Mailing list charter (Re: Proposal to Release Ubuntu 10.10 on 10.10.10)

[Matt Zimmerman]

On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 09:14:55AM +0200, Scott James Remnant wrote:
> On Tue, 2010-05-11 at 09:00 +0200, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> > Every release cycle, we make these kinds of decisions, and we decide that
> > some software would not be appropriate to deploy in Ubuntu, based on our
> > present needs and its present capabilities.  This is one of those times.
> > This is no smear on connman (as you're recasting it above), but a technical
> > view.
> > 
> But *we*, the Technical Board, have not made this decision.
> 
> If you, in your role as Platform Team manager, have made this decision -
> or discussed it with your direct reports, that's a completely different
> matter.

I haven't made any decision in this case; I'm just expressing a view
(wearing my Ubuntu hat, not Canonical).  I don't think a final decision has
been taken on this yet, and I don't think that could happen until later in
the cycle, once we've put it to the test.

> It's your responsibility to bring that discussion to the technical board
> if you feel that it's an issue the TB deserves to be aware of.

Fair enough.  This only came to my attention on Sunday (in face to face
conversation), and I had made a note to bring it up, but it came up first in
this thread.  It's awkward that it came up as an aside in an unrelated
conversation, but there you have it.

> I haven't seen any of the discussion, and not to put a too fine a point
> on it, neither have the community members, or journalists, who've asked
> me what the hell was going on -- and pointed me at the mailing list
> archive of your mail.
> 
> Which is my entire point.
> 
> We should not be expressing technical views, whether personal or
> considered after discussion, on this mailing list *without* backing up
> with technical argument.
> 
> This is not ubuntu-devel.

I'm not sure that we're entirely aligned on this point, but I acknowledge
your point of view and would support the development of a more explicit
charter for this mailing list in order to clarify this.

For clarification, I regard this list as general correspondence with, and
within, the Ubuntu technical board.  I don't treat it as a place to
broadcast official, vetted opinions on behalf of the project, but a place to
speak freely and transparently.

-- 
 - mdz