Loco Council, or an alternative idea of what it could be :)

[Martin Albisetti]

On 9/28/07, Jono Bacon <jono at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> I find this stunning. It often amazes me how much cynicism people have
> to companies and individuals who support Open Source implicitly.
> Canonical has invested millions and millions of dollars in Ubuntu, and
> from the outset produced governance structures that mean the community
> is inherently open and governed by all - the concept of the CC and the
> many councils has helped remove the worry of Canonical taking over from
> day 1. In addition to this, Canonical spends a fortune on hosting, sends
> out millions of free CDs, employs a great many staff who work on Ubuntu
> in the community full-time and affords a number of other expenses. Yet,
> despite this investment, and despite the deliberately open governance
> structures, the company is still met with cynicism and that it is a
> "black box". I am not suggesting you believe every word that comes out
> of Canonical, but maybe a little trust is in order?

This has turned into a long and complicated thread in which I think
everybody has valid points.
While I agree Canonical has proven many times it is committing much
more then any other company to the community, I think the concerns
that arising in this thread are mainly due to more and more people
having invested a lot of time and money into the project too, and are
having a hard time envisioning a long term commitment with the current
state of some decision-making parts of the Ubuntu structure.
It's obvious that sometimes what Canonical needs/wants isn't what the
community needs/wants, and I think that's perfectly fine, we just have
to find a balance everyone is comfortable with.

I don't want to speak for anyone, but I'm sure we are all beyond
grateful for all the time and money Canonical puts into the project
(that, incidentally, they started), and this is just a mere reflection
of people wanting to commit even more to the project as a whole.

I'm not sure on how to organize all these ideas into something useful,
but I definitely think we should.

The LoCo Council, if implemented properly, seems like a good step towards that.


Cheers,


Martin

P.S. While I said I was "away", I'm still following these subjects closely  :D