Ubuntu Fredericton will be meeting Monday, March 10, at Reids Newsstand from 7-9pm. Please reply to the thread started on the ubuntu-ca list if you intend to come.

Via our mailing list, Ralph says,

If you aren't thrilled by tons of electronic waste heading for
landfills or unsafe disposal overseas you might want to get involved
in this Toronto area happening later this month.

And what could be better at braving the cold than a penguin?

Ubuntu Fredericton will open the new year by holding a key signing meeting. We will meet at Reids Newsstand, across from Kings Place on King Street, at 7:00pm. Please ensure that you bring a government-issued photo ID and a piece of paper containing your name, your GPG key ID, and your GPG key fingerprint (found with gpg --fingerprint KEYID).

Before coming, be sure to send your key to the Ubuntu keyserver with the command gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --send-keys KEYID

Replace KEYID with the ID of your GPG key. You can find it by running gpg --list-secret-keys | grep sec in a Terminal window, it's the part after "1024D/". Alternatively, this command will print out only the key ID: gpg --list-secret-keys | grep sec | tail -n 1 | cut -d"/" -f2 | cut -d" " -f1

This key ID is also the one you should use when getting your fingerprint to bring with you.

To sign a GPG key from the command line, follow these steps (KEYID is the ID of the key you're signing):

• Add the key to your keyring with the command gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys KEYID
• Verify the fingerprint of the key (found with gpg --fingerprint KEYID) with the fingerprint on paper. If it's different, DON'T SIGN THE KEY!
• Begin the signing process with the command gpg --sign-key KEYID
  • If there are multiple email addresses on the key, you will be asked if you are ready to sign them all.
• Confirm that you want to sign the key.
• Choose the option that corresponds to how confident you are in the key's authenticity.
  • If you can't answer with "I have done very careful checking" at this point, you should consider why you are signing the key in the first place. By now, you should have carefully verified the identity of the user.
• Finally, send the key back to the key server with the command gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --send-keys KEYID

Confused yet? No? Good. Hope to see all the Fredericton-area Ubuntu users there.

Seasons greetings everyone!

I would like to announce that the Fredericton New Brunswick group will be meeting this Thursday December 13th at 7pm at "Crumbs" (corner of Regent and King). They have some good coffee so you might want to bring a dollar or two...

If there are any problems with the date and time please post a message on the Ubuntu-ca mailing list

Thanks!

Richard Seguin

It appears things are still being pushed forward for Canada to adopt legislation even worse than the United States' disasterous Digital Millenium Copyright Act. While Canadians, musicians, and every sensible indication suggest that policy should be moving in the opposite direction, the government is still ignoring them. See Michael Geist's recent coverage, which was also linked to on BoingBoing. Don't forget to phone up your PM and make some noise this winter.

As was recently reported on Linux.com, the Green Party of Canada became the first party to officially endorse the use of open source software in their party platform. The move was largely influenced by a member of the relatively new Free Geek Vancouver, and hopefully will influence other parties to follow suit in the future. The New Democratic Party has had some mentions of open source on the provincial level and by individual members in the past, so they are probably the most likely to do so soon.

To point out this position and encourage the other parties to add a similar one, use the following contact information:
NDP: Online Form
Liberal: Provincial/Territorial Association list
Conservative: Online Form

Via the mailing list, a good suggestion for a Vancouver area meeting:

It's a shame that we don't have a Vancouver Ubuntu User's Group. Here's your
invitation: To everybody who's interested in forming an Ubuntu User's Group in
Vancouver. Meet at 7:00 PM in the BCIT Telus Theatre, 1/2 hour before the next
VanLUG (Vancouver Linux User's Group) meeting, Monday, 19 November. If you
haven't been before, stick around for VanLUG afterwards.

Kim Kulak

The Ubuntu Toronto folks - one of the more active parts of Ubuntu Canada - are planning a party to celebrate 7.10's release and Ubuntu in general.

They've got a page on the Ubuntu wiki up to plan it. Current tentative date is Nov 3 2007 at Linuxcaffe.

Incidentally, there are currently no Ubuntu Toronto people with accounts on Ubuntu.ca - if you're in Toronto, active in Ubuntu Toront or the local Linux scene in general, and want to post here, create an account then contact the Ubuntu Canada mailing list to ask for 'author' status instead of just 'user' status!

Congratulations to the Fredricton Ubuntu group on their meetings.

Want to see YOUR local Ubuntu or LUG meeting mentioned here? Join the Ubuntu Canada mailing list first - if you don't have posting rights here yet, one of the admins or other authors can post your story for you here.

If you're acting as local contact for your area to Ubuntu Canada, set up an account here on ubuntu-ca.org, then ask on the mailing list to be given authoring rights.

The great thing about a Drupal install like we've got now is that lots of people can contribute content and news - let's get the ball rolling for Ubuntu Canada's site!