Canonical has just announced that they are creating a new Ubuntu team to help out with the Ubuntu website. For two reasons, I applaud this decision.

First, and most obviously, this brings a strong potential for a really cool website. The announcement says that some of the things that might be improved by the team include countdown banners, the start page, and, of course, elements of the main website. This means that, for example, when Intrepid Ibex ships, and a new user starts Firefox for the first time, the home page he or she sees will be less of a generic page and more of a cool and useful launch page for learning about Ubuntu, getting involved in Ubuntu, or for surfing the web.

The second, and less obvious reason, that I applaud the forming the new team is that it gives more control to the community. This really emphasizes Canonical and the community as partners, rather than one just helping out the other.

So for these two reasons, I am really glad to see the forming of this new team and I look forward to seeing the results.

A recent iTWire article suggests that when Xandros’s patent deal with Microsoft runs out in 2011, Microsoft will attempt to use their patent FUD to stop Linux’s adoption on UMPCs.

Quite a while ago, a number of companies, including Novell, Xandros, and many others, signed patent deals with Microsoft. These deals supposedly protect the company in question and its customers from being sued by Microsoft, which Microsoft claims they can do because Linux supposedly violates many of their patents. Largely due to Microsoft not revealing what those patents are, other companies, such as Red Hat, refused to sign patent deals. At the time, companies that did sign patent deals were viewed very poorly by the Linux community, since they were simply submitting to Microsoft FUD. Gradually, however, this issue has become less of a focal point and  there is a lot less coverage of it.

In 2011, though, as pointed out by the iTWire article, this issue is likely to resurface, since Xandros’s patent deal will expire. Since the Linux used on the Eee PC will no longer be “protected,” the article also suggests that Microsoft will use this FUD opportunity to try to harm Linux on UMPCs. They may try, but I don’t think they will succeed.

As I see it, when the patent deal issue resurfaces, there will, of course, be a huge uproar from the Linux community and lots of pressure for companies not to sign the deals. In this situation, one of two things will probably happen:

1. Microsoft will give up trying to push their FUD around patents onto companies.
2. Some more patent deals will be signed or renewed and everything will move on again.

Though the later may not be preferable, neither option would seriously hurt Linux’s chances on UMPCs or Linux’s chances in general.

Ubuntu Open Week, a week of IRC presentations by various members of the Ubuntu community, is finishing up today. For those of you who were unable to attend the sessions, you will be glad to know that logs of the meetings are available for you to read. The sessions were very informative, so I would definitely encourage everyone to check them out. Particularly if you are new to the Ubuntu community, you might want to check out some of the following sessions:

One session many people may be interested in is the Community Q+A which consisted of various questions about Ubuntu and the Ubuntu community. Although it is not very in depth, it is an interesting read.

Another session that should interest almost any Ubuntu user is “The Future of the Ubuntu Desktop.” Don’t expect screenshots of what Ubuntu will look like in 10 years, but you might get some idea of what the desktop team is thinking about in terms of Ubuntu in 10 years.

For those of you who are interested in helping out Ubuntu, you might want to check out the session on reporting bugs, which can be tricky at first, but easy once you get the hang of it, the session on triaging bugs, or the session on packaging. All of these are arranged sort of like a tutorial.

Finally, if you are interested in a specific project, there are lots of sessions focusing on smaller projects within Ubuntu, such as Ubuntu Mobile Edition, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Server, the Art Team, the Documentation Team, and more.

This is nowhere near all the sessions, so go check out the full listing on the Ubuntu Open Week page.