Meeting Minutes online 2012-05-16 (was: Re: Meeting tonight?)

[Karl Anliot]

On Sat, May 19, 2012 at 7:04 PM, Mario Behling <mb at mariobehling.de> wrote:
> On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 4:11 PM, Jared Norris <jrnorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 17 May 2012 10:33, Jonathan Marsden <jmarsden at fastmail.fm> wrote:
>>> On Wed, 16 May 2012, Matthew Byers <faintstlsaint at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Yea thats why i asked due to meetings being canceled. Glad to know
>>>> back on track. Well let us different timezone folks know when minutes
>>>> are posted ;)
>>>
>>> IRC Logs from todays Lubuntu Team meeting are at
>>> http://ubottu.com/meetingology/logs/ubuntu-meeting/2012/ubuntu-meeting.2012-05-16-20.06.html
>>> and now also formatted on the wiki at
>>> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lubuntu/Meetings/20120516
>>>
>>> There are no plans to change the meeting time away from the
>>> usual Wednesdays at 20:00UTC, as far as I know.
>>>
>>> Jonathan
>>> --
>>> Jonathan Marsden <jmarsden at fastmail.fm>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Lubuntu-users mailing list
>>> Lubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
>>> Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/lubuntu-users
>>
>> I read the meeting logs as I do each week (being a UTC+10 makes most
>> international meetings difficult) and my first reaction is the one
>> that's always been there just growing more stronger recently. The
>> questions I'd like to see answered are:
>> * why do we have a need for such segregated community that we need
>> subteams for such an already small team of active contributors?
>> * what do the other flavours or *buntu do for community governance
>> (Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, etc - I looked around online and found
>> one document that I'm told is out of date)?
>> * is there a problem with reverting back to how it was pre sub-team
>> and having a community that assists each other to achieve great
>> things?
>> * if there is something about Lubuntu that needs community discussion
>> and direction, why aren't we using the already standard practice of
>> raising bugs for wishlist things and things that aren't working to the
>> best of their ability?
>>
>> I've got opinions on them all obviously and I'm not stating that mine
>> are correct. I just want people to contemplate, are we making this
>> harder on ourselves than we really need to?
>>
>> --
>> Regards,
>>
>> Jared Norris JP(Qual) BBehSc(Psych)
>> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JaredNorris
>
> Hello,
>
> Jared, thank you for pointing us to those very important questions. I
> have some points to add.
>
> ORGANIZATION MODEL AND DECISIONS
> * As far as I can see actual developers joining those discussions are
> very rare.
> * If developers do not join, then please ask yourself, if these
> discussions are relevant to making lubuntu a better system.
> * Does this project need more governance, more subteams, more order,
> more leaders and heads of communications, or does lubuntu rather need
> more developers, designers and testers? lubuntu is a small project
> with effectively a handful of longterm core contributors.
> * Calling for and casting votes of groups that do not involve a number
> of core contributors to the actual system or to lubuntu components can
> only be regarded as - what it is - an opinion of some users in the
> community. The outcome cannot be regarded as a decision for the
> project.
>
> FOCUS ON IMPROVEMENT OF lubuntu
> a) As several contributors remarked on this mailing list in one or the
> other way recently, there are ongoing discussions here with a lot of
> "assumption with no sources" and no real value (brother). instead of
> arguing about policies, this list and project should focus on working
> on the actual lubuntu distro ("spend the time to do real development",
> PCMan) and improving it.
>
> b) In regards to the small size of the contributing team, discussing
> governance models and documents seems to be overdoing it a lot. Those
> discussions work as an additional entry barrier, especially for many
> non-native English speakers who simply do not have the time and
> resources to engage in-depth. Looking at those discussions, it seems
> English native speakers are the majority engaging here. Please also be
> aware that times of meetings and meeting styles automatically exclude
> people.
>
>
> The great thing about lubuntu is, that users have a big say in this
> project and my wish is, that it stays this way. If we focus on the
> actual improvements of lubuntu as a system, we will succeed to keep
> this exchange open and fruitful.
>
> All the best,
>
> Mario
>


I must point out, that gilir was our governance.  And he left last
week, after some heat from phillw.  Also, because we are in
competition with other Linux distros, user opinions do count.  They
might be more relevant than technical decisions made for "all the
right reasons"

You say that casting votes can't be regarded as a decision for the
project?  What can be?
I noticed you had a sucess with Lubuntu Software Center.  How was that
handled?  Can it be repeated?

Anyhow I've been fighting with you Mario, B. mainly because it was
never clear what the "core contributors" wanted.  It's great for
Rafael to get his "Lubuntu Blog" on our new website, but how did that
happen?

Anyhow, I've realized that a voting model is probably too radical for
Lubuntu.  So, I'm going to hold it back for more development.  Please
don't let the uncertainty in the process hamper your decision making.
That would be ironic.

kanliot