On projects and their goals

Posted Apr 6, 2010 10:41 UTC (Tue) by ewan (guest, #5533)
Parent article: On projects and their goals

On the second charge: undoubtedly Mark Shuttleworth's ability to direct Ubuntu by decree will be irksome to some. The "behind closed doors" nature of some Ubuntu development is also annoying and detrimental to the creation of a true developer community.

It's not the "behind closed doors" nature of development that's the problem, notably other distributions (for example RHEL) that are even more 'closed' don't get this sort of flak. The problem is doing development in secret while claiming to be a community distribution. What irks people is being deliberately mislead.

On projects and their goals

Posted Apr 6, 2010 13:17 UTC (Tue) by kh (guest, #19413) [Link] (4 responses)

The (constant) Ubuntu complaints are interesting to me in that it seems the loudest complaints and cries of hypocrisy come from people who not only do not contribute to Ubuntu, but are not even really users. I lost count of the number of times I have read complaints that Ubuntu will only be around so long because of financial concerns from people who admittedly do not use Ubuntu (at least as their primary distribution.) It says a lot about the core Ubuntu team that they remain as thick skinned and patient as they do.

On projects and their goals

Posted Apr 6, 2010 14:14 UTC (Tue) by seyman (subscriber, #1172) [Link] (2 responses)

> I lost count of the number of times I have read complaints that Ubuntu will only be around so long because of financial concerns from people who admittedly do not use Ubuntu

Keep in mind that the financial health of Canonical/Ubuntu affects the entire Linux ecosystem, not only Ubuntu users.

On projects and their goals

Posted Apr 6, 2010 16:50 UTC (Tue) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (1 responses)

>Keep in mind that the financial health of Canonical/Ubuntu affects the entire Linux ecosystem, not only Ubuntu users.

Only to the extent that Ubuntu users are now a large fraction of the ecosystem. How would non-Ubuntu users be worse off, were Canonical to vanish today, than they were pre-Ubuntu?

On projects and their goals

Posted Apr 6, 2010 17:38 UTC (Tue) by seyman (subscriber, #1172) [Link]

> Only to the extent that Ubuntu users are now a large fraction of the ecosystem.

Sounds sufficient that they be allowed to express their worries (OP heavily implies this isn't the case).

> How would non-Ubuntu users be worse off, were Canonical to vanish today, than they were pre-Ubuntu?

The non-Ubuntu users will be the ones who have to explains to former Ubuntu users that the distribution that they were using was a commercially-backed one, not community-backed (although I assume recent events have opened their eyes). They will be the ones who have to convince canonical customers (the paying kind) that they should keep on using FLOSS and not go back to the "safe choice" and they'll be the one who have to convince the IT media that Ubuntu != Linux and that Canonical's downfall doesn't mean the Linux ecosystem itself isn't dead.

On projects and their goals

Posted Apr 6, 2010 16:33 UTC (Tue) by ewan (guest, #5533) [Link]

the loudest complaints and cries of hypocrisy come from people who not only do not contribute to Ubuntu, but are not even really users.

Well that's hardly a shock is it? That people that either don't like the distribution, or don't approve of the way the project is managed might choose to not use or contribute to it.

On avoidance of alleged hypocrisy

Posted Apr 6, 2010 16:17 UTC (Tue) by robla (subscriber, #424) [Link] (3 responses)

So, if person A is a jerk and proudly declares that they are a jerk, and
person B is less of a jerk, but claims to be good person, then clearly
person A is less irksome than person B?

As a community, we spend an awful lot of energy attacking those that almost
get it right. It's not a flattering aspect of our culture.

On avoidance of alleged hypocrisy

Posted Apr 6, 2010 17:01 UTC (Tue) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link] (2 responses)

It's about managing and communicating expectations. Set expectations high and fail to meet them in a personal relationship or in a team setting and you will have disappointed someone. Do that in a business with a paying customer and not only do you disappoint but you lose a customer, and the income.

Canonical's problem with setting high expectations on community participation and failure to communicate a design roadmap where these UI changes make sense in context are not insurmountable. I seriously doubt a significant number of people are going to walk away over button placement. I also doubt that they are going to just let it go either..as they are emotionally invested in the Ubuntu desktop experience...and that is exactly what Canonical wanted in the Ubuntu community..emotional investment.

But I have to wonder, does Canonical do the same with its paying support customers and business partners? Set expectations too high and fail to deliver? You can't get it "mostly" right in business.. you have to execute and you have to deliver on your promises. If you under deliver on an over promise when money exchanges hands, that's a significantly more difficult situation to repair then what we are seeing in the dust up over the unfathomable decision making for moving the window buttons.

-jef

On avoidance of alleged hypocrisy

Posted Apr 6, 2010 17:56 UTC (Tue) by robla (subscriber, #424) [Link] (1 responses)

Did Canonical set expectations too high, or did everyone else have
expectations set too high in spite of Canonical setting them appropriately?

On avoidance of alleged hypocrisy

Posted Apr 6, 2010 18:22 UTC (Tue) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]

That's a very good question. I think what's happened here is there is a conflict in the general messaging about the role of community input in Ubuntu development and the distinct lack of messaging about how community participate in the design process in particular.

The design process is discordant with established patterns of gathering feedback in decision making Ubuntu has been using. Canonical has built up expectations on driving community feedback early for a release at at UDS events. Were design roadmaps for Lucid discussed at the last UDS? Was there even a discussion about a usability test plan if Canonical is sincere about wanting quantifiable usability data about design changes?

If you look back at all the discussions at UDS.. things like the discussion over dropping gimp and adding pitivi...that discussion was done in the open before the changes went into effect. The window button ordering was probably about as impactful (and heated) as dropping gimp..but no UDS discussion...no reasoning put forward that makes consistent sense with a set of understood benefits even if its not agreeable to opponents of the change.

The design process leading up to the button change stands outside of the established expectation that plans for impactful changes for a release get discussed at UDS. Finally telling users that the design team is looking for quantitative usability testing data from end-users several hundred comments deep into a bug report about the change is NOT the way you do data driven design.

If Shuttleworth is serious about wanting data and using crowdsourcing mechanisms to construct viable usability test methodologies, as he finally got around to saying in the bug report 20 days after it was filed, then he sure as hell should have communicated at UDS to give everyone a heads up about the role the design team wants the community to take.

-jef

On projects and their goals

Posted Apr 8, 2010 13:46 UTC (Thu) by jengelh (guest, #33263) [Link]

What irks me more is that people who are being misled don't react to it, e.g. vote with their feet.