Ubuntu and its community

[Cory Sadowski]

While the other posts have gone slightly more to the technical side of
it, I'd like to look at the other point too.

I assure you Sebastian, you are not alone. I can't speak for the power users
group, but I can speak for many users in general(1). Essentially, my
experiences (and opinions) tell me that while your post was indeed
lengthy, it hit the nail right on the head. There are a lot of people
who feel that it's just Mark and the devs' way or the highway, notably
with those buttons and Unity, naturally. I'm sure everyone here saw
the reports, and I know Jono's tried to intervene a few times in the
OMG! Ubuntu! comment sections from time to time to reassure everyone
and all, but even good intentions don't necessarily make it any less
hurtful when one's voice isn't heard. I mean, we all got the
justification for the buttons was for these windicator things, but
from what I understand it's hardly even a priority any more. On the
one hand, yeah, we could fairly easily change them by editing gconf or
downloading a patched version of the themes, but now we can't even do
that much...no matter what, buttons are hard-coded to go into the
upper-left corner of a maximized window on that global menu bar. I
have to admit, that's probably the most practical place for them,
given that design, but not everyone likes it. I appreciate the extra
screen space sometimes, but at other times it's just a nuisance and
there's no way to turn it off without going back to GNOME 2. That's
not necessarily a problem; GNOME2 is pretty decent. However, that is a
problem in the long run, because GNOME2 seems destined to fade away,
maybe as early as the next release. What then? If you want to keep a
GTK platform, you have to move away entirely to either GNOME3, which
is even MORE locked down than Unity could ever hope to be (assuming no
one takes that as a challenge), or move to XFCE, which is a bit of a
pain since the "easy route" of xubuntu-desktop calls down the old GDM,
among other potentially unwanted side-effects. We have a choice still,
yeah, but it's kind of a "deal with it or leave" scenario from the
simple user's point of view, when in a lot of these cases all we want
is just a small bit of flexibility. (If I'm reading that bug report
and correctly someone even made a diff file that would fix this minor
issue, and it doesn't look like it's all that long. Surely an option
could be worked out of that? Either way, it seems a more sane
behaviour all around)

On the other hand, I know there's priorities and reasoning for various
changes, some having to do simply with the release schedule, and all
that, but it's still upsetting to go through from the user's point of
view sometimes. And wow, just as I'm writing this I learn that
Synaptic is to be dropped. That's another one of those things. It
makes me feel like we can't really say anything without feeling like
we're about to be LARTed by people saying "oh you can just re-download
it after the fact so quit whining" when it's just...irritating. I never
use the Software Centre. I don't like single-tasking. I need to be able to,
you know, actually get things done. Yeah, it can be reinstalled, but
it just seems so obnoxious and pointless. Sometimes it's not even the
actions, but just the principle of the thing. I think what it comes
down to is that a lot of people, especially many power users, start to
feel like some sort of second-class citizen. I don't mean to suggest
that all of the devs' decisions are wrong or that user support should
be the deciding factor in everything-- as Jono as noted before, Ubuntu
is NOT a democracy-- but it would just be nice if we knew we were
being heard and at least considered. A lot of times it just doesn't
seem that way. The power users group is a huge step in that direction,
and I am grateful and excited for it, though now I suppose a lot more
will be said about these sorts of things because this is just the sort
of audience that's going to be miffed about these things.

It's hard to write that without sounding bitter or without feeling
like one is exhibiting unwarranted self-importance, but it's something
that has to be said, and I'm glad Sebastian got the ball rolling. But
I suppose the important question is now that the issue is out there
and made obvious to all, what now? I mean, what is actually practical
to do about this "illness" as a whole? As users, we want certain
things, but at the same time, the devs all have their own way of
thinking, and the company as a whole has a certain way of thinking and
we as users need to realize and respect that as well.

Can we strike a better balance than we have currently? I suppose
that's the heart of it. What is the right balance to appease users but
without trying to tell the devs how to do their jobs? Is there
something that we can do to help improve this situation at all? I'm
sure many of us would be willing. I think I'm rambling at this point
and talking almost in circles, so I'll cut it off here. I just hope
that somewhat of our cumulative minds can be understood from these
posts.

Regards,

Cory

(1) By that I mean that I regularly watch the OMG! Ubuntu! community
and their comments, and I'm also including conversations I've had on
IRC (in both #ubuntu and #ubuntu-offtopic) and conversations with
non-Ubuntu but observant and technologically adept users and
newer, isolated Ubuntu users over the past few months.

On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 10:46:38AM +0200, Sebastian Rösgen wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> while I have followed the development of the power user community
> with enthusiasm, I want to raise your awareness of a discussion
> repeating itself month for month within the general Ubuntu
> community. Though, the term "discussion" is perhaps not the right
> word. Perhaps "illness" or "disease" fits better.
> 
> Currently bug No. 733349
> (https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/733349) shows the symptoms of
> this illness. Many users vote for a change in the behaviour of the
> Unity Launche. But seemingly the discussion is not taking place on
> equal ground. No matter the arguments that the community members
> bring up to discuss the errors/mistakes in the current behaviour of
> the Launcher the official developers of Canonical still answer with
> the 'slogan' that there cannot be any change due to "design
> decisions".
> 
> Additionally a patch was offered by a user and this patch is
> seemingly good enough that it will get packaged and downloadable via
> PPA.
> 
> I now ask myself if this is the right way? 91 users want a change of
> the behaviour but it is not even considered to make the behaviour of
> the Launcher more configurable. A PPA is a joke. The user who wrote
> the patch could also have created the PPA himself.
> 
> Then this leads to the problem I currently have with the idea of a
> power user community.
> 
> A simplified version of Ubuntu Tweak should become a standard tool
> in the default installation of Ubuntu. At least some aspects of the
> system should be configurable by default. Imagine a Windows user who
> wants to change the location of the Windows Panel in Windows 8 or 9
> and finds out that the new policy tells him that he has to download
> extra software to make the repositioning of the panel possible. Tell
> him that the panel now automatically auto hides and to change this
> behaviour he has to download a second program to change this
> behaviour as well.
> That is what is currently happening to Ubuntu. The idea of the Power
> User Community is wonderful. But it fires the wrong signals. Perhaps
> you should all read the bug reports and the discussion about the bug
> to understand entirely what I mean.
> 
> During the last month I installed Ubuntu 11.04 on many PCs and many
> users asked the same thing: "can I change this". It does not matter
> what "this" meant in the given context. What is important that I
> nearly never encountered somebody who was entirely happy with the
> desktop (and desktop behaviour) which is presented to the user. All
> of them liked the launcher, but many of the users get confused by
> the behaviour described in bug 733349. Why is there a launcher icon
> which you sometimes can click without anything happening? This is a
> good question, at least to me. Others want the launcher at the
> bottom or the right side of the screen. Then all are astounded that
> I have to install a huge cluttered program called CCSM to configure
> one simple feature of the system (i.e. the behaviour when the
> launcher hides and when not).
> I always answer that "they are working on this". Even when this
> means that I can only hope that I will be able to configure these
> things via Ubuntu Tewak or whatever else later on. I like Ubuntu and
> therefore I defend it. But I can only defend it to a certain degree.
> I do not want to explain anymore why "this feature" or "that
> feature" is not working correctly or as expected. At the moment I
> only say wait please for the LTS version. And the funny thing is
> that I explained so often what an LTS version is that every user
> knows immediately what I mean.
> But I sincerely hope that some of the issues will really be fixed
> when the LTS version is released. When I initially said so I really
> was convinced that over the course of time even the most blinkered
> developer will become aware of the fact that "a design decision" is
> not everything. But I start to lose this hope.
> 
> The way how they dealt with the patch for bug 733349 exemplifies the
> problem. Ubuntu tweak (or rather a trimmed down version suited to
> normal users' needs) should become standard to ubuntu. And the given
> patch of 733349 should be configurable with this version of Ubuntu
> tweak. Do I want to use the new behaviour or the default behaviour
> which is dictated to us by design decision. I have no problem with
> design decisions as long as there is an alternative option to
> configure the system.
> 
> A further problem with design decisions is that Ubuntu or rather
> Mark Shuttleworth and his design team have not always made good
> decisions at all. Remeber the Windicators? Well, where are they.
> When the close/minimize/maximize buttons were moved to the left
> there was a big outcry. And then there was this (interesting) vision
> of the Windicators. Many people thought about it and the uproar
> ceased. The buttons were not moved out of a decision to make Ubuntu
> more "Macish" but instead because there was a real thoughtful idea
> in the background. Well, again my question. Where are now these
> Windicators. For these Windicators the change was made but I still
> can not see them. I do not even see any test versions. But the
> changes have been made.
> 
> I sometimes get the impressions that Ubuntu tries desperately to
> become so innovative and new that this became an obsession. In
> German we say "du sollst das Rad nicht neu erfinden" which
> translates to "you should not reinvent the wheel". Some features
> have been around in the computer world for many years now: and they
> work. Other have been around and these features should be changed.
> But if nearly one hundred users complain about something one should
> think about the complaints. Especially if it is something like
> Launchpad where the few who have accounts speak for the many they
> represent.
> 
> So think about this. The Poweruser community should take Ubuntu
> Tweak, simplify it and then do everything in their power to make
> this simplified version a part of the normal control center in
> Ubuntu. And it should be a replacement for CCSM and that ugly option
> which decides when the launcher reveals that is currently in the
> control center (i.e. "system settings" at the moment). And Jono, I
> do not want to be too bold, but I would really beg you to fight for
> this Ubuntu Tweak version to be implemented as a default in Ubuntu.
> It is really needed. People everywhere are discontent with certain
> aspects of Ubuntu Unity.
> I think that the default configuration of Ubuntu with Unity will
> bring you many new users. But as long as you (Canonical) will not
> offer an easy and fast way to configure the system, you will lose
> many old users. Making Ubuntu Tweak a default in Ubuntu will show
> the users, the more experienced users, the long time fans, the
> enthusiasts, that Canonical respects their wishes. Making it default
> is the way to show that Ubuntu really should be a system for
> everyone and not just a few. And believe me, these options to
> configure the system will even be interesting for many who want to
> switch from windows to some other system.
> 
> Ok. This Was a long post and I hope that at least a few will read it
> entirely. Thank you!
> 
> Yours
> Sebastian
> 
> 
> 
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