I’m very happy that folks took notes during and after the meeting to bring up their ideas, thoughts, concerns and plans. It got a bit unwieldy, so Elfy put up a pad which summarises it and is meant to discuss actions and proposals.
Today we are going to have a meeting to discuss what’s on the “actions” pad. That’s why I thought it’d be handy to put together a bit of a summary of what people generally brought up. They’re not my thoughts, I’m just putting them up for further discussion.
Problem statements
- Feeling that people innovate *with* Ubuntu, not *in* Ubuntu.
- Perception of contributor drop in “older” parts of the community.
- Less activity at UDS/vUDS/UOS events (was discussed at UOS too, maybe we need a committee which finds a new vision for Ubuntu Community Planning)?
- Less activity in LoCos (lacking a sense of purpose?)
- No drop in members/developers.
- Less activity in Canonical-led projects.
- We don’t spend marketing money on social media. Build a pavement online.
- Downloading a CD image is too much of a barrier for many.
- Our “community infrastructure” did not scale with the amount of users.
- Some discussion about it being hard becoming a LoCo team. Bureaucracy from the LoCo Council.
- We don’t have enough time to train newcomers.
- Language barriers make it hard for some to get involved.
- Canonical does a bad job announcing their presence at events.
Questions
- Why are less people innovating in Ubuntu? Is Canonical driving too much of Ubuntu?
- Why aren’t more folks stepping up into leadership positions? Mentoring? Lack of opportunities? More delegation? Do leaders just come in and lead because they’re interested?
- Lack of planning? Do we re-plan things at UOS events, because some stuff never gets done? Need more follow-through? More assessment?
Proposals
- community.ubuntu.com: More clearly indicate Canonical-led projects? Detail active projects, with point of contact, etc? Clean up moribund projects.
- Make Ubuntu events more about “doing things with Ubuntu”?
- Ubuntu Leadership Mentoring programme.
- Form more of an Ubuntu ecosystem, allowing to earn money with Ubuntu.
Join the hangout on ubuntuonair.com on Friday, 12th December 2014, 16 UTC.