Help requested for Ubuntu Brainstorm response on improving the login screen

[Robert Ancell]

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I will participate.  You know, this email sounds very similar to one I
got from mdz ;)

On 23/03/11 21:57, Martin Pitt wrote:
> Hello Robert,
>
> Once you've read the details below, please respond with an
> acknowledgement and let me know if you can participate. The expected
> time investment is on the order of a couple of hours over the next
> two weeks.
>
> Last November, the Technical Board recently began a new program to
> respond to top voted topics on Ubuntu Brainstorm:
>
> http://mdzlog.alcor.net/2010/11/03/weathering-the-ubuntu-brainstorm/
>
> with the first round of responses summarized in
>
> http://mdzlog.alcor.net/2010/12/10/ubuntu-brainstorm-top-10-for-december-2010/
>
> Our goal is to improve our responsiveness to the questions, concerns
> and suggestions we receive from the user community. Note that this
> does NOT mean that we will commit to following the suggestions, but we
> will evaluate and respond to them. By explaining what we will (or
> won't) do and why, we will show that we are paying attention and
> trying to make good decisions on behalf of our users.
>
> The way the program works is that the Technical Board identifies
> people within the Ubuntu project who are knowledgeable in the specific
> topics proposed in Brainstorm, and asks each of them to write a short
> response to one topic.
>
> One of the most popular topics in brainstorm at present is about
> improving the login manager to show date/time, possibly extra widgets,
> and offering a guest session:
>
> http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/26482/
>
> As you are a GNOME/gdm/lightdm domain expert, it would be great if you
> could give a thorough analysis of the current status quo, discuss the
> possibility of time/date/other widgets, and feasibility and issues of
> a guest session, in particular with gdm and light-dm.
>
> Since you are well versed in the technology involved, we would
> appreciate if you could spend a short time reading the Brainstorm
> content about it and writing a few paragraphs. You don't need to have
> all the answers, and I encourage you to ask for input from others who
> might have a view on the issue. This can be in the form of a
> detailled upstream bug report, a blog post, an email, or any other
> suitable format. It shouldn't take more than an hour or two to
> complete.
>
> Our goal is to have everything ready for publication by the 11th of
> April. Can you confirm that you're willing and able to help with
> this?
>
> You can formulate your response as you see fit, but make sure that the
> tone is sympathetic. Many of the comments in Brainstorm take the form
> of demands or complaints: just treat these as if they were questions,
> and answer them politely. Try to listen to the *need* behind the
> suggestion, not just the suggestion itself, and connect with your
> audience by telling a story about it.
>
> Here are some example formulas which might be helpful to you:
>
> * "It sounds like the problem described here is X. We address that in
Ubuntu
> today by doing A, B and C. Maybe that's not working for everyone because
> of Y. We could improve this by doing Z."
>
> * "I would love to see a new feature like that in Ubuntu. It's consistent
> with the way other parts of Ubuntu work, and seems genuinely useful.
> We're busy with some higher priority projects at the moment like X, but
> if someone is interested in writing a patch for this, I will help them
> get it into Ubuntu and upstream."
>
> * "This is a really hard problem without an easy solution. It's complex
> because of X, Y and Z. It will take some time for this to be completely
> solved, but here are a few projects we're working on which will make things
> better, bit by bit."
>
> * "That's an easy fix. I've written a patch and uploaded it to Natty. It
> will be in the 11.04 release!"
>
> * "That's a great idea, and we already thought of it! Here's the blueprint,
> and here's how you can follow along as this gets implemented in Natty."
>
> * "I passed on your suggestion to the upstream developer of the
software, and
> we had a conversation about it. Here's what we decided."
>
> * "This seems like a genuine problem, but I'm not sure that's the right
> solution, because of X and Y. I asked our usability expert Jill about
> this, and here's what she suggested."
>
> * "I didn't understand what the problem was here, so I had a
conversation on
> IRC with Jamie, who submitted this topic to Brainstorm to understand
better.
> Here's how it went:
>
> [...]
>
> In the end, we both decided that the best course of action is X."
>
> If you have any further questions about what is expected here, please
> let me know.
>
> Thank you in advance!
>
> Martin Pitt
> p. p. Ubuntu Technical Board
>

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