Tribes and their demise

[Iain Lane]

On Tue, Nov 03, 2009 at 08:08:15AM +0000, Matthew East wrote:
>Hi Scott,
>
>On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 3:01 AM, Scott Kitterman <ubuntu at kitterman.com> wrote:
>> I've adjusted the subject and the cc list (dropping DMB and Tech Board as
>> I don't believe that the topic from hear concerns either people becoming
>> developers or technical issues).
>
>I'm not sure that the CC is really in a position to discuss this issue
>in an informed way without the input of the TB or DMB. We haven't been
>involved at all with the details or implementation of
>ArchiveReorganization and I personally don't feel like I have any
>answers to your email. I think that the issues raised by your email
>really need their input. Is there a special reason why you disagree
>with that? If not, I'd like

I guess because this is about "community engineering" - there will be no
specific community structures for unseeded packages from now on. I agree
with Scott that this is something we should look at. Perhaps the CC and
the MC could work together to present something to the TB about this?

>> It's quite clear that the MOTU tribe has no future.  I'm unhappy about
>> this and don't understand why this has to be.
>
>"Tribe" is a slightly pejorative term but I can certainly understand
>how you feel about this. 

I don't think it was meant to be, more a collection of individuals
banding together.

>                         One of the most enthusing aspects of
>contributing to Ubuntu is the feeling of being part of a team. I think
>that the way that you are feeling about this is something that many
>others are likely to feel and an open attempt to address it is likely
>to be important. We're going to need to address it head on if we want
>to avoid losing good people. On that basis I'd like to suggest that
>you send your email to the TB and DMB too for discussion. It's up to
>you whether you copy it to the public motu list at this stage. 

The MC list is public. I've always subscribed to it for interest. Also,
I see no reason why this discussion should not be public. What were
your thoughts here? This is something which is going to affect what is
currently MOTU in a massive way, and it is right that the whole
community should be able to get involved with the discussion.

>                                                               My
>personal inclination would be to discuss this between us at first
>(including the MC, who of course represent the MOTU) and then we can
>make a balanced statement to the MOTU which will hopefully reassure
>people and can reflect the outcome of the discussions.
>
>What do others think?
>
>> Today I discovered that a month ago
>> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates was edited to remove all
>> mention of motu-sru.  I have the impression (but am not certain) that
>> motu-sru members didn't know either.  Today, by the process as writing,
>> https://launchpad.net/~canonical-losas can approve a stable release upload
>> to Karmic Universe, but https://launchpad.net/~motu-sru/+members can not.
>> They have certainly been approving uploads and we have been asking them to
>> do it.  What's going on with this?
>
>That's extremely odd, I agree, because the members of ~canonical-losas
>aren't Ubuntu developers and don't have the expertise (or at least
>haven't been through the usual process) for approving uploads. This
>looks to me like simply a mixup with Launchpad team memberships, with
>the "Registry Administrators" team accidentally being a member of
>~ubuntu-sru for some reason.

I don't think that this was done with malicious intent, but was rather
someone preparing the policies for after the switch happens. I would
have expected that this was done in a staging area though, with the
documentation switch being flipped when the reorg actually happens.

Certainly there is the issue that the MOTU community and structures
that we have evolved over the years are going to be lost, and I think
this would be a terrible shame. The proposal to keep the unseeded
packages that generalists have access to being called Universe sounds
eminently reasonable to me, and would allow us to carry on as we have
been, as I suspect will be the case in practice anyway.

I think it would be worthwile for the MC to lead a consultation of
sorts on this issue (this thread would be a good start) and then to
discuss what the future is going to look like with the CC/TB as
appropriate. Does this sound like a reasonable idea?

Regards,
Iain
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