Development, Community Involvment and Ubuntu Information (was Re: Alternative Init System)

[john levin]

On 2 Mar 2006, at 22:39, Tristan Wibberley wrote:

> Reinhard Tartler wrote:
>> Tristan Wibberley wrote:
>>> The wiki is terrible for discussion, and long CC lists are  
>>> unmanageable. Can we have a mailing list for ubuntu community  
>>> members to discuss their development plans, then they can be  
>>> posted to ubuntu-devel when a solution presents itself.
>> What's wrong with the sounder list? It gets less traffic than
>> ubuntu-devel, and fits description.
>
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ describes sounder as  
> being the "Ubuntu community random chit-chat list" and ubuntu-devel  
> as being for "Ubuntu Developer Discussion". From these  
> descriptions, the alternative init design and implementation  
> discussion would be ontopic for ubuntu-devel and offtopic for sounder.
>
> http://www.ubuntu.com/community/lists says that "The ubuntu-devel  
> mailing list is for highly-technical discussions and implementation  
> details regarding current development on Ubuntu." I "current"ly  
> have 562 lines towards a prototype, which I have written in the odd  
> spare hours, and I am continuing to work on it solely for the  
> benefit of Ubuntu until I have something useful.
>
> I find the topics of the various ubuntu lists to be very opaque,  
> constantly waiting to find out whether some new subject is allowed  
> or not. The lists I have used seem to be extremely low volume  
> except ubuntu-users, and I suspect it is because very little seems  
> to be on topic, or very few community members feel comfortable  
> contributing. I would appreciate some clearer direction before I  
> post, instead of finding out afterwards all the time that I have  
> wandered off of the unwritten limitation of topicality.
>
> <tongue-in-cheek>Or perhaps, when the listinfo says that ubuntu- 
> devel is for "Ubuntu Developer Discussion" does it mean only  
> certified "Ubuntu Developers" should be discussing these sorts of  
> things, and that "Ubuntu community random chit-chat" means  
> community members should stay put in sounder?</tongue-in-cheek>
>

I don't see why that should be tongue in cheek. Why shouldn't Ubuntu  
developers have a mailing list for their own purposes? The Fridge ml  
isn't open, and I'd say that given both the ubuntu schedule, and the  
rather impatient replies to misplaced, but genuine, questions/bug  
reports, there is a good argument for a private dev-work list.  
Openness is all well and good, but the present arrangement isn't  
working, which makes openness beside the point.

Related to this is the general paucity of information about Ubuntu.  
What I learn about Ubuntu, in terms of organisation, plans, direction  
etc, seems to be by accident and luck. Pity the newcomer who,  
motivated by the best will in the world, jumps into the dev list and  
then gets sent elsewhere. If a considerable number of people are  
making this mistake, then it might be Ubuntu's communications at  
fault. I'm on the dev list, not to participate, I don't feel I have  
anything to contribute there, but just to get a feel of what's going  
on from the horses (developers) mouths. Ubuntu traffic got  
overwhelmed through sheer volume - I'd love to see this resurrected,  
with more than one person at the helm, and with some Canonical  
support for simply digesting the enormous amount of emails that get  
sent. If Debian can do their weekly bulletin, then it can't be an  
impossible task. At the moment, there seem to be a number of  
bulletins - desktop report, motu report, doc team, etc - but none  
from 'high command' themselves.

John