Answering my own questions
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Personal Background

Basic statistics (Age, Nationality, Location (current home), Private Status and children, Level of education (inc. eventual majors) and Current profession)?

I'm 26 - born in 1980. Male, obviously. Danish citizen. I'm single and live in Copenhagen where I'm currently working on finishing my MA in anthropology. I already have a BA in Comparative Literature and a BA in Anthropology - all from the University of Copenhagen.

Me!

When and how did you begin using computers? Experiences?

My earliest memories of computers was playing Space Invaders on my father's computer. I have no idea what kind it was, but it was easy to set apart from the later computers he had, since the screen had a memorable Brown/Yellow colour scheme, and he had an extra screensaver element in front of the screen to minimize the risk of burnout. That must have been around 1985-86.

I didn't really wonder much about how the computer worked, or what it really was. I was completely taken in by the game and the illusion that it provided. My father used the computer for a lot of things, including graphics and printing, but I don't recall worrying much about that. I used my father's, and later my mother's, computers to do basic word processing and playing games on and off. I didn't get my own computer until I turned 14. By then I was already fairly proficient with games such as Doom and Civilization which my father had introduced me to.

I didn't really begin to think about computers in a more technical manner until I began working as a Computer Support guy a year or so into my time at university - around 2001. I got a job at the Mac-only department of anthropology, and not only did I learn to abstract the principles of the GUI - comparing MAC OS 9 with Windows 98 - but I also began to relate much more to how other people used computers and how common certain misunderstandings were in their dealings with the computer. These experiences probably played a big part in sparking my interest in Free Software later on.

What attracted you about computers initially?

The games. The magic of being able to "choose your own adventure" to some extent with the early adventure games and such. I was always into role-playing games and fantasy novels and that sort of thing, and I quickly became enamoured with the way that the computer would be able to respond and challenge you to create the story with it. I had very little concept of programming and how computer games are made. It didn't appeal to me. I liked the stories. But time and again I would become frustrated with the narrowness of scope and the limits of the game which couldn't hold my imagination, so I began writing stories and develop ideas outside of the computer. I didn't try to expand the computer games to fit my imagination.

At what age did you begin programming computers comfortably?

Oh, I only started to learn programming this year for my fieldwork. I started out with Java, but I never really got very far into it. It is one of my goals to learn proper Python soon. I know the basics, but the problem seems to be that I don't have any project I'm really passionate about, or if I am passionate about it, then my level of ambition doesn't match my skills. But at least now I understand the basic building blocks which computer programs are made of, so I have what you could call "a clear path to mastery" if I decided to improve on that skill.

... In that way, I have always been a very un-technological person. I very rarely get excited about new technology in that way. I don't feel that basic hacker need to take things apart, to master the details. I've just been good at accepting new technology when it was introduced to me. Without a lot of questions or worries. I remember getting my own computer when I turned 14. I was very happy to get it, because I already spent so much time on my father's computer. And I played a lot of Doom WADs on it. I even tried to make my own WAD, but failed miserably since I didn't understand any of the technical principles behind the game. Looking back, I should probably have asked for help, since I'm sure I could have had a lot of fun designing levels for Doom. Instead, I spent my time on other things - reading fiction, writing, politics, parties... school.

What educational background do you have with computers? Tradition, norms?

We had computer lessons at school. That would have been around 1994-95, I think. Windows 3.11, I suppose. I was in the weird position that my father had been hired by my school to set up a computer lab and run introductory courses. He installed Microsoft Office, the Corel Draw suite and a bunch of games - Sim City, Day of the Tentacle, Civilization and shareware Doom. And we had great fun writing school essays in Word, learning the basics of Corel PhotoPaint and the Corel Draw vector graphics to make digital pictures and photo-editing. The games didn't last long on the computers, despite the obvious potential for teaching English with the adventure games, basic social science with Sim City and world history with Civilization. All the kids just played Doom in the breaks, instead.

But apart from the very basic introduction to the computer, I've had no formal educational background with the computer. I wonder if it would have been much different if I had been introduced to programming at that point, but I suppose not. Since I never really did seem to have much interest in it.

Later on, when I was studying Comparative Literature and Modern Culture, I wrote my BA essay on the aesthetics of computer games, and I analyzed the game Thief: The Dark Project as an ambitious example of well-considered and well-executed computer game aesthetic. More than Space Invaders or Doom - it worked or several levels.

I always liked the aesthetic and the sociality made possible by computing technology better than the technology itself, and in both of the disciplines I've studied, I've been trying to break down the inherent technology shyness that reign within them. With varying degrees of success.

Friends, mentors, fellow travellers?

My father,of course. For as long as I can remember, he has always been fairly keen on computers. Much more than me. Up until I bought this computer, I have always just taken over his old PCs, so I've always been one full generation of PC equipment behind the curve. I didn't really mind. My dad got a job at the local newspaper as a advertisement layouter and illustrator just before computing technology really began to revolutionize the publishing business in the late 80s. So he got to play with a fair bit of technology there, and he always the one to introduce me to the new stuff. Like the Internet and Gopher in 1993 or 1994. I guess I didn't really appreciate just how exciting this stuff really was at the time.

Apart from my dad, I hung out with some proper geeks at high school. They even had their own IRC channel, which I thought was extremely geeky at the time. I went to a few LAN parties with them around 1998, and didn't really dig that scene very much.

After that, it wasn't until I got the support job at the university. I hung out a lot with the local sysadmin who is complete Mac-head, and that made me aware that there were different operating systems. Different ways of using the computer. Up until then, I had pretty much taken Windows for granted. And this put me in a position to gently generalize on the nature of Human-Computer Interactions and abstract the common patterns which I have sought to develop since.

Finding F/OSS

How did you discover F/OSS?

I read about it in the newspaper. My parents are children of the 70s Marxist revival and university grade academics to boot, so they subscribed to the Danish left-wing newspaper, Information. I think they had an article about Linux and Open Source as early as 1997-1998. It didn't really register with me back then. It sounded completely alien, but the social aspect and the ideals of sharing knowledge fascinated me.

I didn't actually use or see Linux in use until I moved to Copenhagen and met Stefan, a mathematics major, who is now a good friend of mine. He ran Linux, actually Debian, to be precise. And he is one of those people who use a text-based mail client and used the terminal for everything. I hadn't actually met anyone like that before, and it opened my eyes to whole other way of using the computer. Like it was still 1985 or something. But when I realized the control and the speed with which he could work the computer, I was intrigued.

He helped me install Debian as dual-boot on my computer in late 2003, I suppose that must have been Woody. I was amazed at the complexity of the installer, and we went through all of that in one evening. leaving me with a working command prompt. He never got around to set up X for me, and I just went back to using Windows, frustrated at the complexity of Linux. I tried my hand once or twice with Jon Hall's "Linux for Dummies" book, but failed miserably to get anything useful done.

Still, I liked the F/OSS ideals, and read up on the Cathedral and the Bazaar and some of Stallman's GNU philosophy. It certainly made me interested in learning more and trying it properly. So when I bought my laptop in October 2004, I did the proper research and bought one from a small Danish company that offered to sell me a laptop without an operating system pre-installed. As I waited for it to arrive in the mail, I researched the various Linux distributions out there, and heeding the advice from the "Linux for Dummies" book, I ended up with a Debian derivative, since my local Guru used Debian, and thus would be in a better position to help me if (when!) I needed it.

That Debian derivative turned out to be Ubuntu, and it worked very well. And I haven't had the need to install any other operating system on my computer since.

How did it feel to find such a community?

My first exposure to an Open Source community was the Ubuntu Forums where I found the answers to my first questions: "Why won't it play my MP3s?" "How do I make the DVD drive work?" And so on. At first I was under the impression that the forums were the community. My only other experiences with on-line communities had been centered around web forums around web comics and computer games, so I thought it only natural if that was the case here as well. It wasn't until I actually began researching the Ubuntu community that I realized how things really worked. I was impressed at the level of dedication within the community to a project that was less than 3 months old.

What attracted you to F/OSS?

The ideology. I can't really appreciate the free source code to any extent, but I do appreciate the fact that others can appreciate it. I think the idea of Copyleft is extremely important and I wanted to support that by not buying into the Microsoft monopoly. And at that point I had become seriously frustrated with playing computer games which for the most part had turned out to be a repetitive and unimaginative industry much like Hollywood. By installing Linux, I couldn't play games any more, and that would force me to spend my time in more constructive ways. I'm surprised to note how well that has worked.

Which projects have you contributed to - and for what reasons – intellectually, socially and in terms of proficiency?

The only F/OSS project I've contributed to in any extended way is Ubuntu. And that was only once I had decided to do my fieldwork there. I have never had any illusions about my technical aptitude, so I have always thought that my biggest contribution to the project would the fieldwork itself and the knowledge it will generate. Therefore, the small ways I've contributed - writing documentation, discussing marketing, bug triage and so on - has always been to gain a better understanding of the different work that goes on in the community by participating in it.

How has your own background (cultural, language-wise etc.) defined your participation in F/OSS?

Being a naturally geeky male with good English skills, I've had little difficulty adopting to the jokey, youthful tone of communication within the community. I did have more difficulty getting used to the technical jargon and the on-line media such as IRC and mailing lists - both of which I had never used to any great extent before. I suppose you can say that I'm still not entirely comfortable with them, but that may well be because of my lack of technical prowess.

When and how did you join the Ubuntu community?

I got involved with the Ubuntu community around February 2006, but didn't actually do much constructive work until summer when I had met the community in-person in Paris, and had been energized by the shared sense of purpose and drive that I found there.

How much time do you spend working on (contributing to) Ubuntu in an average week?

This varies hugely. If you count the fieldwork and the writing of the thesis, more than 40 hours a week. If you don't, less than 10.

Life apart from computers

How do you balance your computing life with your everyday life?

That part is not too difficult for me. I live with a lot of people around me, so as soon as I step away from the computer, there's almost someone around to talk to. I also try to do plenty of sports and get outside everyday.

How do your family and friends relate to your job / hobby?

I think they find the whole project interesting, yet somewhat abstract. Most of them simply relate to the travelling I do for conferences and interviews, and register the fieldwork as "going away somewhere" rather than as coherent thing taking place both at home in front of the computer and on the road. Since it is part of my MA thesis, they don't really doubt that it is relevant.

How do you explain what you do to non-technical people?

Well, I have two approaches. Either I say "I do fieldwork among Open Source computer programmers" and if people look enthusiastic about it I can expand on that. Or I ask "Do you know what Linux is?" and use that as a base to explain what the whole thing is all about. I usually get two kinds of reactions, depending on whether people care enough to listen. Either they find it interesting and relevant and want to know more, or they ask - somewhat sourly (or maybe that's just my imagination) "that's not really typical anthropology, is it?"

Using and programming the computer as tool

How many computers do you own, use or have access to? What functions do they fulfil?

I only have one computer. I didn't realize this when I started my fieldwork, but that is basically not enough for your average geek these days. I have my trusty laptop called Rosinante, a Zepto Pentium M laptop full of Intel parts. I didn't realize that at the time, but getting all Intel parts was probably the reason why everything just worked out of the box for me. I just got it this way because it was cheaper. Rosinante pretty much covers all of my computing needs: Email, web surfing, organizing notes, text editing, playing music and films.

The name comes from the Spanish novel "Don Quixote de la Mancha" wherein the stead of main character, the deluded knight Don Q, is called Rosinante. Don Quixote is one of my all-time favourite books.

How much time do you use on computers (working, playing games, socialising online etc.) in an average week?

Probably way too much. I would guess around 40-50 hours a week.

Which operating systems do you use? Why?
Unix/Linux vs. other operating system architectures?

I solely use Ubuntu nowadays, and in some ways, it has proven to be much more powerful and straight-forward than Windows. When I use Windows, I find myself wanting a proper text editor and a proper terminal prompt so I can kill processes manually, change permissions recursively or edit files without too much hassle. But there are still parts of the whole Unix philosophy that bugs me. When I read the Unix Haters Handbook, I found myself agreeing with much of it, I do think that those who say that Unix is the epitome of good OS design don't realize the needs of non-programmers. I suppose that's one of the issues with making an operating system that appeals to all kinds of computer users.

I like Mac OS X as well, and have helped my grand parents buy a Mac as it is well-integrated and easy to use. But I've come to dislike the limitations of the Mac as well as those of Windows. At this point in my computing life, I couldn't really imagine wanting to use anything else than Linux. I use Linux-only applications such as Tomboy and Zim all the time, and I'm a big fan of the workspaces. But then again, 5 years ago I was so accustomed to Windows that I couldn't imagine using anything else back then either. The way that we absorb the operating system into our mode of using the computer fascinates me. I think it goes a long way to explain why people insist on using the same operating systems at home and at work.

Describe how you usually use your computer. Which programs you use, how you've arranged them.

I use standard Ubuntu Edgy at the moment. I tend to just have one root partition and just run the latest stable version of Ubuntu. Having just one computer makes you a bit more careful about messing things up.

This means that I run GNOME, of course. Initially, when I had to pick a distribution to install, I went with GNOME, simply because I hated the concept that all of the KDE application start with a K. I thought that was patently silly. Though many of the GNOME apps still have names beginning with G on the command line, at least I didn't have to look at that on the desktop. I find the stupid naming schemes to be one of the worst things about F/OSS applications. I know this is a problem for all software applications (Google and Flickr are pretty stupid names, too) - but F/OSS project do seem to be the worst offenders. Ironically, I find the name Ubuntu to be very well chosen - as it is a name that most developers appear to have a hard time figuring out (or even spelling!).

Anyway, I've set it up to start GAIM and Xchat-gnome automatically, as I usually forget to login otherwise and thus appear off-line when I might just as well be available for comment. I don't really talk a lot on IRC or GAIM, but I've come to accept that it is essential to be present and pay attention there in order to follow the latest developments.

Apart from those two, I use XMMS to play music. I really tried Rhythmbox, but disliked it intensely. I can't understand why it can be so difficult to make decent music player that is as simple and straightforward as XMMS - the killer feature for me is the fact that it uses the file names rather than the ID3 tags, as half of my music hasn't been properly tagged.

I use Firefox and Thunderbird, both of which I used under Windows, and they work very well for me, as well. Also, I've been trying to organize my fieldwork notes and my thoughts in general in the Zim desktop wiki and in my Tomboy notes. I use GIMP and Inkscape on occasion, and Open Office when I have to.
I used to use Open Office all the time, but these days I have begun using the basic GNOME text editor to write my texts. I guess the Unix philosophy of keeping everything in simple text files has been getting to me. When you realize that all the formatting is basically just extra fluff that you only add for printing or putting something on the web, you just sort of stop bothering for smaller texts, since OO.o is so slow anyway.

How did you come about this setup? Which other variations have you tried or considered?

I've played around a fair bit with the defaults, and seeing and talking to so many developers about how they've set up their systems have provided me with a fair bit of inspiration. At first I relished the simple fact that it was different from Windows, but now I've actually begun considering how to optimize for the way that I use the computer - something that I never did consider when using Windows. It is actually quite empowering.

I have four workspaces, but tend to forget to use them. I do try to, as I would like to keep different tasks to different workspaces. I haven't gotten around to enabling any of the 3d bling stuff, so it's still pretty simple. I'm also trying to keep applications such as Thunderbird and Firefox open at all times in dedicated workspaces to make it easier for me to access. But I keep closing them anyway. Old habits die hard, I guess.

Desktop screenshot


How do you organize your files?

On the desktop I also have shortcuts to the two servers I have remote access to - a webserver with my blog and all the pictures and documents linked from there, and my friend Stefan's server, which I'm allowed to use as a backup fileserver.

I also use the desktop as a staging area for all the stuff that I'm currently working on, planning to read or some such. Once it's off the desktop, it has usually been archived and is not the centre of my attention any more. I also have a huge link to my fieldwork folder for easy access. There's simply too much stuff in there to fit on the desktop :-)

As I've discussed elsewhere, I like the chocolate brown background.

I had some difficulty getting used to the Unix file hierarchy with the root level being inaccessible to the user who would have to keep all of his stuff in the Home directory. Why would it show a bunch of files that I couldn't touch, or even make sense of? Coming from Mac OS X, I recognized some of the bits, but not why it would be so messy. But after a while, I accepted it, and limited myself to my home directory.

Recently, I reformatted my hard drive and made separate partitions for my Home folder and for my music. This has enabled me to organize my files much better after I realized the power of symlinks and the way mounting and unmounting partitions work. I totally think that Ubuntu should create a separate Home partition per default.

Home directory screenshot

The command line

I don't actually use the command line much. I feel capable enough on it to do basic stuff like killing processes and editing configuration files, but don't do scripts or piping.

Text editing, programming IDEs

I don't do much programming, and I do most of my text editing in Gedit. And I certainly haven't played around with the configurations much. Through my fieldwork, I've found out just how much power there is in a program like VIM, but either my hands are too big or my keyboard is too small - I don't really see the need for learning new keybindings at this stage.

Configurations, scripts

When I reinstalled Ubuntu recently, I consciously nuked all my configurations to see how much I had actually customized my system. Apart from a few Windows shares and some changes to the desktop settings (List view in Nautilus and the like) I hadn't touched much. I certainly don't depend on any custom scripts to keep my computer going. Especially since I only have the one.

Bazaar and revision control systems – branches, repositories?

I find the idea behind such technology fascinating, but until recently, it wasn't really useful to me, as I did most of my work in big Office documents. Now I suppose I could start using Bazaar, but I haven't really yet. I guess remembering to commit changes everytime will be a stumbling block for me.

“Think-aloud” protocol – show the work you do with Ubuntu: Packaging, patching, bug reporting etc.

This is very difficult to "show" in text. But I can say that the work I do with Ubuntu is mostly centered around the Ubuntu Wiki where I maintain the "Contribute to Ubuntu" document as a way to help people get involved with the community. I've found that Wikis are much better for doing the sort of collaborative writing that is the Ubuntu documentation, but setting up the infrastructure to make it all wiki-based is somewhat difficult.

What are the relations between the various computers you use? Build machines, communication machines, servers, backups, test machines?

I only have one machine, so I can't really expand on this. I do all of my work on the same machine.

When are you productive?

Tricky question. Funnily enough, it seems that I'm most productive when I don't have Internet access. I can focus much better for longer stretches of time, and not be disturbed. I find this concept of being available all the time very disconcerting, though it is essential to the F/OSS mode of development.

Being in the zone? The feeling of flow?

I guess for me as a writer and not-too-technical person, it takes longer for me to get to a point where I feel I'm getting good work done, I need to have at least 3 or 4 hours without interruptions to get into that state of flow where work suddenly seems easy. I do hit it far too rarely, I must admit.

What are your goals with the computer? What do you hope to achieve with or through the computer?

I see the computer as a tool. A multisided, multi-functional tool, but a tool nonetheless. I don't find the computer inherently interesting for its own sake, but rather for what it allows me to do. It allows me to write and access information faster and more easily than I otherwise would have been able to. It allows me to play my music and look at my photos.

... I don't really know if I have any long term goals that are directly attached to the computer. I would like to help all of those people who have come to depend on the computer to have a better experience using it, but to what extent this depends on the computer or it depends on them, it's difficult to say. Generally though, I find that people are already depending too much on the computer. Information glut, as Neil Postman would say.

Software and values

I'll avoid answering these questions, since I do not really write or patch code in any way.

On others' use of computers
Design philosophy?

Can you have a design philosophy without being a designer? Of course you can. These days everybody's a designer. I know what I like even if I don't have the skills or the influence to change it. The problem is defining such a design philosophy in any coherent manner. I've found that Don Norman has done an excellent job in his "The Design of Everyday Things" and "Emotional Design". Most of these books contain extremely simple advice, which still can prove very difficult to follow. I find the issues springing from this sort of design deeply fascinating.

The Unix philosophy?

Don Norman hates Unix, but I must admit to liking it to some extent. Sure it is elitist, but it is also extremely elegant and well-refined. Now if they could make these elegant, sharp tools easy to use...

Do you help people with computers? And who is the end user?

I help lots of people with computers. I'm not high and mighty enough to tell people off when they ask me to fix their sound issues or some such. I did work for almost 3 years as a computer support person, and I learned lots from it. The end user doesn't care about the computer. She cares about her work. Your job as a support person is basically to take care of the computer for her so that she can concentrate on her work. It is a fair deal, really. What I wonder is whether it is worth asking people to learn a little bit more about the inner workings of the computer in order to better be able to help them. I suppose you it would be a bit like asking people to learn about the basic workings of a car in order to get a driver's license. Do they ask people to do that?

Imagining use cases

Use cases are funny. It seems to be the one point where developers are asked to think creatively in a way that doesn't involve code or technical infrastructure. It doesn't work very well. They are meant to be idealized descriptions of how the program should work, but the developers always seem to be too caught up with figuring out obscure corner cases to make the use cases seem convincing. Maybe it stems from the problem in F/OSS development that developers tend to deal with all aspects of the designing, programming and testing of the programs themselves. Using use cases as a way of explaining what a program does may work better if it isn't all written by the same person. Different rules apply to the collaborative writing of code and the collaborative writing of text. Maybe it's a case of everything looking like a nail to these carpenters. Or maybe I'm just prejudiced. :-)

Developer Guidelines (GNOME HIG, Debian Developers Guidelines etc.)

Ubuntu as a project doesn't have a complete set of developer guidelines. Maybe that's part of why the answer above was so confused. I've begun to realize the importance of having such set of rules for everybody to agree on and adhere to. As it is now, everybody just follows Mark Shuttleworth's lead, saying "Mark would hate that" or "Mark wants it like that." One person's preferences won't last as a guideline in the long run.

Discussing with other developers

As a non-developer, I have to be quite persistent and often overly friendly to get my point through and get a developer to implement an idea of mine. I don't mind this. They're doing the work, so they get to decide. I just have to butter them up to be up for it. I think most non-technical contributors to F/OSS projects can relate to that. Ubuntu has broken new ground trying to find ways to make non-technical contributors equal citizens in the F/OSS world - but there are many fields which are closely associated to development such as usability, documentation and artwork where it comes to clashes, and it seems that it is always the authority of the coders that wins out.

Responses, bugs, wishes from the users

Going through bug triage with developers, I notice that a lot of them simply get too much bug mail for them to comfortably handle. Thus requests, suggestions and ideas seem to drown in the bunches of breakages and actual bugs that they also have to deal with. With developers, attention is a sparse resource, and learning how to get developer attention is an art that is difficult to master.

Quote from Matthew Garrett:
“Given a choice between making it easier to configure something and  making it unnecessary to configure it, we should always choose the latter. Having a lot of options that should "just work" makes it harder for people to find the (fairly small) number of options that /are/ absolutely required.” [Sounder 24/05/06 11:22]

What does this mean, exactly?

To me this summarizes an important ideal within the Ubuntu community: The computer can be made perfect. If it doesn't, that's a bug - and we can fix those. It is basically moving as many of the issues around the Human-Computer Interaction to the realm of the computer, because that's where it can fixed a definite and well-defined manner.

And do you agree? Why?

I find it tricky, because it certainly depends on what you're trying to configure. Many people have special needs and ideas on how to use the computer, and to some degree it must be up to them to decide about how to configure it. As it is now, if something doesn't work easily in GNOME, there usually just isn't an option to configure it.

It is the same thing with the on-going debate about whether to enable binary 3d graphics drivers in Ubuntu per default or not. Should we pose this question to the user or shouldn't we? Will he be able to make a reasonable decision? Will he care? Some people will care, some people won't. But it is all a matter of finding the magic compromise that makes most people happy.

Sane defaults

This question of "sane defaults" comes up again and again in discussions of design. Unfortunately, sane defaults is something that is shaped by use and developed as people find out how they prefer to use it. It is a topic of much politicking, and it is fascinating for anthropologist to follow...

The computer as social tool. Communication.
Email (mailing-lists, contacts, signed PGP keys...)

I use email a lot, though I'm usually not very good at replying to messages right away. I usually keep my email client open when I'm in front of the computer and check it between tasks. When I'm not working, I still manage to check my mail a couple of times a day. I have an ancient mobile phone that doesn't do email, and I really like it that way.

I spent a lot of time figuring out PGP key signing and what it was good for. For an anthropologist, key signing is a very good little ritual to study. I've only managed to exchange keys with a few of my informants, and I felt extremely un-technical doing it. Very much a foreign ritual I hadn't gotten the hang of.

I'm subscribed to a lot of mailing-lists...

Thunderbird screenshot

I do try to read all of them, but I continue to be amazed at how many people spend so much time bickering when it appears that they aren't doing any actual work for the distribution. On the other hand, it does seem as they're filling the void left by the actual developers who keep discussions on licensing issues and the like on IRC or in-person.

IRC (channels, nicks, commands, notifies...)

I don't really like IRC much. But it is the main communication vehicle for the active Ubuntu community, so I have tried to get used to it. It is such a central tool to these developers that I'm actually kind of surprised that they haven't found a better way to do it. I guess it is the best you can do with something that is all text. If it was up to me, I probably wouldn't use it very much at all - I certainly haven't customized or explored its potential much. Even so, I do try to keep up with most of the central Ubuntu channels...

Xchat-gnome screenshot

Who do you communicate regularly with over the computer? And how?

Within the Ubuntu community I keep in touch with the documentation team, and some of the people I've visited on my fieldwork trips, as well as some of the people I've met at conferences around the world. Almost all of that is on IRC.

Web Forums

I don't frequent them very often. I have studied the interactions there a bit, but since I've been focusing on the development side of Ubuntu, I haven't read them much. It is still a very good place to go for technical support. I have talked a fair bit with some of the Forums administrators at conferences, and

Blogs

I read the Planets Ubuntu, GNOME, Debian, KDE and Freedesktop to get an idea of what is moving in both Ubuntu and the various upstreams. Since I became an Ubuntu member in August 2006, I have had my own blog aggregated on Planet Ubuntu, though only the bits relevant to Ubuntu. I like blog posts a lot better than mailing list mail. People take time to be personal and show more of themselves and offer better rationale for their arguments. In a way, a planet turns into the most public of mailing lists.

Wikis

I've edited the Ubuntu wiki a fair bit, though not as much as I would have liked to. I really like the wiki format, and I think there is much untapped potential in using it for collaborative writing and working.

Bug trackers

I like the idea of bug trackers, but haven't used them much. Generally, my technical expertise is not deep enough to do very serious bug triage. Though I've found that often bug triage basically consists of knowing who has the relevant knowledge and thus who to assign the bug to.

Revision Control Systems (reading other people's code, commit access...)

A step up from wikis, though I suppose some would say it is the other way around. I'm very excited to see them in use, but I don't really use them myself.

How do you coordinate your work with others?

The most of my work is individual. That is the nature of anthropological fieldwork, unfortunately. And I haven't even coordinated my work much with other anthropologists in the field. Shame on me.

Jargon – metaphors, technical terms, hacker slang (differences, interests, problems?)

I find the hacker jargon hilarious. I spent some quality time reading through the New Hacker's Dictionary before I even installed Linux, and you can get a good idea of how hackers are just from reading about the words they use.

The Ubuntu Community
This bit is basically what my thesis will be about, so I'll avoid answering them here. But I would like to hear your views on this!

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If you found this interesting, and you've begun considering how you would have answered the same questions, please do write them down and send them to me. I'd love to read them and incorporate them in my thesis work!

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