Meeting Minutes online 2012-05-16

[Jonathan Marsden]

On 05/24/2012 01:52 AM, Cyber Penguin wrote:

> I don't know how other projects are organised so I can't provide 
> specific examples, but this should not stop people from considering
> a new organisation for Lubuntu.


I think a lack of examples of its successful implementation most
definitely *should* stop people from considering a governance model as
being applicable to, or appropriate for, Lubuntu!

Governance is a complex and often somewhat fraught area for human
communities of all kinds, and inventing new forms of governance for an
open source software project, rather than using one of a few well known
and well tested existing approaches, is likely to cause far more
problems than it solves.  Lubuntu is primarily about creating and
maintaining a software product, not about exploring new untried ideas
and theories of community and project governance.

If you don't know how other software projects deal with governance, and
you want to propose or encourage a new way of handling governance for
Lubuntu, then I would strongly suggest that you first do a thorough
survey of several existing currently active open source software
development projects regarding their governance.  Then you can use the
knowledge you gain from that survey to help shape any new governance
model you wish to propose be used by Lubuntu.

> What I hope is that people realise that the present way of doing
> business has some drawbacks, for example attracting, recruiting and
> motivating new volunteers.


Is that actually a drawback to Ubuntu's current governance model, or
perhaps just an issue with the way we as a team (operating within that
model) have worked together to create the Lubuntu distribution?  "The
present way of doing business" has at least produced several Lubuntu
releases, on time, and recently has got Lubuntu accepted as an official
flavor of Ubuntu.  Those are significant accomplishments, which we
should not lightly gloss over.  Before adopting any new governance, we
would want to have strong real-world evidence that that new model would
be at least as successful as the current one in terms of software
development.

If you have specific practical proposals for how to "attract, recruit
and motivate" new Lubuntu team members, that's great -- feel free to
describe them on this list for us, or create an agenda item at our next
IRC meeting to discuss your proposals.  If those practical proposals
require a new governance model, then please explain why.

Jonathan