Lack of Connection Between Canonical and the Community

[Ian Weisser]

On Sat Dec 6 02:39:38 UTC 2014, Valorie Zimmerman wrote

> Plus we try to meet in person for sprints and annually in conjunction 
> with KDE's Akademy.
>
> This is how we make up for the loss of UDS, and it has added and 
> obvious good points for staying closer to our "upstream." This year 
> we were able to meet with Debian at Akademy and a sprint both.
>
> vUDS/UOS is simply not a replacement for face to face meetings.




On Sun Dec 7 12:51:38 UTC 2014, Svetlana Belkin wrote:

[Quoting Benjamin Kerensa
http://benjaminkerensa.com/2014/12/06/chasing-the-wrong-problems]

> "Finally, I think an Ubuntu Foundation 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.




Sun Dec 7 13:07:21 UTC 2014, Svetlana Belkin wrote:

> [T]he reason that I think he may be right here is because there truly 
> either is there is a very weak connection or no connection between 
> Canonical and the Community.  If I recall correctly, we lost a bunch 
> of Ubuntu Members because of this about this time last year.



On Mon Dec 8 04:07:47 UTC 2014, Benjamin Kerensa wrote:

> We lost 31 Ubuntu Members in the last 12 months and UDS participation 
> is down over a few UDSes and LoCo's active are down over the last 
> couple years. Why do you think this is? Do you really think its lack 
> of leadership? Lack of innovation? I think it has nothing to do with 
> those things.




Different parts of the elephant.

I submit that the problem with waning developer and member interest in
Ubuntu is the perception of Ubuntu's maturity.


Why I think it's the problem:

It was _easy_ to generate enthusiasm for Ubuntu in 2005-2007 when it was
the scrappy, aggressive newcomer with the concept of pushing Debian into
the commercial server market, and improving Debian desktops out of the
hobbyist niche and into general use. Get involved, we'll conquer the
world!

It was _easy_ to generate enthusiasm for Ubuntu in 2008-2011 when it was
-directly or indirectly- spurring huge improvements in Xorg, printing,
audio, init, and lots of other services that users saw immediate
improvement in. Get involved, we'll make it so easy your Gran use it!

Since 2012, it's become harder to generate enthusiasm for what's
perceived as a mature Desktop OS. Ubuntu reached #1 in Linux market
share (market leaders aren't fun). Lots of that low-hanging improvement
fruit had been picked ("what's HAL? what's UDEV?"). During this time,
Ubuntu's #1 improvement to users has been improved stability, and
investment in a big testing infrastructure. Essential, wonderful, but
not exciting.

Canonical made a few missteps here, too, but not the flamefests over
Unity and Mir and Amazon. Sure, they didn't help. But the big misstep
here was (and remains) that the barrier to casual contribution is too
high. With the low-hanging improvements done, and no easy path to Unity
or Phone or Cloud contributions, enthusiasm naturally has been waning,
and many volunteers have wandered to newer, greener pastures.

Canonical commitment to the community? I see it. I see strong
connections between community members and Canonical employees at UOS. I
see Canonical's Community Manager working hard to make key Canonical
employees available for public presentations ans public Q&A sessions. I
see Canonical paying staff to participate on public committees, to host
online summits, to host community infrastructure.

Companies at this stage of their life cycle often spend big amounts of
money on advertising to counter that 'big', 'mature' image; it brings
unwelcome connotations of 'slow', 'conservative', 'bloated'.

Companies at this stage of life also spend a lot of money on human
resources, professionalizing positions, restructuring workflows,
adjusting their skills mix - and unloading skills they no longer need.

That's what I think the problem is: Ubuntu is mature.
It's less interesting because it's mature.
It's less interesting because it works so well.
It's less interesting because most easy (and many hard) improvements are
already done.
And it's less interesting because the barriers to entry to the current
crop of cool stuff seem too high.


Solutions:

The solution is not governance (jono) nor structure (bkerensa) nor
Canonical (beklinsa). There is no single solution to the problem of
perceived maturity in the market[1]. However, everybody has had some
great ideas that get us partway there.

Let's tie some of those ideas together and build upon them....

Jono was right: Canonical is doing something incredible - a single OS
that performs beautifully on servers, in the cloud, on desktops, and on
phones. That's the cool story, the fresh opportunity, the
young-OS-thats-going-to-save-the-world-story that we community members
need to understand and embrace and be willing to evangelize. Personally,
I think it's awesome.

Valorie Zimmerman was right: In-person meetings are essential to
maintain the personal relationships that keep people contributing
through the inevitable rough times. Both Jono and Valerie have used the
idea of tacking get-togethers onto existing conferences. We need to find
ways to help other teams explore that, and to discuss ways to find more
resources than Canonical largesse to make in-person team meetings and
sprints happen routinely.

bkerensa was right: An Ubuntu Foundation for the community _is_ needed.
Perhaps not to control the future of Ubuntu at this time[2], but
definitely to provide the organizational, contractual, fundraising, and
tax benefits a (small) non-profit entity has to help support these
in-person community endeavors. One explicit mission of an Ubuntu
Foundation should be healthy and consistent community involvement and
contribution to the various functional, flavor, and LoCo teams.

And belkinsa was right: Some Ubuntu oldsters _do_ feel that their hard
work has been ignored by Canonical. Part of the solution is that these
volunteers need to reduce (not eliminate) their activities until they
feel refreshed and recharged. Another part of the solution is that
Canonical really does need some kind of personal award or recognition
for community contributions. I'll throw my old 'annual awards' back into
the ring there, though it does add an 'awards committee' under the CC.

Finally, _we_ need to help Canonical overcome the barriers to entry for
Phone and Cloud development. Not everyone is fluent in QML or Go. Casual
contributors might speak Python or C or Vala. Not everyone can install
the Phone SDK on their hardware or pay for a Cloud instance. We need to
help those Team leaders identify on-ramps, contribution opportunities,
training opportunities, and blockers. We need to insist that even
fast-moving big-brained mostly-Canonical-employee development teams
still need to do routine welcoming, mentoring, skill-training, and
active inclusion of community volunteers.


Aw drat, sorry for the prolixity.


Cheers,

Ian




[1] Well, actually, there is: Most mature brands spend a lot of money
advertising their nimbleness. I think we can take that solution off the
table - I don't see Canonical getting much return spending a lot of
money on Brand Positioning for a free product.

[2] Not discounting an Ubuntu Foundation taking over full ownership of
the Ubuntu Project. I don't think it's necessary at this time, and I
think Canonical continues to do a great job shepherding Ubuntu toward a
bright, open future. But circumstances change: Mozilla and Document
Foundation were both founded in mostly-unforeseen desperate
circumstances. An potential alternative to Canonical ownership is
prudent to explore.