Technical Board decisions

[Matt Zimmerman]

The Ubuntu Technical Board has made two technical decisions of which we
would like to inform the Ubuntu community.  Both of these decisions concern
the upcoming 7.04 release of Ubuntu, scheduled for mid-April.

Proprietary Drivers
-------------------

Summary:

  Ubuntu 7.04 will preserve the status quo with respect to proprietary video
  drivers.  As in previous releases, these drivers will be provided for the
  convenience of users who choose to use them, but they will not be
  activated by default.

Full decision:

  There has been a great deal of discussion within the Ubuntu community
  regarding a technical proposal (the enabling of Composite support by
  default) which would necessitate the use of certain closed-source video
  drivers in a default installation of Ubuntu.  In response to this
  controversy, a meeting was convened among representatives of the Technical
  Board and Community Council to evaluate the issues.  The following
  conclusions were reached by this group:

   * The desktop effects technology involved in this proposal is important in
     enabling a richer, more immersive desktop experience, and as such, is
     relevant to the mission of the Ubuntu project.

   * There is a clear need for wider testing of open source software under
     development in this area, including both desktop tools and video drivers.

   * The exception granted to the Ubuntu Licence Policy at the project's
     inception, which allows the use of closed-source components where
     necessary to provide sufficient hardware support, remains valid and
     pragmatic. For example, this exception has been applied in the past with
     regard to wireless network drivers. We consider making full use of video
     hardware to be an important component of that hardware support.

   * However, some of the relevant software necessary to implement this
     proposal is not yet considered mature enough to deploy in the default
     Ubuntu configuration.

  Therefore:

   * The proposal will be modified such that the default configuration of
     Ubuntu remains the same with regard to the selection of video drivers.

   * However, new infrastructure will be implemented which allows the user to
     trivially enable both enhanced desktop effects and the necessary driver
     support.

   * The Ubuntu project reaffirms that it will not include closed-source
     components in its default configuration except where allowed by the
     existing exception for the provision of sufficient hardware support.

   * Decisions on what hardware support is sufficient for these purposes will
     be made on a case-by-case basis by the Technical Board and the Community
     Council.

   * Ubuntu will monitor and support the progress of the free Nouveau driver,
     which offers the prospect of supporting enhanced desktop effects for
     users of NVIDIA hardware without the need for closed-source drivers.

   * When the factors involved in this decision change, further consideration
     will be given to the possibility of changing the default configuration.

The PowerPC Architecture
------------------------

Summary:

  Beginning with Ubuntu 7.04, the PowerPC edition of Ubuntu will be
  reclassified as unofficial.  The PowerPC software itself and supporting
  infrastructure will continue to be available, and supported by a community
  team.

Full decision:

  The Ubuntu Technical Board has decided to reclassify PowerPC as an
  unofficial architecture, rather than a fully supported architecture, for
  Ubuntu 7.04 and subsequent releases. This means that packages and ISO
  images will continue to be produced, but releases will not be delayed due
  to problems which are specific to PowerPC, and the quality of the PowerPC
  release itself will depend very much on the extent to which members of the
  Ubuntu community drive PowerPC testing and bug fixes.

  The rationale for this decision has been recorded in the PowerPC Review
  document at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerPCReview, which was derived from
  a discussion at our developer summit in November. The conversation has
  continued, and for some time we have pursued a number of sources for
  funding to continue the official testing and support for the architecture.
  Unfortunately those resources have not been obtained, and we can not make
  the necessary commitments to continue official support for this
  architecture.

  A team of PowerPC users and developers has been formed at
  https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-powerpc and will be the focus of efforts to
  keep Ubuntu's PowerPC support at high quality. We welcome wider
  participation in that team, and if developers devote some additional time
  to the work then there is no reason that Ubuntu on PowerPC should not
  continue to deliver high quality releases.

  It is possible that PowerPC will once again become a fully supported
  architecture in the future, if the resources needed to guarantee its
  quality are found. The architecture is certainly gaining large numbers of
  users in embedded and console devices, and there are many reasons to
  continue to work with the platform. These uses are outside of the core
  Ubuntu mandate, however, so resources cannot be diverted from our server
  and desktop efforts just to address their needs.

  Existing Ubuntu PowerPC releases will continue to be maintained for the
  duration of their supported life cycles, including Ubuntu 6.06 LTS which
  will be supported on PowerPC servers until 2011.

-- 
Matt Zimmerman
Chairman, Ubuntu Technical Board