Liaison to Launchpad

[Scott Kitterman]

On Wednesday 06 August 2008 10:27, Henrik Nilsen Omma wrote:
> Jordan Mantha wrote:
> > Well, as I've said before, Canonical QA is welcome to do whatever they
> > need to do and like to see transparency there. However, that doesn't,
> > in my estimation, negate the need for there to be an Ubuntu QA Liaison
> > to Launchpad to represent the community and renew my original call for
> > volunteers per the original post.
>
> I think it might help if I take a moment to be a bit more clear about
> what my reservations are about the QA-LP Liaison proposal. I'm not
> opposed to better links with the LP team for everyone but I have
> concerns about this particular proposal.
>
> Since you use MOTU as an example I'll start there. The way the Liaison
> role works in MOTU can be described as either:
>
> a) A representative for the MOTU group, who happens to be non-Canonical. OR
>
> b) A representative for the MOTU group, who is by design non-Canonical.

I would offer c:

c) Selected with community involvement in a way that gives the person a 
legitimate ability to be able to speak for the community (when I use the term 
community here I think that one's employer is irrelevant).

Any process that starts with "Canonical hired me to X" is pretty well not a 
community process.

...
> I personally think that defining a role filled by a single person is not
> going to do us any favours here because it will either have to be a
> Canonical-employee or not - there is no room for a mix. In the former
> case there will continue to be objections about a lack of transparency
> and participation. In the latter case the Canonical QA folks who already
> talk with LP would still do so and since the Liaison would never be able
> to be involved in all those discussions (which are often ad hoc and
> informal) there would be suggestions that there is still a Canonical
> back channel and that the position of the Liaison is being undermined.
...

Having a liaison does not preclude other communications.  I think that as long 
as the liaison was kept informed about significant communications, it would 
not be a problem.  There will always be informal communications based on 
people's connections (which may or may not related to their employment).

> This is why I have suggested that instead of a single Liaison we set up
> a small working group for LP issues that could have 1 Canonical and 2
> community members which would clarify feature requests, follow up on
> bugs and be in touch with both the LP team and the QA team.
> Alternatively I suggested that a community member should participate in
> the QA-LP meetings and that and an LP bugs team member should
> participate in QA team IRC meetings (and I prefer the latter two items
> since it does not require a new structure).

I think defining things in this way (based on employment status) is a recipe 
for sustaining the current division between the non-Canonical community and 
Canonical.  As I read your original proposal it very much sounded like trying 
to through us a few bread crumbs and see if we'd be satisfied, not trying to 
propose a mechanism to better integrate everyone interested in Ubuntu QA.

Scott K