork, code and more. Many of these gifts are made available in the form of patches; fragments of content that can be applied to other chunks of content to apply new features, resolve issues or add value in other ways. Patches are wonderful contributions. their authors take the time to care about a problem and invest their expertise and time in producing a solution that everyone can share and benefit from. As such, we should treat these patches with the due care and attention that they deserve.

Something we found in Ubuntu was that we were getting so many patches submitted that many were being lost in the mix and were not getting reviewed and applied if appropriate. This goes against the grain of a gift – we should always review these gifts with a strong sense of care and timeliness. The situation was not driven by carelessness or malice, but instead a lack of visibility on these available patches for a given project.

As such, we worked to build a new feature into Launchpad to provide a simple way of looking at all submitted patches. It looks like this:

Accessing this is simple; just add +patches to the end of a Launchpad project address. As an example for Zope

https://edge.launchpad.net/zope/+patches

This also applies to source packages in Ubuntu. As an example for the Gwibber source package:

https://edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gwibber/+patches

With each of these patch views you can order the patches by patch age, see the current status of the patch, and see it’s importance. This all provides a better way for these important contributions to be reviewed for the benefit of everyone.

See a list of all of these Why Launchpad Rocks articles here.