Ubuntu Foundation

[Elizabeth K. Joseph]

On Sun, Dec 7, 2014 at 4:51 AM, Svetlana Belkin <belkinsa at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> All,
>
> As Benjamin Kerensa said in his latest blog post [1],
>
> "Finally, I think an Ubuntu Foundation[2] is still a great idea and could
> create some harmony between Canonical's commercial interests and the
> community interests of the project. Projects that have had companies
> controlling the project have never had great success at sustaining a
> community because the commercial interests always win at the end of the day.
>
> Something needs to be done otherwise there will be a continued decline in
> participation in Ubuntu. Let me say the only reason Ubuntu Membership has
> not had the same downtrend as UDS participation and governance participation
> is because you do not need to be re-vetted to be an Ubuntu Member. We have
> folks who are Ubuntu members who have not been on IRC, Mailing List or
> anywhere in the project in years but are still members. The reality is that
> if we just looked at contributions, the actual amount of contributors today
> is far less than the member rolls represent".
>
> He may be right about having some foundation to help to solve the problem
> for the reason that he started.

I don't see the "switch to foundation" model being a magical pill,
this just feels like giving up. I work on an open source project
that's led by a foundation, and it's certainly not all unicorns and
roses, it has its own share of issues, politics and company control
issues. Indeed, while there are many companies involved, most of us
are paid, so there is not a vibrant volunteer community either.

Mark has crafted the development of Ubuntu around a community and a
company (Canonical) and so there is a huge amount invested here. I
imagine he has his reasons for setting things up this way, and I don't
believe spending community time petitioning for them to switch to a
foundation model makes any sense. Even if Canonical did decide to go
this way (highly doubtful), it would be a massive change that I'm sure
includes not only organization changes, but taxes, laws and all kinds
of other things, and would probably take years. This does nothing good
for the community in the meantime.

Now, while I do have a slight preference for a mode foundation-led
model (even if it's not perfect either!), I really can't condemn open
source projects that are lead by a single company. I believe this is a
space we can continue to work in as a community, I do it every day,
have for years, and continue to find great value in it. During that CC
meeting there were some areas identified where Canonical has very
little influence, part time contributions are sorely needed and the
project needs help, and we're working to expand that list. So if you
want to work and make a name for yourself within the Ubuntu community
as a volunteer, that's still something you can do. It just may be a
little harder these days because the project is so big and some
portions really do require more full time involvement (thus, are often
led and dominated by Canonical employees), but we are working to make
things more clear.

Need money for your initiatives? You don't need a foundation for that
either, Canonical already manages a program that a lot of community
members have taken advantage of:

http://community.ubuntu.com/help-information/funding/

Latest report: http://fridge.ubuntu.com/2014/07/02/community-donations-funding-report-q1-2014/

Many teams partner with local non-profits and companies who use Ubuntu
for events and projects, so Canonical does not need to be your only
resource.

While I do respect and often chat with Benjamin, I don't believe
throwing out big "we need to change to a foundation" proclamations
helps anyone. I encourage everyone to instead continue to seek to find
ways to work within the framework we have for organization and
contributions. If you have specific concerns or blockers, please talk
about them and we'll work through them.

I'll end with saying "we lost a bunch of Ubuntu Members" is an
exaggeration. There were a handful of high profile resignations in
2013, but that was related to several factors that the CC publicly and
privately worked hard with Canonical on to make sure don't happen
again. These were primarily centered around misunderstandings (valid,
bad intentions were assumed because trust had degraded) and community
members feeling their efforts weren't valued after some surprise
announcements (valid, I quite was upset too!). It's my hope that as a
result some lessons were learned by everyone involved and we
strengthened our communication with Canonical.

-- 
Elizabeth Krumbach Joseph || Lyz || pleia2