Standing down as release manager for Kubuntu

[Jonathan Riddell]

With 15.10 successfully released I'm standing down as release manager
of Kubuntu.

Making Kubuntu over the last 10 years has been a fantastic journey.
Even since I first heard about a spaceman making a Linux distro using
Debian but faster release cycles I've known this would be something
important and wanted KDE to be part of it.  Bringing together KDE and
Ubuntu has created the best operating system we can and the best
community to work on it.

The life of an international freedom fighter is a fun one, I've
travelled the world on private jet to meet extraordinary people and
see amazing places.  I watched monkeys swing from the network cables
of Bengaluru and raced motorcycles through the slums of Kano. I was a
a bit put out to be attacked by pirates in the Carribean but the help
of the Kubuntu community and wider Ubuntu community helped me come
back.

Community made open source software needs people to be able to take
out what they've put in.  Ubuntu's licences and policies enforce this.
However for the last three years Ubuntu's main sponsor Canonical has
had a policy contrary to this and after much effort to try to rectify
this it's clear that isn't going to happen.  The Ubuntu leadership
seems compliant with this so I find myself unable to continue helping
a project that won't obey its own community rules and I need to move
on.  I won't be going far, I'll be helping out in KDE more, the
original and best end-user free software community who have always
been wonderful.

Ubuntu now needs to work out if it still wants to be a community made
project.  I've heard from too many people who feel they have been
bullied out of the project for this to be a personal problem.  It
needs a community council who will stand up for the third party and
volunteer developers, who will criticise when money is collected for
additional use of community but not used for this and who will ensure
the Ubuntu policies on copyright licences are not in question and
above all one that does not cause people to leave the project being
felt they have been bullied out.  Good luck.

In Friendship

Jonathan