Project Timelord -- Initial consideration

[Scott Kitterman]

On Tue, 3 Nov 2009 08:58:18 +0100 Mark Kretschmann <kretschmann at kde.org> 
wrote:
>On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 9:21 PM, Jonathan Thomas <echidnaman at gmail.com> 
wrote:
>> Hello fellow Kubuntu developers,
>>
>> Kubuntu, as we know, is a fairly good KDE distribution. (Otherwise we 
would
>> not be here reading this mailing list) However, things are not perfect. 
In
>> fact, things could be much better.
>>
>> "But what is Project Timelord?", you may ask, "and how does it relate to
>> Kubuntu's problems?" Both are good questions. Project Timelord is the
>> brainchild of the Kubuntu developer legend Harald Sitter; the 
culmination of
>> several weeks of brainstorming by a handful of Kubuntu developers, 
focused
>> towards identifying problems Kubuntu currently faces and solutions for 
these
>> problems.
>>
>> And now, we wish to bring Project Timelord to the attention of the 
greater
>> Kubuntu development community for input. You can find the internal 
developer
>> release announcement that outlines the purpose and proposed solutions of
>> Project Timelord at: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfc7xjfj_18g8k5ztg4
>>
>> If it is decided that we would like to adopt Project Timelord as a goal 
to
>> work towards over the next few cycles, we can start towards prioritizing 
the
>> solutions and work towards forming a roadmap to implementing these 
solutions.
>> This way we can all stay in the know of what is going on even if we are 
unable
>> to attend UDS, and those attending UDS will have a unified goal to work
>> towards as they flesh out the implementation details for Kubuntu 10.04, 
Lucid
>> Lynx.
>>
>> The purpose of this email is to generate discussion to determine whether 
the
>> Kubuntu developer community wishes to adopt this plan or not, as well as 
to
>> provide input on the brainstormed solutions. Until it is decided, we 
would
>> politely ask you to not announce the existence of the project to the 
general
>> public. We would like to hear your thoughts on the initiative here, 
though. :)
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>> Jonathan "JontheEchidna" Thomas.
>
>I'm a bit late in the game, but I would like to express my support for
>Project Timelord. While I think that we must be happy for the support
>that Canonical is giving Kubuntu, their level of support is limited,
>and it also also comes with lot of baggage from Ubuntu, including for
>instance Apport and PulseAudio.
>
>I feel that Canonical runs Kubuntu without the right amount of
>attention it could provide, which is also very evident in the
>promotion sector. While I am not a packager (I'm a KDE application
>developer), I do offer to help out with this project where I can,
>including giving technical advice, or providing other work (for
>example promotion). Naturally my personal focus is also on improving
>the environment for developers, e.g. by adding current versions of
>important development tools, such as Qt Creator.

One the development level, I think this improved significantly in this 
cycle.  Where we had transition problems (e.g.network manager API changes) 
we had help from the larger Ubuntu development team.  This has not been the 
case in the past.

This isn't to say it couldn't still be better, but we should recognize the 
progress.

In Kubuntu, the community has a lot more control over what gets done than 
in Ubuntu.  I, for one, would not want so much additional help from 
Canonical that they changed that.

Scott K