Hello, Something I've noticed lately has me a little concerned. I am hoping you folks can put my fears at ease! When I look at bug reports for Unity, I often encounter links to what I assume are design documents internal to Canonical. Here is one of those bug reports: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/729009 (I realise this one was filed recently on an issue noticed after implementation, but let's view it as an example). The description points at an image: https://chinstrap.canonical.com/~sabdfl/11_04/desktop_and_netbook/dash/Dash_desktop/unity_desktop_dashboard_23_02_11_stages_fixed_01.png
I'm going to wander out on a limb here and assume Unity's design is finalized and this isn't a matter of people (sensibly) holding off on publicizing stuff until it's actually useful. I can understand the need (and the desire) to do some things internally, but I wonder if this is always happening intentionally, or if it's something being done by accident. This specific bug report looks like it could be a bitesize bug; a nice first bug fix for somebody. However, because the bug description is effectively inaccessible to any but those with access to chinstrap.canonical.com, it has to be fixed by a Canonical employee. (It rings a bell that the bug report could only have been filed by a Canonical employee, too). Personally, I think anyone looking at the bug tracker for a free software project should be able to understand and solve any publicly viewable bug report given appropriate knowledge and resources. We would benefit from having a very consistent design vision (and we have in the past), but with major components discussing internal design documents on the public bug tracker, it's starting to appear that only components driven by Canonical will be able to maintain that consistency. Of course, that worrying aside, in some places we do this really well! The branding assets are great, Unity's wiki page (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Unity) is up to date with useful _technical_ information, and the NotifyOSD / Indicators stuff has always been a wonderful example of good communication. So, I hope I don't come across as grumpy or anything. I just know we can do this a lot better. -- Dylan McCall -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
