Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

By Jake Edge
May 28, 2015

The Kubuntu distribution—a KDE-focused version of Ubuntu—has been one of the more successful Ubuntu "flavors". It celebrated its ten year anniversary earlier this year, which makes it roughly six months younger than its parent. Some recent events have left some wondering about the future of the distribution—or at least its future under the Ubuntu umbrella.

Kubuntu founder Jonathan Riddell (who penned our retrospective linked above) apparently ran afoul of the Ubuntu Community Council (UCC) due to his persistence (some might say belligerence) in pursuing two questions. One of those was about Canonical's policy for redistributing binaries from the Ubuntu web site, while the other was about the accounting for some donations that had been made by users when downloading Ubuntu code. He had put these questions before the council at some point, seemingly a year or more back.

On May 20, the UCC evidently determined that Riddell's behavior had reached a point where it crossed a line of some kind and asked that he "step down as a Kubuntu Council member and from all Ubuntu leadership roles for the next 12 months". The reasons given for that request were a handful of disagreements over his interaction with and reaction to the UCC and its members. The UCC summarized the problems as follows:

In the last few weeks we have come to the conclusion that you have lost perspective on the bigger project and more importantly Ubuntu’s ideals. It became harder and harder to work with you, up to the point where several people involved in the conversations felt hurt and burned out. Whatever problems you saw and wanted to see resolved could have been dealt with in a much different way. No matter how much you felt was going wrong, the people you are talking to are still human beings.

These emails were sent in private to the participants and the Kubuntu Council (KC). For most of the following week, it would seem that KC members, especially Scott Kitterman, tried to convince the UCC that it had made a mistake and to get a dialog going to resolve the issue. When that failed, Kitterman released a batch of those emails, which was, he said, in keeping with the spirit of the Ubuntu governance goals: "Decisions regarding the Ubuntu distribution and community are taken in a fair and transparent fashion."

The message from the UCC to Riddell talks about problems over the past year, but particularly calls out the past month. Two threads started by Riddell in the ubuntu-community-team mailing list would appear to be at least part of the flash point for the council. A May 1 post reiterates Riddell's position on Canonical's intellectual property rights policy and, in particular, its requirement that redistribution of binary packages requires recompiling the source code.

The second thread started with a post from Riddell about accounting for donations that were made on the download page at ubuntu.com. From October 2012 to June 2013, users could choose to allocate their donation toward particular initiatives, one of which was to provide "better support for flavours like Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu". Riddell wondered how much money was collected and where it went. In both cases, and throughout both threads, he expressed frustration and unhappiness with the UCC and its actions—often in strong words. For example:

I'm at a loss on how to proceed on this matter as the community council seems unconcerned at the problem and Canonical is happy to carry on perpetrating the myth. I'd welcome any suggestions.

and

This is not a complex issue or one that is beyond that capabilities of the Ubuntu community to understand. Canonical are directly claiming that Ubuntu packages can not be freely shared. It is a very direct restriction of basic open source freedoms. The Ubuntu Community Council should be making a strong statement that the claim is untrue but they seem to be unwilling which makes me wonder how else can the Ubuntu community stand up for its own basic policies.

It turns out that both issues have been worked on by the UCC, though neither has been completed to Riddell's satisfaction—which is why he keeps bringing them up. But the council feels that it has done what it can. The IP rights statement is currently being discussed between Canonical's lawyers and those at the Software Freedom Law Center on behalf of the Free Software Foundation. According to Benjamin Kerensa, that discussion has been going on for several years but may be coming to a close soon. As far as the donations issue goes, UCC member Charles Profitt said that the council looked into it, recognized that Canonical had failed to account for that money properly, but "that Canonical did not violate the communities trust". So Riddell is beating two dead horses, at least from the perspective of the council.

There are a vast number of opinions of the council's actions, Riddell's actions, what each should have done, and what it means for Ubuntu and Kubuntu going forward. What is clear is that the council got fed up with Riddell continuing to stir up the issues (others might characterize it as "badgering the council") and decided to try to put a stop to it. But that action seems to have raised problems of its own, entirely separate from how one feels about Riddell's behavior. It has the look of a potential "constitutional crisis", though that term may not make any sense in Ubuntu's benevolent dictatorship governance model.

Riddell responded to the UCC request that he step away from leadership roles in Ubuntu for twelve months by rejecting it "because I disagree entirely with the accusations against me". But that led to a note from UCC member (and Ubuntu self-appointed benevolent dictator for life, SABDFL) Mark Shuttleworth, who clearly stood behind the UCC decision and, effectively, rejected Riddell's ability to reject the request:

It is therefore not a question of whether or not you accept the CC request to step down. This is a statement from the CC that we no longer recognise you as the leader of the Kubuntu community. This decision has been rather painful, but is judged necessary. Whether or not you agree with the position, it is the final position of the CC.

Since then, Riddell has quibbled with the characterization of him as a Kubuntu leader, which seems a bit silly given the history. In addition, though, the Kubuntu Council reaffirmed his position on it. That would seem to leave the two councils at loggerheads. Given that the SABDFL sits on one of them, it is fairly clear which will "win", but what does that mean for Kubuntu going forward?

As numerous people have pointed out, there is nothing really tying Kubuntu to Ubuntu other than its name. The Kubuntu trademark is owned by Canonical and is unlikely to be allowed to be used on a distribution based directly on, say, Debian. Certainly Canonical provides a great deal of infrastructure for the project and Kubuntu has made its place within the Ubuntu family (and the Ubuntu community, for that matter). From a technical perspective, though, all of those things are solvable.

Both Ubuntu and Kubuntu (and the project that makes its main distinguishing feature: KDE) are quite community-oriented, however. So it is not a simple technical question by any means. On the other hand, given the defiance of the UCC's edict by the Kubuntu Council (which was just recently elected by Kubuntu members), it is hard to see how the current community continues as Kubuntu unless the UCC relents. Already, Kitterman has indicated that he may put his energy elsewhere, for example.

If the Ubuntu community, its council, and its SABDFL want to continue to have a Kubuntu going forward, they should all carefully consider their next steps. Likewise, Kubuntu developers should carefully consider their options before taking any, potentially rash, steps. There would still seem to be room for reconciliation, but someone will have to take that first step.

One interesting result of all of this is that more details about the donations have been released. Of a bit less than $150,000 donated, $47,000 was dedicated to flavors, though how it was spent will never be known. If nothing else, getting that information is something of a win for Riddell.

to post comments

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted May 29, 2015 1:51 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (19 responses)

Kubuntu is not popular because it's KDE, but because it's KDE on top of the solid Ubuntu base.

If it was just that people wanted KDE they would just use Suse or one of the other distros that are more KDE centric than Ubuntu is.

Even though the technical differences between managing Kubuntu and Kdebian would not be that big (Kubuntu doesn't depend on much, if any, of the Ubuntu code), the difference to users and their support/upgrade desires is very significant.

Abandoning all Ubuntu users in the hope that they would follow to Kdebian (and either downgrading all the other packages on their systems to drop to the stable version or running unstable) would be a great disservice to the users, and is unlikely to make those users rave about the benefits of the change.

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted May 29, 2015 5:27 UTC (Fri) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link] (4 responses)

What users want really isn't part of the consideration in this matter. What matters is are there enough people willing to do the work necessary inside the social and political environment of the Ubuntu project to keep Kubuntu viable. If the current group of developers just walked away enmasse in protest, is there enough manpower to keep Kubuntu going? If there are not, then the work won't get done and Kubuntu won't be a viable technical deliverable. Really doesn't matter if Kdebian pops up on the radar or not.

I don't think a collective walkout in protest is going to happen, and nobody is agitating for that sort of thing either. Scott has clearly been losing motivation to work on Kubuntu for awhile, and he's been public about that in mailinglist posts over the last year, so I think this is just sort of the last thing and he is taking his exit as graceful as he can. But unless something changes to try to repair some of the damage, more individual kubuntu developers might find over the next few months they are demotivated enough to just walk away. They might feel like they are letting users and their peers down if they walk away... but at the end of the day... if its not fun to do the work you aren't going to do it as a volunteer. This is the place were Scott is right now.

And to make things more complicated.... considering how strongly the KC has rallied around their peer who was representing them in dealings with the CC, this isn't as simple as a rogue developer who went nuclear over some pet issue. The KC has made it clear that Riddell was working on their collective behalf and whatever problem the CC had with Riddell is a problem they have with the KC as a group. I fully expect that other KC members are going to cross over the same boundaries Riddell did as these issues continue to move forward...since its not obvious to the KC members, who will be replacing Riddell in comms with the CC, exactly what Riddell did wrong, you can't expect them to avoid doing the same things themselves. Riddell was not a lone developer speaking just for his interests, he was actively representing a group, and that complicates things greatly. Because if the group he represented, the community he represented, thought his behavior they have seen was okay... by saying Riddell crossed a line, means that the cultural norms of the KC have crossed a line. How exactly does Ubuntu as a project deal with that? Here is where the CC's choice to penalize Riddell without first reaching out to the KC for arbitration over his behavior. They made an example of Riddell, instead of entering into a dialogue to resync normative behavior between the two groups.

Luckily this isn't a nomination period for the CC, as this is the sort of issue which would result in nominations that Mark would have to seriously consider using his veto power on. Which would just add another layer of pain to this entire mess. But I do look forward to seeing Riddell's name show up as a nomination for the next CC nomination period. Someone will be cheeky enough to throw his name in the ring.

This is just a terrible mess.

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted May 29, 2015 6:30 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (2 responses)

> What users want really isn't part of the consideration in this matter.

If a project doesn't have users, why bother working on it?

I'm glad that you don't speak for KDE/QT/Kubuntu, the responses about the problems people are having with 15.04 are bad enough, this sort of attitude that only developers matter, users don't is something i would have expected to come from Gnome, not KDE.

the most reliable explanation I've seen for 15.04 was that they decided that they couldn't continue to support KDE4 and KDE5 at the same time due to lack of manpower, so they decided to force people over now.

> What matters is are there enough people willing to do the work necessary inside the social and political environment of the Ubuntu project to keep Kubuntu viable.

That matters, but poisoning the well blocks future developers, however good it makes the current ones feel.

Do you think that Ubuntu _needs_ kbubuntu/lubuntu/etc? it benefits a bit, but it also costs to support them. Even with external volunteers doing the coding, there's overhead in coordination. Remember that this whole fuss is about non-code things.

If the kubuntu developers storm off with their toys, it won't hurt ubuntu nearly as much as it will hurt KDE. If you think the anger over 4.0 was bad and lingering, it will pale compared to what storming off and stranding users with a broken release would do.

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted May 29, 2015 11:59 UTC (Fri) by cevin666 (guest, #960) [Link] (1 responses)

As a pureblood user I think I should remind you that whatever your feelings are in the end you don't have a vote in what way other people spend there scarce spare time. You can't expect a volunteer developer to keep on working on a project he feels not happy with. So no, in this case what users want really isn't part of the consideration in this matter. This sense of entitlement show so often by my fellow users really drives me nuts.

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted May 29, 2015 20:44 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

> As a pureblood user I think I should remind you that whatever your feelings are in the end you don't have a vote in what way other people spend there scarce spare time.

I don't know if you are referring to me or you as a "pureblood user" (whatever that means)

no, I don't dictate how people spend their time, and they don't dictate what software I choose to use, test, debug, advocate and train others on.

software only used by the people coding it is pretty maningless (outside of that small group)

Every person who is a 'developer' for one piece of software is also a 'mere user' of other software.

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted Jun 4, 2015 7:55 UTC (Thu) by callegar (guest, #16148) [Link]

> What users want really isn't part of the consideration in this matter.

Unfortunately, it also works the other way round. This matter is certainly not much part of users' consideration right now. I believe many users are now baffled by what is going on and believe that all the time and energy that is going in this discussion had better been put elsewhere, because the current kubuntu 15.04 is not up to their daily work anyway and is pushing them into doubt about what to do with their machines when kubuntu 14.10 goes out of life. Users who are concerned with productivity now have this priority of deciding what to do to minimize disruption: (i) move to ubuntu proper? (ii) reinstall down to kubuntu 14.04 LTS? (iii) reinstall to mint/cinnamon to keep the same type of desktop arrangement without downgrading everything? (incidentally note that if users go path (iii) this means that ubuntu overall is being damaged).

I have a feeling that many users perceive that kubuntu has lost pragmatism, is suffering a "not invented now" syndrome and is somehow breaking the pact with that part of users that also work for the project by spending time in reporting bugs, creating test cases, finding workarounds or patches, etc.

I also have a feeling that misaligning so badly (or portraying as so misaligned) the users and developers concerns will not help the kubuntu cause.

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted May 29, 2015 6:33 UTC (Fri) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link] (11 responses)

It would be just Debian with KDE installed, not Kdebian.

https://pkg-kde.alioth.debian.org/

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted May 29, 2015 8:44 UTC (Fri) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (1 responses)

But this is essentially what Kubuntu is too. You can just do "apt-get install kubuntu-desktop" on any ubuntu install.

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted May 29, 2015 8:54 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

close, they also duplicate a substantial number of Ubuntu utilities to make a functionally-equivalent one that is branded as KDE.

They also create the kubuntu install media, deciding what packages to put on it, etc.

They do a fair amount of the work that maintaining a distro from scratch would be, but benefit substantially from the packages that Ubuntu maintains and tests as well.

If it was just installing the KDE packages, how much maintenance work would be needed?

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted May 29, 2015 8:48 UTC (Fri) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (8 responses)

The "news" on that debian page stops in 2013 and there is no KDE 5. Seems a fair bit behind Kubuntu, then?

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted May 29, 2015 13:10 UTC (Fri) by kitterma (guest, #4448) [Link]

Debian has a substantially different release model than Ubuntu (and it's flavors such as Kubuntu). If you always want the latest and greatest version, Debian is not the distro you are looking for.

Debian just had a release (Debian 8.0 "Jessie") and is in the early stages of development of the next release ("Stretch"). What's in Debian now is just about exactly what one would expect at this point in the release cycle. Once Qt 5.4.2 is released and in Unstable, Kf5 will follow shortly and then I expect Plasma 5.

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted May 29, 2015 13:31 UTC (Fri) by lisandropm (subscriber, #69317) [Link] (3 responses)

Speaking as part of Debian's Qt-KDE team's members, we are just lazy to get the news section updated :)

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted May 29, 2015 18:45 UTC (Fri) by tuomasjjrasanen (guest, #86050) [Link]

The classic problem of documentation, people are too lazy to keep it updated. Often outdated documentation is worse than no documentation at all.

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted Jun 4, 2015 6:11 UTC (Thu) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link] (1 responses)

I'd get rid of the news section or make it automatically updated based on the contents of experimental/unstable/testing/stable/oldstable.

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted Jun 4, 2015 14:07 UTC (Thu) by lisandropm (subscriber, #69317) [Link]

The idea is interesting but not easy to apply. Currently the KDE 4 stack is comprised of different versions, as some have already been declared "finished" in order to start the work in KF5 (KDE + Qt5).

Anyways we welcome anyone willing to try to create a better experience for our users :-)

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted Jun 4, 2015 14:08 UTC (Thu) by einar (guest, #98134) [Link] (2 responses)

I know this is trite, but there is no KDE5 and never will be. The offerings from KDE (the community) are applications, libraries, and the workspace, each of these released independently and on different schedules.

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted Jun 4, 2015 14:45 UTC (Thu) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]

Yes, it is trite. There is a Frameworks 5 and a Plasma 5 which constitute what most people mean by the desktop environment (the "DE" in "KDE"). Obviously you can run what applications you like on top, including GTK/GNOME, Motif or Xlib. Why do I get the feeling that this trite "there is no KDE 5" response is designed to deflect questions?

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted Jun 5, 2015 7:20 UTC (Fri) by jezuch (subscriber, #52988) [Link]

> I know this is trite, but there is no KDE5 and never will be. The offerings from KDE (the community) are applications, libraries, and the workspace

Yep. And this is how it works: you explain it patiently, people listen, nod politely, and say "Whatever. KDE5." :)

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted May 29, 2015 14:33 UTC (Fri) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]

Slightly off-topic: Any RTFM on what it takes to create an Ubuntu-derived distribution that does not use the Ubuntu mark? If takes too much work: is there any work done on reducing that work? Something along the lines of the guidelines for Fedora.

(Off-topic, because Kubuntu uses the Ubuntu mark merely due to its name)

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted Jun 4, 2015 18:20 UTC (Thu) by sudhirkhanger (guest, #100192) [Link]

That is accurate. I am an Android developer and Google only supports Ubuntu. In fact Ubuntu 14.04 is the only Linux distribution that has all Android Emulator images working. I also tried Tanglu which is directly based on Debian and Android Emulator didn't work on it either. This forces me to continue to use Ubuntu.

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted May 29, 2015 4:20 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (7 responses)

I think the advice to carefully consider their options before taking any, potentially rash, steps is kind of tardy. kubuntu devs already made evrything they could to make sure other side will feel as wronged as possible.

A week ago KC constitution said: Submitted on Fri, 2012-06-15 and 3. Kubuntu is part of the Ubuntu project and the council will abide by decisions of the Ubuntu Community Council. (check with cache of your favorite search engine).

Today is says Submitted on Fri, 2012-06-15 but 3. Kubuntu is part of the Ubuntu project and the council will abide by legitimate decisions of the Ubuntu Community Council. and people are arguing that UCC decision was somehow not legitimate.

Further investigation shows that yes, that change was, indeed, approved and silently implemented by May 26, 2015. Now, check the dates of from Kitterman's dump. See anything interesting?

It's hard to call that change and re-instation of Jonathan Riddell as anything but rash steps. WDYT?

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted May 29, 2015 12:56 UTC (Fri) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link] (2 responses)

I think you made your mind up and I think you haven't responded to the various replies I gave you elsewhere. I think you're seeing things rather one-sided. Anyway, KC doesn't like the UC and you think they're being "rash" and are a bit suggestive that nobody should think otherwise. Good enough summary?

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted May 31, 2015 19:01 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (1 responses)

I've not seen any replies to me specifically but I've seen your messages where you assert that UCC did something for wrong reason. Perhaps, but it does not change the fact that they had the right to do what they did. They even gave KC the chance to save the face!

Instead KC have gone rogue, refused to cooperate, changed the constitution and tried to defy the UCC. I don't see how this reaction could be considered constructive. It looks more like a temper tantrum of 3 year olds and less like a reaction of a responsible group.

In the end of the day Ubuntu is not a democracy and they knew about it from the day one.

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted May 31, 2015 22:07 UTC (Sun) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link]

Right or not, it was pretty stupid to unilaterally decide to boot one of the community elected members of the KC. It would have avoided a lot of mess if they had been smart enough to ask for a new interface between them - the rest of riddels' leadership work doesn't harm them either so it doesn't seem their business to kick him out of all that rather than just request him to lay off one of his duties.

What I am saying is that they might have the right and reasons to do this but they could have handled it better.

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted May 29, 2015 18:18 UTC (Fri) by Fats (guest, #14882) [Link]

What I see is two sides who both think they are right and the other side is wrong; each calling the other names. You know the pot and the kettle...
Fortunately, I don't care.

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted May 30, 2015 6:09 UTC (Sat) by patrick_g (subscriber, #44470) [Link] (2 responses)

> Further investigation shows that yes, that change was, indeed, approved and silently implemented by May 26, 2015.

Point 13 of the Kubuntu Council Constitution :
> Revisions to the constitution must be pre-announced on the kubuntu-devel mailing list, must be pre-announced to the Ubuntu Community Council and other stakeholders, and must be approved by a vote of the Kubuntu Council.

So apparently the insertion of word "legitimate" is a breach of the KC constitution. Why did they do that?

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted May 30, 2015 9:57 UTC (Sat) by dan_a (guest, #5325) [Link] (1 responses)

It was announced to the kubuntu-devel (https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/kubuntu-devel/2015-May/...) and to the CC (https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-community-team/2...) and was approved by a vote of the KC (http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2015/05/26/%23kubuntu-devel.htm...) - it doesn't look like it was in breach of the constitution.

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted May 30, 2015 16:38 UTC (Sat) by patrick_g (subscriber, #44470) [Link]

From a formal point of view you're right. I stand corrected and the letter of the KC constitution was not breached.
However, in the emails and IRC logs, I can't see a diff provided and nobody explain what is the change (insertion of just one strategic word) and what is the rational for this change.

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted May 29, 2015 4:35 UTC (Fri) by sgclark (guest, #100813) [Link] (3 responses)

I think I need to read this again, because it is not sitting with me well at all. But as a Kubuntu developer that has to face this whole thing and "avoid" this "rash" decision you claim, it seems very one sided. Those that made their decision did so for very good reason. I have taken an extremely strong stand that this whole thing was not handled with any level of professionalism at all. I see nowhere in this article that the Kubuntu Council was not given any opportunity to try and resolve this issue. Decisions were made behind closed doors, and last I checked, this is NOT the open source, FLOSS way that I have grown to love. You know you love something when you spend every waking hour dedicating your life to it. Please, if you are going to write on topic that affects so many more than just an individual, take into consideration there is so much more to the story than your telling. Jonathan has been nothing short of wonderful to me, and many other people. No human is perfect. This should have been handled much differently, I don't care who you are.
Scarlett

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted May 29, 2015 18:46 UTC (Fri) by jzb (editor, #7867) [Link] (2 responses)

"Decisions were made behind closed doors, and last I checked, this is NOT the open source, FLOSS way that I have grown to love."

Not to defend the CC (or, for that matter, disagree) but one small comment on this -- many open source communities have governance policies that allow a group to discuss actions around individuals in private. If you're going to be discussing a complaint about a person or persons, and the decision-making rests in the hands of a board, council, etc. -- then I don't see an advantage to dragging someone through the mud *publicly*.

Not saying this overall situation was handled correctly, but I generally agree with the idea that if the council is going to discuss someone's suitability for a position, it should be done privately.

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted May 29, 2015 20:24 UTC (Fri) by sgclark (guest, #100813) [Link] (1 responses)

Fair enough. I still have firm belief that the Kubuntu Council should have been consulted first
and and least given opportunity to handle the situation before it turned into this mess though.
Cheers,
Scarlett

Kubuntu and Ubuntu at odds

Posted May 31, 2015 22:02 UTC (Sun) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link]

That is the one thing nobody has disagreed with. Whatever Jonathan did or didn't do, and whatever constitutional right the CC has, not first consulting the KC before deciding to boot one of their community elected members wasn't smart.

Divorces are horrible

Posted May 29, 2015 10:08 UTC (Fri) by sdalley (subscriber, #18550) [Link] (2 responses)

Just want to say that, whatever else, I'm really thankful for the Kubuntu team, Ubuntu, Johnathan Riddell, Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical, KDE, Krita, etc etc. I've benefited immensely from the whole lot of you. I've just donated $50 to the "Ubuntu Community Projects" slider on http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/contribute .

The recent exchanges between Kubuntu, UCC and Canonical too, bear all the signs of really talented, passionate and hardworking people getting really stressed out. Remarks that would be accepted in good faith after a nice holiday are provoking suspicion, argument and rancour.

Please please please, think for a moment, about all the reasons that Kubuntu and Ubuntu have to be thankful for each other, the benefits of symbiosis. Don't burn bridges and people - divorces are horrible. Take a good holiday and think again.

Please?

Divorces are horrible

Posted May 29, 2015 21:47 UTC (Fri) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (1 responses)

Doesn't one of the nits KC has have to do with how money donated in such a way is utilized? No transparency on how the money is split or possibly even how much there is or some such.

Divorces are horrible

Posted Jun 4, 2015 14:03 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]

As of now, the situation is much better. If you trust that Canonical is internally handling the money correctly... the money(after taxes) going in via that slider is put into the Canonical community team budget to give out. The process by which to request money is documented and the cash flow in and out is reported on a quarterly basis now. There is no external audit process in place for this money to make sure the totals coming in match what is landing in the Canonical community team's budget. So you will have to trust Canonical not skimming money off the top. If you don't trust them, don't use those sliders.

The biggest question right now is what happened to the year's worth of donations in the first year..when the sliders were more granular and mentioned flavors and upstream explicitly as different categories. We'll never know how that money from that year was actually used. We can know into which internal Canonical team budgets that money went to...but that is as far as we can know. Even if a group of people(with standing, ie. not me I didn't contribute) press this legally and try to make the case that there was actionable misrepresentation or a fraud or whatever you want to try to stick...all you can hope for is to slap Canonical on the wrist with a civil court judgement for being incompetent. You'll never get that money redistributed. I would not encourage pressing a legal case. The legal costs would consume pretty much the amount of money we are talking about. And I think Canonical has learned their lesson. The process is better now, that's the main thing. Those quarterly reports go a hell of a long way. Now they just need an audit process..at some cadence.

-jef

He does have a point

Posted Jun 4, 2015 9:30 UTC (Thu) by ksandstr (guest, #60862) [Link]

Both issues are certainly unresolved as far as practical fact is concerned. One of the issues has been put on a historically indefinite backburner, and this is the basis for calling it adequately closed to the degree of allowing things to proceed as they were. The other issue is said to have been resolved with reference to an entirely intransparent investigation of which we hear only, to paraphrase, "we've become assured that they've acted trustworthily". There's notably no means to verify either the justification of this outcome, or even that such an investigation had occurred.

These things smell of autocracy and corruption, respectively. The former is reinforced by how this matter seems to have been resolved by means of the Glorious Leader's authority. For the latter, the Kubuntu project seems quite well justified to demand complete unintermediated transparency-- it's a question of potential embezzlement after all, and this sort of accusation doesn't go away with handwaving and "you can trust us" especially when any trust seems to have been lost years ago already.