Re: New Official Flavor Process Issues (Was Re: Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix packages)

[Robie Basak]

On behalf of the Technical Board, I've been working with the flavour
leads, as well as prospective new flavour leads, to address the concerns
raised in this thread.

I think we reached a conclusion at the Ubuntu Summit in Prague,
including on specific drafts for a documented process and specific edits
to existing documentation. I intend for this email to serve to get
everything down for the record, and to share with others who are
interested.

Scope of relevant teams
===

The distinction between what is covered by the Technical Board directly
and what is delegated to the Release Team is not formally documented
anywhere. Since I’m on the Technical Board but not on the Release Team,
it’s probably worth clarifying this.

In general, what I expect is that a new flavour will require final
approval of the Technical Board, and there may be other points on which
the Technical Board will make a decision without having delegated it.
However, the specifics of the process including technical implementation
and the provision of appropriate expertise will be the responsibility of
the Release Team. This includes the maintenance of any documentation of
these specifics as the Release Team feels appropriate.

The flavour team is expected to “do the work” under the guidance and
direction of the Release Team under this process.

New flavour process
===

I've documented initial steps at
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RecognizedFlavors/NewFlavorProcess

Any community member interested in starting a new flavour should start
on this page. Please point them that way, and update any links as
appropriate.

These steps are intended to be minimal, mostly non-technical, and geared
at connecting prospective new flavours with the Release Team, who will
be able to specify relevant requirements as they apply at the time.

General requirements to become and remain a recognized flavor
=

These are part of the Release Team's documentation at:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RecognizedFlavors

I've renamed and adjusted this section. Prospective flavours should use
these requirements as a rough guide only. The Release Team and/or
Technical Board may adjust the general requirements this from time to
time, so it's essential to be in contact with the Release Team by
following the process mentioned above to avoid surprises.

What I've not covered
=

A wide range of concerns were raised by various people. To make
progress, I've tried to better define and improve what I perceived to be
the major issue that led to this thread, which was mainly involving
communication and mismatched expectations.

On specific technical questions and issues related to the rolling of
flavour images, I think these should primarily be the concern of the
Release Team and not the Technical Board directly. By making sure that
prospective flavours have a point of contact on the Release Team, I hope
these can be addressed, and any general process documented as needed, on
a case-by-case basis and through that point of contact.

On concerns about lack of documentation, I make the observation that new
flavours are rare, engineering time is scarce, and therefore any
documentation in this area is likely to be out of date soon after it is
written. The Technical Board is not in a position to assign a
documentation author to maintain new flavour process documentation, and
in any case if we had that resource I think it would better assigned in
other areas lacking documentation in Ubuntu since new flavours are rare.
So I hope that I've found a reasonable compromise: the process I've
documented should be general enough to survive most technical process
changes, and will lead to a connection with a member of the Release Team
who will be able to answer questions and help with any of the rest.

However, that's just my opinion, and I don't intend to discourage anyone
who wants to write documentation for this process, or any other!
Certainly the Release Team should continue to document processes as they
feel appropriate, and I also encourage flavours to help coordinate and
contribute to that effort.


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Re: New Official Flavor Process Issues (Was Re: Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix packages)

[Thomas Ward]

ou do that wrong consistently in a way that may be against CoC 
especially on public lists, then it becomes a Problem(TM) that may come 
back to bite you.  So as I said in the beginning of my message, take a 
deep breath and relax a little.


If you truly believe that I need to be a core dev,
(CC, DMB) Where did it say you need core-dev?  You don't need to be MOTU 
or Core Dev to have upload rights for a package - just apply via the DMB 
PPU process.  Get the upload rights for what you need specifically in 
the flavor.
then you are saying any community member who wants to create a flavor 
needs to spend YEARS getting to that high of privilege.
(DMB, Core Dev) No, you don't need YEARS to get the privilege of upload 
for the packages you need.  Refer to the PPU application process.
And that is not community friendly at all. I am a student, and I'm 
going to a magnet school in September (a CS school might I add).

(CC) Irrelevant to the point that was raised.
School is going to get more intense and I'm not going to be spending 6 
hours a day on Ubuntu development.
(Personal) I am not employed by Canonical.  The amount of *actual* 
development work I do with Ubuntu nowadays is interspersed among my free 
time and is not easily noticed to the public at large.  And while I may 
not have a ton of uploads going on right now, or a ton of development on 
packages being done here at the moment, most of my energy goes into my 
Full Time job and being paid for things, or going to school like I did 
for university and such did NOT interfere from me putting a couple hours 
a week into Ubuntu.  You don't have to go hard core six hours a day of 
Ubuntu work.  I haven't, and yet I sit on the CC, DMB, and have Core Dev 
rights today after putting a few hours work a week or so at most over 
the course of time in to get the recognition and hats I have.  That 
didn't come from six hours a day of Ubuntu contributions, that came from 
me volunteering time I have when I have it and want to contribute, over 
the course of years, to get to where I am now.  Nobody ever said you 
have to spend 6 hours a day contributing to Ubuntu or any specific 
flavor. Nor have I seen anybody be saying that now.


(DMB) Further, the requirements for PPU are a lot lower to an extent 
than the requirements for MOTU and Core Dev - we still require you to 
understand basic things like how the SRU process works, etc. so you 
don't overstep your rights to upload specific packages, but we also 
focus *only* on the pacakges you have worked on that you're applying for 
in comparison to all your contributions.  So the scope of what is 
assessed is different, and it seems you aren't understanding this.




Again, to you this is hard to understand because you already **have** 
the upload rights.
(CC) Calm down already.  This level of aggressiveness and 
pointedness/stabbing despite other posts in your message here is the 
*wrong way* to approach this, and while we all get this way from time to 
time, there's been **a lot** of this type of frustration voiced by you 
in ways that **do not** get results and get you labeled as an irritant.




Truly, with honesty,
-Josh

*From:* Jeremy Bicha 
*Sent:* Thursday, July 28, 2022 10:20
*To:* eeickme...@ubuntu.com 
*Cc:* Steve Langasek ; 
technical-bo...@lists.ubuntu.com ; 
community-coun...@lists.ubuntu.com 
; itzswirlz2...@outlook.com 
; ubuntu-release@lists.ubuntu.com 

*Subject:* Re: New Official Flavor Process Issues (Was Re: Ubuntu 
Cinnamon Remix packages)

On Thu, Jul 28, 2022 at 9:55 AM  wrote:
> This most certainly is not a hasty escalation. I've been aware of
> Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix for 3 years and in that time, Joshua's intention
> was to make it an official flavor. They have been encouraged to become
> an official flavor since Day 0.

The escalation from my perspective is that it appears to me like y'all
made a request to become an official flavor on Saturday, got a reply
on Sunday, and then invoked the authority of the Ubuntu Community
Council on Wednesday. I don't think that's being fair to the Tech
Board.
(CC) I agree with Jeremy here, the optics of this and the way you 
handled this, Erich, are bad.  Next time, wait for Council quorum on an 
issue before we wave the CC hats around as "oh now this is CC 
escalated", because the optics are just as important as the real 
processes, and you didn't *need* to bring *this* up as a CC issue. You 
could have simply emailed the TB and asked the TB to better document the 
process, and copy the CC for awareness.  This didn't need a CC 
issue/escalation task though, in my opinion, so with my CC hat on, in my 
opinion, you're taking non-consensus actions claiming this needed CC 
intervention.


You can make requests for improvement as an individual developer
without needing to speak on behalf of the Community Council.

Thank you,
Jeremy Bicha




---

Thomas Ward
"The Man o

Re: New Official Flavor Process Issues (Was Re: Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix packages)

[eeickmeyer]

On Thu, 2022-07-28 at 17:14 -0400, Thomas Ward wrote:
> So in the TB's defense, this should not have been so rapidly brought
> up as a "CC problem" as Erich alone raised it as such, and is now
> operating with the CC hat **without** quorate decision that this
> needs CC attention.
>  

That is incorrect and I have discussed this with Thomas. Thomas missed
an email and I pointed this out to him. To clarify,

7 Council Members
3 Are currently absent and unable to participate due to personal and
work circumstances.

With regards to sending the email that I did:
3 +1
1 -1

I would never have sent the email without majority approval.

-- 
Erich Eickmeyer
Member, Ubuntu Community Council
Project Leader, Ubuntu Studio
Ubuntu MOTU

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Re: New Official Flavor Process Issues (Was Re: Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix packages)

[Jeremy Bicha]

On Thu, Jul 28, 2022 at 3:52 PM Joshua Peisach
 wrote:
> Jeremy,
>
> UCR has been around for 3 years. Plan since day 0, when I went on discourse 
> and brought up the idea was flavor.
>
> There have been reasons I've been so hesitant to reach out - these dang 
> barriers. Again, for you and current devs it doesn't matter but for community 
> members it is essentially impossible to move forward.
>
> "Escalation" - I've wanted to apply for PPU status to get my packages into 
> universe but other roadblocks keeps popping up. For example, the Debian 
> cinnamon maintainer left Debian and me and Fabio fantoni as aforementioned, 
> we both deserve rights but we don't get that. The only escalation that has 
> been happening is that Erich decided to help me and upload the 
> ubuntucinnamon-* packages to universe. But the directions are still unclear 
> as to what to do. Should a germinate seed be in Launchpad before or after 
> applying to flavor status? When it says "one or more developer with upload 
> rights" what does the at mean? You already have upload rights. I don't.
>
> And to say that "oh we are using the community council and you're being 
> unfair to the TB", we are just trying to figure out what we are supposed to 
> do.
>
> You could say "oh just apply for status" but trying to find those places of 
> contribution can be difficult and it feels very rare to see someone new come 
> in and get their dev membership nowadays, especially one who isn't already a 
> member.
>
> And to top it off, make requests for improvements individually? Currently I 
> am silenced. Nobody cares if I say a thing; in general, I get ghosted anyways 
> or treated as if I'm dumb. To many, my input doesn't matter and if I were to 
> email TB right now they would probably not respond, or not even let my email 
> go through the mailing list.
>
> I know I sound very harsh - but check my application page. And look at Ubuntu 
> Cinnamon and Unity and their community. If you want to make a distro where we 
> embrace community, put your company paychecks aside and make it happen. We 
> want this. The community wants this. And we aren't letting this stop us and 
> we will not be silenced.
>
> If you truly believe that I need to be a core dev, then you are saying any 
> community member who wants to create a flavor needs to spend YEARS getting to 
> that high of privilege. And that is not community friendly at all. I am a 
> student, and I'm going to a magnet school in September (a CS school might I 
> add). School is going to get more intense and I'm not going to be spending 6 
> hours a day on Ubuntu development.
>
> Again, to you this is hard to understand because you already **have** the 
> upload rights.
>
> Truly, with honesty,
> -Josh

Josh,

Thank you for emailing.

Background
---
Let me try to briefly summarize my story. I am not doing this to brag,
but to try to communicate that I've been where you are.

I didn't join Canonical until January of this year. The vast majority
of my contributions to Ubuntu were done as a volunteer community
member. It took me a long time to see myself as a Developer because I
didn't have a traditional computer science education or paid work
experience. Related to that, I usually took too long to apply for
memberships and upload rights. I became an Ubuntu Member in 2011. By
the time I applied I was more than qualified and was told I could have
used the Contributing Developer process instead. I didn't know that. I
joined Ubuntu Desktop (an uploading team) later that year and I joined
MOTU the next year. Ubuntu GNOME became an official flavor for 13.04.

The other co-founder of Ubuntu GNOME, Tim Lunn, who was Technical Lead
for a couple years when I wasn't able to, never joined MOTU or Core
Dev. It's not required to join those teams to be a Technical Lead for
an official Ubuntu flavor. But there needs to be a plan for at least
one developer to get PPU upload rights for your flavor's essential
packages.

I eventually got Debian Developer and Ubuntu Core status in 2017. But
I should have applied for those sooner. Because I waited too long, I
try to encourage others to apply sooner.

You do not need years of work to get the upload rights you need. It is
generally interpreted as 6 months of work. Therefore, I believe you
more than qualify for the Ubuntu upload rights you need.

Oh and I wanted to contribute to Ubuntu for years but it wasn't until
2011 that I figured out where I could use my skills to make a
difference.

Help
--
Your PPU application [1] needs more endorsements. I'll write one for
you this week.

I think you should include all the Debian Cinnamon packages in your
team's packageset (except for libtimezonemap since that's a shared
component).

I think the biggest thing you've been missing earlier in your Ubuntu
contributions is a mentor to help you reach your full potential in
Ubuntu and along the way, get the uploader status and memberships you
deserve. I volunteer to help 

Re: New Official Flavor Process Issues (Was Re: Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix packages)

[Jeremy Bicha]

On Thu, Jul 28, 2022 at 9:55 AM  wrote:
> This most certainly is not a hasty escalation. I've been aware of
> Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix for 3 years and in that time, Joshua's intention
> was to make it an official flavor. They have been encouraged to become
> an official flavor since Day 0.

The escalation from my perspective is that it appears to me like y'all
made a request to become an official flavor on Saturday, got a reply
on Sunday, and then invoked the authority of the Ubuntu Community
Council on Wednesday. I don't think that's being fair to the Tech
Board.

You can make requests for improvement as an individual developer
without needing to speak on behalf of the Community Council.

Thank you,
Jeremy Bicha

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Re: New Official Flavor Process Issues (Was Re: Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix packages)

[eeickmeyer]

On Thu, 2022-07-28 at 08:35 -0400, Jeremy Bicha wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 27, 2022 at 9:22 PM  wrote:
> > 
> > Hi Steve,
> > 
> > Your reply brings up a larger discussion which involves not only
> > the
> > technical board, but also the community council since there are
> > community implications that need to be addressed as the wiki entry
> > you
> > referred to is not at all community friendly.
> > 
> > For those just joining the conversation, Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix
> > (ubuntucinnamon.org), with Joshua Peisach as leader, has been
> > working
> > on meeting the requirements to become an official flavor for the
> > past 3
> > years. Joshua has been trying, to the best of his ability, to
> > follow
> > the requirements posted at
> > .
> > I have stepped-up to assist him with my MOTU hat on, but Joshua has
> > run
> > into numerous roadblocks over the years, and I am seeing his
> > frustrations as well. It seems as though when he meets a
> > requirement, a
> > new requirement appears, so that while the goalposts aren't
> > actually
> > moving in the eyes of those on the technical board, to him it
> > appears
> > like they are.
> > 
> > Before I proceed any further, I need to note that I have brought
> > this
> > to the attention of the Community Council, and we agree that this
> > issue
> > does need to be addressed. Therefore, I write this now as a
> > representative of the Community Council, with some replies in-line
> > addressing the packaging concerns.
> 
> I'm not on the Tech Board, but this feels like a hasty escalation to
> me.
> 
> The Tech Board was emailed on Saturday and replied, very quickly, on
> Sunday.
> 
> I am unaware of Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix developers reaching out
> publicly
> to the Tech Board before Saturday.
> 
> Perhaps someone could have been more proactive and asked the Ubuntu
> Cinnamon Remix developers if they wanted to become an official flavor
> and encourage them to do so.

This most certainly is not a hasty escalation. I've been aware of
Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix for 3 years and in that time, Joshua's intention
was to make it an official flavor. They have been encouraged to become
an official flavor since Day 0.

> 
> The Tech Board reply gave some specific tasks that need to be done
> which is similar to what I had to do many years ago when I went
> through the process for Ubuntu GNOME.
> 
> If you need help understanding or completing the tasks, please reach
> out to me or to the Tech Board or Ubuntu Release teams.
> 
> Yes, the documentation can be improved.
> 

Getting the documentation improved is what we are asking.

> > There is no documentation anywhere that I know of in this context
> > for
> > the requirement of the involvement of a member of the ~ubuntu-core-
> > dev
> > team, so now I'm emploring the technical board to get this sorted,
> > preferably on some kind of documentation, but not necessarily on
> >  as I'm not happy with
> > that
> > wiki entry from a community standpoint. More on this later in this
> > email.
> 
> That requirement is documented in these links. Ideally, at least one
> Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix developer would have upload rights for their
> flavor's packages. That can be done by becoming a MOTU or with a new
> team specifically for the flavor's packages. From years ago, I don't
> think it's a blocker for becoming a recognized flavor since
> sponsorship works but it ought to be a goal to get those upload
> permissions soon.
> 
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDevelopers/TeamDelegation
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DeveloperMembershipBoard/ApplicationProcess
> 
> Another responsibility of becoming an official flavor is that the
> developers need to be able to reach out and communicate well with the
> Ubuntu Release Team so that releases can happen on time. The
> communication burden falls on both sides, but the flavor developers
> need to reach out to the right team when needed instead of waiting to
> be asked if there is a problem.
> 
> Ideally, the developers would have some experience with completing
> Stable Release Updates too since fixing bugs in stable releases is an
> important part of providing support for stable releases.
> 

The process may have worked for you, Jeremy, but that doesn't work for
everyone. As I stated in the email, we, the Community Council, are now
asking the Technical Board to get this sorted out so that the barriers
to becoming an official flavor are lessened, not from a requirement
standpoint, but from a process and procedure standpoint. We just want
improved documentation. 

Basically, if someone like me, a flavor lead, MOTU, and experienced
member of this community is having trouble following the existing
documentation, then something is terribly wrong with that
documentation. The others in the council agree.


Erich Eickmeyer
Member, Ubuntu Community Council
Project Leader, Ubuntu Studio
Ubuntu MOTU


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Re: New Official Flavor Process Issues (Was Re: Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix packages)

[Jeremy Bicha]

On Wed, Jul 27, 2022 at 9:22 PM  wrote:
>
> Hi Steve,
>
> Your reply brings up a larger discussion which involves not only the
> technical board, but also the community council since there are
> community implications that need to be addressed as the wiki entry you
> referred to is not at all community friendly.
>
> For those just joining the conversation, Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix
> (ubuntucinnamon.org), with Joshua Peisach as leader, has been working
> on meeting the requirements to become an official flavor for the past 3
> years. Joshua has been trying, to the best of his ability, to follow
> the requirements posted at .
> I have stepped-up to assist him with my MOTU hat on, but Joshua has run
> into numerous roadblocks over the years, and I am seeing his
> frustrations as well. It seems as though when he meets a requirement, a
> new requirement appears, so that while the goalposts aren't actually
> moving in the eyes of those on the technical board, to him it appears
> like they are.
>
> Before I proceed any further, I need to note that I have brought this
> to the attention of the Community Council, and we agree that this issue
> does need to be addressed. Therefore, I write this now as a
> representative of the Community Council, with some replies in-line
> addressing the packaging concerns.

I'm not on the Tech Board, but this feels like a hasty escalation to me.

The Tech Board was emailed on Saturday and replied, very quickly, on Sunday.

I am unaware of Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix developers reaching out publicly
to the Tech Board before Saturday.

Perhaps someone could have been more proactive and asked the Ubuntu
Cinnamon Remix developers if they wanted to become an official flavor
and encourage them to do so.

The Tech Board reply gave some specific tasks that need to be done
which is similar to what I had to do many years ago when I went
through the process for Ubuntu GNOME.

If you need help understanding or completing the tasks, please reach
out to me or to the Tech Board or Ubuntu Release teams.

Yes, the documentation can be improved.

> There is no documentation anywhere that I know of in this context for
> the requirement of the involvement of a member of the ~ubuntu-core-dev
> team, so now I'm emploring the technical board to get this sorted,
> preferably on some kind of documentation, but not necessarily on
>  as I'm not happy with that
> wiki entry from a community standpoint. More on this later in this
> email.

That requirement is documented in these links. Ideally, at least one
Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix developer would have upload rights for their
flavor's packages. That can be done by becoming a MOTU or with a new
team specifically for the flavor's packages. From years ago, I don't
think it's a blocker for becoming a recognized flavor since
sponsorship works but it ought to be a goal to get those upload
permissions soon.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDevelopers/TeamDelegation
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DeveloperMembershipBoard/ApplicationProcess

Another responsibility of becoming an official flavor is that the
developers need to be able to reach out and communicate well with the
Ubuntu Release Team so that releases can happen on time. The
communication burden falls on both sides, but the flavor developers
need to reach out to the right team when needed instead of waiting to
be asked if there is a problem.

Ideally, the developers would have some experience with completing
Stable Release Updates too since fixing bugs in stable releases is an
important part of providing support for stable releases.

Thank you,
Jeremy Bicha

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