What's Canonical thinking about Bazaar?

[John Szakmeister]

On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 2:31 AM, Martin Pool <mbp at canonical.com> wrote:
[snip]
> Canonical wants to (in some kind of order of generality) get more
> people onto free operating systems, to make tools to build and ship
> those systems more efficiently, to build healthy communities around
> those tools and to get recognition for the work we put into free
> software.

Does this go against having Bazaar run well on non-free operating
systems?  To be honest, that's one real concern I have.

>> Community-owned means (among other things, this list is neither
>> complete nor necessarily 100% accurate in the details):
>
> Thanks for sending it though, this is something we can get to grips with.
>
>> 1.  Community members "feel ownership" of the project so that they
>>    identify with it: they're proud of using the code, they're proud
>>    of their contributions, they want to meet the core people, they
>>    advocate the product fervently to acquaintances.

After reading this long thread, I feel the need to ask the question:
what's the goal?  Do you want more outside contributors or just more
users?  Do you want more corporate involvement?  What do you want to
see happen?  Who makes up the community you're interested in having?

If you want this to be a Canonical product that has several outside
contributors, then branding Bazaar that way won't affect your goals.
If you want more corporate involvement, then that could be an issue.

If you want more outside contributors, then I think there needs to be
more conversation occurring in a place that's accessible by all.  I
was really happy a year ago to see a fair amount of discussion on the
mailing list.  But in the past year, that seems to have declined.  I
feel more out of the loop on that front, and like I have less
influence in getting some issue addressed.  I realize you need to talk
in person, on the phone, etc.  But it would be nice for some of that
to filter it's way back to the list.  Especially discussions about big
issues you're seeing, planning milestones, etc.  I don't necessarily
need to contribute to that conversation (although I would like to!),
but I'd at least like to see that discussion and understand the
project's motivations.

I also liked the fact that discussions around potential merges was
visible.  I've subscribed to the merge proposals, but I'm not seeing
much there... and there is stuff landing on trunk (I might just be
missing something).  From a developer perspective, it helps me to know
how you want to see contributions to your project.  What are the hot
button issues with getting something in, and what the process is.

I'd also prefer to *not* have strong branding (I want to feel like the
source is the community's, not Canonical's).  And, to be honest, I
would like to see more affirmation that Windows is going supported at
the same level as Linux, given that Canonical is strongly interested
in another OS being successful. :-)  That's a bit of a separate topic,
but it does affect the scope of the community you wish to reach.

OTOH, I love the fact that Canonical is openly behind this.  As a
user, I feel like big problems will get addressed, because someone
with a vested interest has a stake in Bazaar's success.  I think
that's really helped Subversion, and can really help Bazaar.  And to
be fair, I don't think there is a serious issue anywhere (I believe
Canonical is well-intentioned), and have spent time contributing to
bzr-svn, subvertpy, qbzr, and the documentation.  I would like to see
the situation improve though.  And to me, it's all about
communication, and to a lesser degree, the branding.

That's my 2 cents.  I look forward to making more contributions to the
Bazaar ecosystem!  And I really appreciate all the performance
improvements over the last year!

-John