Canonical at Solutions Linux in Paris

Fri Jan 11 15:05:58 GMT 2008

El vie, 11-01-2008 a las 13:43 +0000, Jono Bacon escribió:
> Hi Yann,
> 
> > I just learned that Canonical was silver sponsor of Solutions Linux in
> > Paris, and that Canonical is going to have a big booth there, as a
> > silver sponsor.
> > So we are going to have two stands there: Ubuntu-fr, and Ubuntu. The
> > Ubuntu being in fact Canonical's one. 
> > 
> > So, Canonical guys, let me remember you this very clearly:
> > Ubuntu is a COMMUNITY distribution. Ubuntu in france is made by
> > Ubuntu-fr, and all the community around Ubuntu in France and
> > french-speaking countries, packaging, documenting, moderating. The
> > fact that Canonical decided to make its own booth (of course we never
> > received any notification of all this on the admin list - so far so
> > good for the communication) shows that: 
> > a/ they don't trust the community to represent properly the
> > distribution
> > b/ They use the Ubuntu brand to sell Canonical without clearly stating
> > it is a canonical booth
> > c/ They are just not able to communicate or to work close to a
> > community 
> > 
> > You know what? Ubuntu-fr has been at solutions Linux for the past 3
> > years. Now that thanks to the amazing work of the whole community we
> > are getting a wide recognition in France, and Canonical starts to show
> > interest - how? by just saying "thank you, but now it's business". 
> > 
> > What pisses me off is that it was exactly the same at linux tag 2
> > years ago. I made the remark , I got told "well yeah we need to
> > improve that".
> > Canonical, fuck you. I don't believe the shit announced there:
> > http://www.ubuntu.com/news/UbuntuFoundation anymore. I have been
> > asking, asking, again, and again, and again, that this foundation gets
> > finally started. It was just a publicity, a lie, but a lie that many
> > still thinks is true. Promises are made for those who believe in them,
> > eh. 
> > 
> > Let's make this clear: if Canonical gets a booth called Ubuntu *again*
> > this won't be a mistake anymore. It will be that Ubuntu just is NOT
> > community driven anymore. This a very, very dangerous step to make. 
> > 
> > When we are complaining about launchpad you tell us "how come you
> > don't trust us?"  How can we trust you with that bunch of shit going
> > on? And don't tell me I've not mailed the right person, I mailed
> > thousands of people in the last 2 years about this issue. 
> > 
> > I would *very strongly* recommend that you work toward a common booth
> > with the community, or at least organise a common booth for any future
> > event in France. Else I am really eager to ear your reasons not too.
> > Is it that we don't sell canonical's support contract well enough? You
> > don't have a fuckin clue who we are working with in France, there are
> > some big companies, but every time we approached you your answer was
> > "do for the best". Apparently the situation has changed. 
> > 
> > Anyway, just to clarify matters: this is just my personal point of
> > view, it doesn't engage any official view of the french speaking
> > locoteam. 
> 
> OK, we need to divide these concerns up into a a few areas:
> 
>  * Concerns that Canonical does not understand community.
>  * Concerns that a LoCo team is not "trusted" enough to represent Ubuntu
> at a trade show.
> 
> Let me approach each of these concerns:
> 
> --> Concerns that Canonical does not understand community.
> 
> This is where I deeply disagree, and my view is stemmed from two areas,
> firstly the way Canonical engages with the community in terms of open
> governance processes, encouraging advocacy groups, hiring a team of
> community people (Daniel, Jorge and I), basing on a community
> distribution (Debian) and working closely to send derivative work up in
> an open and transparent fashion, our staff working in public discussion
> channels and lists, supporting the community with free CDs, t-shirts and
> merch, making sites such as ubuntu.com very community focused as opposed
> to neon-lit, advertising drowned, business sites etc. The second reason,
> and you will have to take my word on this, is that since I started
> working at Canonical, it has stunned me how much the company cares about
> the community - *every* decision has a deep consideration of the
> community. I know some of you won't believe this, but its true - as I
> have made clear, when I started my role here, I made it clear that I am
> here to fight for the interests of the community, and it has stunned me
> how little fighting I need to do - the company really does "get it", and
> this is largely due to the excellent example set by Mark Shuttleworth -
> his community ethos trickles to every part of the company.
> 
> If you compare the approach some other distributors take (such as Red
> Hat, Novell, Linspire and Xandros), I think its safe to say we have by
> far the most open, transparent, engaging community, and the most
> community focused commercial sponsor in Canonical. Of course, they are
> better at some things that we are not, but as I have said before in
> interviews...the reason why Canonical was the only place I wanted to
> work was because of their approach to community.
> 
> The thing you need to understand Yann, is that there will be some areas
> in which the community do not have 100% control, and in many cases in
> the past you have come to me with complaints about this or that, and are
> expecting complete community control. We are not Debian. We do not have
> that level of community control. We just don't. However, given the
> balance between the business side of Canonical and the community side, I
> think it is say to say the balance is broadly right, with some things
> still to help resolve and fix.
I totally agree. LoCo teams get a lot more than what other communities
get. but the issue seems to be this...

let me represent it graphically...

compare this 
context: Linux-Tag canonical booth
http://people.byte-code.com/fcrippa/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/dsc_1751.jpg

with this
context: "5 foro mundial del conocimiento libre" LoCo team booth.
http://picasaweb.google.com/voices.in/VForoMundialDelConocimientoLibre/photo#5136549219891429538

NOTE: all of which were resquested for this venue and NONE reached the
acurate destination :(

we are both ubuntu.

In my country, the loCo team is the only face ubuntu has... Support is
given by companies that are affiliates to canonical. they try to set up
stands and cooperate promoting ubuntu.

here is a shared open air stand with a company that provides local
commercial support
http://picasaweb.google.com/rolando.ve/EventoFeistyCitaFLISOL2007/photo#5058711933959482706

they have been fantastic to us. If canonical ever came and put a stand
in an event and didn't tell me to come and help or at least "wave to say
I'm here if you guys need anything" I grab my laptop... and walk out.
But that is not the case in my country. It has happened elsewhere.

If we could get a bit of more help (besides the fantastic help with CD's
and shirts and flyers). One thing canonical could do If I  ... lending
the LoCo team a decent banner in my case. I would give back. or even
just handing out a sandwich for the volunteers in the stand (Not for me,
at times me as a person giving ubuntu talks, I get my meals covered by
the organizers).

The community in return could offer good "on the spot" support. Use
case, a guy comes in with a laptop and wants to get his wireless issue
sorted out... The community has the know how... we could have "Ubuntu
tables" to help people with real questions. besides company booths
sometimes make people feel limited as to the number of questions they
can ask...

Hope this helps realize the importance of colaborating working
together...

Ubuntu is an ecosystem. I learned this from a community man (rolando)
and from a canonical man (fabian).

Can we have more ideas on how to solve this gaps of communication?

> 
> --> "Concerns that a LoCo team is not "trusted" enough to represent
> Ubuntu at a trade show."
> 
> This is untrue. We have huge trust in LoCo teams, if we didn't why would
> we support LoCo teams so much, and encourage LoCo teams to get out there
> and represent Ubuntu? Also, I spent a significant amount of time in 2007
> visiting LoCo teams who were representing Ubuntu at trade shows, and the
> efforts were excellent. However, Canonical is a company, and sells
> business services in addition to supporting and sponsoring Ubuntu, and
> naturally this requires people on the booth who know the details about
> these services.
> 
> I don't work on the business team, and this is my own view, but no...I
> don't think a community member would be as good at selling the concept
> of our tech support products as someone who works on that team. *I*
> would not be as good at selling those products; it needs someone deeply
> clued in to that product and what we can offer. In many cases at trade
> shows, we have companies coming over to enquire about ways of working
> with Canonical, and it is always wise to have members of the business
> team there to deal with these enquiries - the business team knows the
> resources, facilities and current capacity to which we can work with
> another organisation.
> 
> However saying this, I do feel we can improve how we would with the LoCo
> team in the local area when we send people over from the company, and I
> will raise this internally.
> 
> In my experience, one of the problems with community is that some people
> (and I am not included Yann here) can jump on their 'ethical high horse'
> when they see something that does not seem right, and this ethical high
> horse can cloud the bigger picture. So, on one side, it may be unfair
> that between A and Z, F is unfair, but it can cloud all the rest of the
> letters there. Community is a collection of different sources of energy,
> each broadly connected by the same goal, and while there will always be
> things to fix, don't forget the incredible work that is going on.
> 
> I firmly stand by my view that on the whole, Canonical gets it right,
> but we are not perfect. And we always want to know when things don't
> work quite right, so we can fix them.
> 
> Hope this helps.
> 
> 	Jono
> 
> -- 
> Jono Bacon
> Ubuntu Community Manager
> jono(at)ubuntu(dot)com
> www.ubuntu.com / www.jonobacon.org
> 
> 
-- 
Efrain Valles
Ubuntu-ve LoCo Team Contact
https://launchpad.net/~effie-jayx
1024D/F9C7378B 
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