[ubuntu-studio-devel] continued as per request, from IRC

[Kaj Ailomaa]

On Sat, Aug 22, 2015, at 03:36 AM, Mike Holstein wrote:
> i think this was just a miscommunication.
> 
> i appreciate your through answer, and understand the points you make.
> 
> the point i was making as to "why no one is uploading files to
> ubuntu(studio)", was, we dont really need to get coders to join the
> ubuntustudio team. i agree, and think it would be great to attract some
> folks that can do that. but, we dont have to build the community/team up
> of
> just that kind of contributor. it could be just normal end users who want
> to help, and find other upstream developers to assist with projects that
> we
> need help with. i think there is plenty that non code contributors could
> do.
> 
> 

No one has ever claimed that we don't have use for non-coders. I really
don't know what that has to do with anything. That was not what we were
discussing. But, I will return to that at the end of this post.

Cause, you were saying a lot of things that day didn't make sense.

You were claiming that we don't have control of our own sources.
But, in reality, we have full control of all of our sources. Anyone in
our -dev team have full access to make changes. I have upload rights to
the Ubuntu archive. And, no one is telling us what to do with those
sources (we just need to follow policy, of course).
Additionally, I, as well as others (Ross maybe?), have access to all of
the Debian Multimedia repositories, so those of us are able to make
changes upstream, if needed (which I almost never do, cause I don't have
the time to get educated enough about what I could do).
In short, we have more control than we are making use of.

You were claiming that I dictate how things work here, which is simply
not true. I am the lead, so I do quality control of what everyone else
is doing. But, I don't tell people what to do, unless they ask me to.
I ask people to take some initiative, and get things done. To take
command of something that they are interested in. I offered you to do
the same. We don't have anyone taking charge of PR and Support, and that
would work great for you, I think. 
The only thing I'm worried about is that you would spread misinformation
due to the fact that you seem to have wrong information about how we do
things.

Examples of other people taking initiative (not counting all):
 * madeinkobaua is art lead, though not very active. He takes command of
 the artwork.
 * Ross is mostly focused on fixing bugs and working on more general
 packaging for both Debian and Ubuntu, though he has also been active
 with the categorization part.
 * Len has created some packages from scratch, and done a lot of work on
 many of our packages.
 * Remember smartboyhw? He was responsible for our releases and took
 care of all of that for a while. This is also something someone could
 do, if they wanted. But, first step is to do testing.
 * I have been involved in all of those, naturally, since I am lead and
 need to be informed. Also, I have worked very hard on documenting our
 development process, so that it is easier for new people to get
 involved. I also maintained linux-lowlatency for a few years, which I
 was a part of getting into the repos in the first place. I do a lot of
 things that I wouldn't need to, would there be more active developers.

So, what we need is just more people who are actively partaking in
developing Ubuntu Studio.

We have defined different areas, and each would benefit from someone
taking the lead.
 * artwork (madeinkobaya is lead)
 * development (no leads, but people can take charge of different
 projects, and not only coders)
   * packaging and bug fixing
   * categorization and defining workflows
   * package selection for our workflows
   * application development
 * documentation (no lead - so I am doing this)
 * PR & Support (no lead - so I am doing this)
 * Testing (no lead - so I am doing this)

All of this is defined in our blueprints, which we use for organizing
our work. But, almost no activity there, unfortunately.
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntustudio/+spec/ubuntustudio-topic-x

About coders, vs non-coders. Well, as you can see, there's plenty of
work for non-coders, would they be willing. That includes you, would you
be willing.
For just keeping Ubuntu Studio alive, we need at least one person with
packaging skills. But, to do the things we would like to do, it would be
better with more coders.

I don't know hostein. Frankly, I think you are barking at the wrong
trees most of the time. And, probably not helping very much in the end.
If you would like to help though, please take lead of PR & Support.

And, anyone who reads this, don't be shy if you find something you would
be interested in doing.

I will be more clear about this stuff for next cycle. All of this has
been floating in the air for a few years now, but I have not been able
to finish up the organization of it all. Now, I have the time, so I will
do my best to make this a reality. And, to make it very clear to
everyone who is involved, or wants to be involved, what we do and what
they can do.