Considering Ensemble Formulas as part of Ubuntu

[Emmet Hikory]

Members of the Technical Board,
    At the most recent DMB meeting, we reviewed an applicant who had
been working on Orchestra and Ensemble for several months.  I was very
surprised by the answers provided to some of my questions, and
explicitly voted to defer the application for the time being.  Since
then, I've discussed how Ensemble fits into Ubuntu with a number of
those who seem most active in the preparation and development of
ensemble formulas for distribution in Ubuntu, and reviewed some of the
outstanding mailing list threads on the topic, and am happy that my
shock at the description of how Ensemble Formulas integrate with
Ubuntu was widely shared.

    To me, it appears there is ongoing discussion about the creation
of a specific council for the oversight of ensemble, which discussion
appears to be taking a long time to resolve.  From the content of the
recent meeting, and some of the discussions I've had, I developed the
impression that there was uncertainty in several areas as to the
specific relationship between Ubuntu and Ensemble Formulas.  I believe
this uncertainty is starting to generate fear and doubt, which
negatively impacts our ability to cooperate effectively.  I believe
that any discussion about "the relationship" is likely fundamentally
harmful if Ubuntu wishes to adopt the use of ensemble, and that we
must have a shared collective identity, rather than separate
identities capable of having a relationship.

    Towards the fostering of this collective identity, I'd like to
propose the following decisions to be taken immediately, to prevent
further confusion or misinformation prior to the completion of the
establishment of a new council.

1) Make an explicit announcement that Ubuntu may have several
repositories for software deployment, potentially of different types.

    I'm a huge fan of apt-format software repositories, but for
classes of software or software deployment which do not fit the apt
model, we are unreasonably restricting ourselves if we assert that
Ubuntu exclusively consists of apt-format repositories.  If the
Technical Board is willing to make a statement that Ubuntu may have
several types of respositories, this will help both in this case, and
in any future cases where someone creates a new strategy for
deployment because the semantics of existing deployment strategies
cannot meet some specific needs, yet we wish to adopt their
technologies in Ubuntu.

    If the TB is unsure if their mandate is sufficient to make such a
statement, I ask that the TB make any necessary requests to confirm
that they indeed have the authority to make a technical decision that
Ubuntu may have repository formats other than apt.

2) Make an explicit statement that Ubuntu will have a respository of
Ensemble Formulas

    This is distinct from the former resolution, because I believe
that the Technical Board should reserve the right to review each new
type of repository independently of the blanket resolution that Ubuntu
may provide several types of repository.  If there are specific
technical objections to Ubuntu distributing ensemble formulas, these
are also best discussed separately from the governance issues
surrounding the establishment of a new council.

3) Acknowledge that the ~ensemble-composers team in Launchpad has been
doing great work in the past, and should continue as they have been,
although reporting into the regular Ubuntu processes.

    The nascent ensemble repository managed by this team (including
several Ubuntu Developers), seems most likely to be the basis of a
final repository provided by Ubuntu.  The current team has established
strong processes for how new formula developers can get code into this
repository, or become members of the team reviewing the contributions
with direct commit access, and has been doing significant work to
enable the use of ensemble in Ubuntu.  Rather than having the current
team wait for the creation of a council to feel approved: please tell
them that they have been doing good work, and that they are respected
as part of Ubuntu.  In terms of "reporting into the regular Ubuntu
processes", I'd like this to minimally consist of submitting summaries
to TeamReports monthly, and informing
devel-permissions at lists.ubuntu.com when they grant additional folk
commit rights to the current repository, but would be satisfied with
any alternate definition preferred by the TB.  If some other
repository is later established as the primary ensemble repository for
Ubuntu, the Technical Board would remain free to revisit the set of
committers, or the governance thereof, which is probably better
finalised once the current governance discussions are complete.

4) Explicity accept oversight of the ensemble formulas repository

    As with any body of source code, over time there will arise
disputes related to the selection of the correct technical solution,
the processs by which the set of committers is controlled, etc.  For
the time being, I believe the Technical Board is the appropriate body
to oversee this, with the explicit note that it may be delegated at
some time in the future (with such delegation likely depending on the
outcome of discussions about the new council, general discussions
about means of adding new software into Ubuntu, etc.).  Knowing the
Technical Board is willing to act as a point of escalation in the
short term will help the current ensemble team to feel comfortable as
part of Ubuntu until other discussions can be completed.


    Please note that none of the statements above is intended to
interfere in any way with the current discussions on the governance of
ensemble.  I simply believe that the subset of governance structure
encoded in the statements above would go a long way towards resolving
some of the uncertainty and dispute, without reducing the flexibility
of our governance teams to take the necessary time to deliberate
appropriately and establish the correct governance for ensemble in the
future.  I also believe that the subset above is both an
uncontroversial minimum set of statements for those close to the
current work surrounding ensemble, and insufficiently different from
the current state of affairs to actively surprise or disturb those who
may be unfamiliar with the current work surrounding ensemble.

    Thank you for considering this subset in advance of final
decisions on the topic.

-- 
Emmet HIKORY