Gamerification in the Community

Scott Kitterman ubuntu at kitterman.com
Wed Dec 10 06:55:15 UTC 2014


On Tuesday, December 09, 2014 11:20:40 PM cprofitt wrote:
> On Tue, 2014-12-09 at 23:01 -0500, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> > > There is a place for people who do not use Ubuntu. We have graphic
> > > designers and other 'experts' that work for Canonical that are not using
> > > Ubuntu. They still, albeit paid, contribute to Ubuntu.
> > 
> > In my view, while they are Canonical employees whose work affects Ubuntu
> > [the project] if they aren't using free software, I have a hard time
> > including them in my mental model of a free software community.
> 
> Interesting point of view. I am not closed to the idea that people can
> not contribute unless they use free software. While I would prefer that
> I do not discount contributions based on what or who produced valuable
> contributions.
> 
> > > Xubuntu, to me, is still part of the Ubuntu Community and I would not
> > > feel comfortable excluding anyone running a flavor (official or not).
> > 
> > If you imagine that would even be open to question, then I think you are
> > deeply confused about what Ubuntu [either the open source project or the
> > Linux distribution] is about.  The Ubuntu community has always been
> > bigger than people who work on stuff that Canonical cares about.
> 
> I am not sure how you twisted my comments to that point of view, but I
> can ensure that I am not deeply confused. I understand that the Ubuntu
> Community is larger than the distribution Ubuntu or other work that
> Canonical does. It is larger than any 'flavor' or individual component.
> Ubuntu is larger than the sum of all the parts.
> 
> > I'm deeply troubled that you see people who are no part of the free
> > software community as more part of Ubuntu than people using and
> > developing Ubuntu [the Linux distribution].
> 
> I am deeply troubled that you twisted what I said. I am surprised you
> exclude people from being part of a free software community because they
> use some non-free software. Does that include anyone who uses a non-free
> driver like Nvidia or Intel drivers? I wish to make the community larger
> by including people who believe in the same ideals, even if they still
> use some non-free software.
> 
> I am concerned that you take a message that I meant to ensure people
> knew they were included and twisted it to be a negative.
> 
> Can we move forward in a positive manner?

Sure.  If I misunderstood it, I misunderstood it.

Note I said I had a hard time with the idea of people who don't use free 
software being included in the free software community just because their 
employer uses the product of their work to support FOSS.  I also said "don't 
use free software", not "don't use exclusively free software".  If I'd meant 
the latter, I'd have excluded myself too.

Scott K



More information about the Ubuntu-community-team mailing list