Bug 0 review pls

Dan Shearer dan at shearer.org
Mon Jun 2 23:14:11 UTC 2008


On Mon, Jun 02, 2008 at 05:26:05PM -0500, Dustin Kirkland wrote:
> On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 7:11 PM, Dan Shearer <dan at shearer.org> wrote:
> > I have put some text for Bug 0 up at
> > https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ServerTeam/Bug0#preview . I didn't get into the
> > solutions we worked on at UDS, thinking this is what bug report followup
> > comments are for and the body was already too long.
> 
> Hey Dan-
> 
> Here's some candid feedback on your wiki page...
> 
> First of all, I'm afraid some people might take offense at calling
> this initiative "Bug #0", thinking that it precedes or supercedes Bug
> #1.  

I was trying to catch people's attention mostly, wanting to focus on
what the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy would define as an SEP Field -
Someone Else's Problem and therefore invisible to everyone. From the
feedback I got back at the time this much worked. Now to finesse it.

> Bug #1 has really been Ubuntu's rallying point for nearly 4 years
> now, with the thread gathering some ~700 comments in that time.  I'm
> not sure how people will take suddenly putting Ubuntu Server "ahead"
> of Ubuntu Desktop.

My justification for that is that Linux was a success on the server
before it was anywhere on the client, and the failure to compete on the
server is an embarassment first and a challenge second. People like me
who've been involved in the server side for years have managed to dither
away prime opportunities. 

As it happens there's a new set of opportunties and we aren't limited to
just aping wherever Microsoft has gone... but refusing to acknowledge
clear failings does not bode well for the bold new wave.

As to numbers... I think even if this is Bug #7346492, if people take
the content seriously it's going to be turning up in the mainstream
press and maybe even in Microsoft PR. 

> If and/or when he decides to target the server marketplace in full
> force, perhaps an update by Mark to that bug report is in order.

I'll be asking him what he thinks, but not until I've had the content of
this thoroughly chewed over. That's an option.

[chopped advice on going through the lp process. I'll study it and
probably just follow it as given. So far I have worked out that
Blueprint == MRD in enterprise speak.]

> And actually, I think you have several distinct ideas in the Bug0
> page...  You could really create a Blueprint/Spec for each of those.

Blueprints only nest one deep. You're right, and I have already worked
out the categories. I also didn't want to overwhelm people, there's
several more major classes of problem with pragmatic solutions to hand
if only we want to use them. Integrated logging infrastructure. Working
LVM snapshots. Much better logging switched on out of the box. And more.
I get the feeling that if people just create content in launchpad it
gets ignored unless there was buyin in the first place... is that fair?

> Each is a unique problem that could and perhaps should be solved in a
> future Ubuntu release. 

Well, I have, I hope, presented some of the cure as well as the poison,
for Intrepid if that's what the team wants to do. That was my proxy x 3
proposal, among other things.

> These are the individual sorts of work items we try to gather at UDS
> and coherently present in Blueprints/Specs (eg, Active Directory
> Integration, Outlook-compatible replacement, Large Filesystem
> Replication).  And we did discuss a number of those.

Can you point me to anything online about these discussions, or should I
start blueprinting?

> In any case, I think you have some excellent ideas in there!  I'm just
> not quite sure that creating a single, super-bugreport is going to be
> the most effective method to actually solving the problem.

The hardest thing to change is people's minds. And in my view a very
large chunk of the Linux community have regarded the notion of "Linux
can't compete as a server" as right in an SEP Field. Or even just nuts.
I have heard several times the idea "Debian is a great server therefore
there's not a lot to do to make Ubuntu Server wonderful." And that's a
hard hurdle to get over. I know what it is to have been surrounded by
SEP fields myself :-)

So, think of Bug0 as a wakeup call and marketing trick. Now to work...

> However, I think we do have some excellent tools within the
> Ubuntu/Launchpad infrastructure for defining precise technical
> shortcomings, designing appropriate solutions, and tracking them into
> Ubuntu releases.

I'll need some help working through the process. Thanks for your advice.

-- 
Dan Shearer
dan at shearer.org




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