Hello,
I do appreciate the responses from my Lubuntu colleagues on this topic.
That being said, Steve addressed me, so I at least owe him an
acknowledgement. I will also address some common questions we have
received recently.
Firstly, Thomas is correct, and I agree that the Lubuntu Constitution[1]
(as ratified by the Ubuntu Community Council) clearly defines these
roles and positions. With Lubuntu being a large player in the Ubuntu
ecosystem, a one-time read-through of our governing document may be
beneficial.
The reason Thomas Ward is Team Lead and I am Release Manager is simple:
we both get to work on what we actually enjoy. I enjoy being Release
Manager, and the responsibilities that come with it. Thomas enjoys being
Team Lead because he is well-connected with the legal, financial, and
infrastructure needs of the project, and that is what he enjoys doing.
What I believe Thomas is trying to say is, he leaves the vast majority
of day-to-day decisions to us, and is happy to delegate. After all, the
Team Lead is just the head of the executive; he *is* required
constitutionally speaking to run his decisions by the Lubuntu Council,
and as a body, we do have the right to override him (which has not
happened in recent memory, but the point still stands.) This all being
said, there is no contention between Thomas and I; we're both actually
quite happy with this arrangement, and have great mutual trust.
Thomas is skilled at being the head of the executive, that being said, I
would remind him that, while I agree that this is a high-stakes
discussion that should be dealt with by official leadership, Aaron did
the right thing by responding in this case. His response was helpful,
and actually gave Steve the information he needed to make his decision.
Don't Punish Good Behavior™ :)
More responses in-line.
On 1/17/24 11:18 PM, Thomas Ward wrote:
> I was just about to reply with a decision from Team Lead and Council as
> follows, which sort of affirms what Aaron said (though this DID need to come
> from leadership, not Aaron):
>
> Primary contact: Simon (tsimonq2)
> Secondary Contact: Dan (kc2bez)
> Third-tier contact (if Simon and Dan don't reply): Aaron (arraybolt3)
We'll be discussing this internally on a Lubuntu Council level after our
next election cycle. I get the feeling that Dan and Aaron both need to
be secondary contacts, but I'm okay with this being the decision for the
time being. To be clear, this is only for Noble, and would not apply for
e.g. point releases, which I have already explicitly delegated to both
of them.
> For an all else fails contact, you can contact me - Thomas (teward) - as
> Lubuntu Team Lead, I have executive authority to act if others are
> unreachable or in cases where it requires executive overrule (see Simon's
> reference to me dictating the "rest period" for Lubuntu started on Dec 20
> instead of Simon's suggestion of Dec 25th through New Year).
I don't think that exactly was public, but I'm okay with it being public
now. :)
> I'm also always open to pass on escalations if the others are unreachable,
> Simon and Aaron both know I'm no stranger to dropping bags of work on them
> when it's necessary.
>
> (Note that my Lubuntu duties are independent of my other roles and hats)
(Thomas is actually pretty good about separating CC/etc. duties and
Lubuntu duties, allow me to give him credit here.)
> Thomas
>
> (Sorry for not replying in line, Outlook is the only mail client I have right
> now and it's a pain for replying because it does top-replies).
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Ubuntu-release On Behalf Of
> Steve Langasek
> Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2024 12:14 AM
> To: Aaron Rainbolt
> Cc: Simon Quigley ; ubuntu-release@lists.ubuntu.com
> Subject: Re: Lubuntu LTS Requalification: 24.04 Noble Numbat
>
> On Wed, Jan 17, 2024 at 10:34:04PM -0600, Aaron Rainbolt wrote:
>>> One of the points on https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RecognizedFlavors for
>>> LTS approval is
>
>>> Flavor's support plan presented to Tech Board and approved; support plan
>>> should indicate period of time if beyond 9 months (3 yrs or 5 yr), key
>>> contacts, and setting expectations as to level of support.
>
>>> Who are you identifying as the "contacts" for escalation of any
>>> issues regarding Lubuntu 24.04 LTS, from the technical board or the release
>>> team?
>
>> Perhaps this got missed, but in the Lubuntu Constitution (our personal
>> "how things work in our project" policy), this is very well-defined.
>
> Well yes, that was not part of the information submitted to the Technical
> Board as part of the qualification request. It's healthy for a flavor to
> have such structures in place and also speaks well of the maturity and health
> of the Lubuntu flavor community; but please don't assume that members of the
> broader Ubuntu community are conversant with such flavor-specific governance
> details.
Well, let's fix that! :)
I li
