John the Coder

• Loves coding
• Hates wasting time doing 'admin'
• Likes to get changes landed
• Mostly uses the terminal
• knows about DVCs, but not much about bzr
• Hates interruptions
• Often automates tedious tasks
• Constantly finding bugs in things, especially his own code

Aitana the Translator

• She is not a native English speaker
• Uses Ubuntu in Catalan
• Isn't technical, but loves the community
• Cares about translations quality, as it's what she has to use
• Does translations on sleepless nights and weekends
• Passionate about her language

Jeremy the Manager

• Runs a small team
• Has a suspicious boss
• Has 12 developers to coordinate
• Knows how to program but hasn't seen actual code in a year
• Really gets along with his team, but one of them seems to be not doing enough, and that worries him.
• Pretty much always has one (or three!) important deadlines to meet
• Often being hassled by stakeholders from other departments

Kara the Ubuntu developer

• Small contributions across a huge range of _stuff_
• Gets way too much email
• Likes to stay involved
• Motivated by community as much as credit
• Needs to keep up-to-date with everything happening in the distro
• Has cyclic stressful months (before every release)
• Lives in the terminal, only uses GUI when forced
• Has used Launchpad for years, knows it better than some of the devs
• Has long since changed the way she works to work around broken tools -- it's the Debian way.
• Reached the top of the community game ages ago. Not motivated by increased standing.

Timmy the Ubuntu fantatic

• Wants to help out in Ubuntu, but has very little technical skills
• Is in high school, so has a lot of time on his hands
• Eager to learn
• Uses GUI tools, the terminal is still kind of scary to him
• Done a little bit of programming at school.
• A little insecure, masks this by talking too much

I want to add something social here. If he's a teenager and a fanatic, then he totally wants to prove himself. This could mean making contact with established hackers, or it could mean progress you can point to, but it's definitely something that motivates him. -- jml

Matthew the LAMP developer

• Works in web development with PHP and MySQL
• Uses SVN and a custom-made ticketing system
• Uses as much open source software as he can, but is stuck with a few proprietary apps
• Is interested in getting things done, doesn't care about communities
• Has a dual-boot Ubuntu install at home, but has to use Windows at work, and his company use Fedora on servers.
• Hasn't ever committed to an Open Source project. He'd like to, but he's a bit scared, since a lot of these people are uber-geeks.

When Matthew asks a technical question on an Internet forum (mailing list, IRC, whatever), it's always very, very carefully phrased. He's savvy enough to know that badly-asked questions draw fire, and that's the last thing he wants. He takes a long time to ask them, and is always a little disappointed when they don't get answered.

Bill the OEM customer

• Works for a large OEM company
• Works with a custom version of Ubuntu built for their PCs
• Uses IE7. Company policy.
• Is very technical con specific issues, but doesn't care about communities