Ubuntu has many recognisable traits, but one of the best is its reputation for working with its community.
Since Mark Shuttleworth forged the original team in 2004, the Ubuntu community has exploded in size, spawning a diverse range of teams across the globe.
Underlining this sense of community was Mark's eagerness to embrace transparency, putting in place open governance and tools, a code of conduct and an invitation for volunteers to join the ranks of the project.
Recently, however, there was some controversy surrounding this community ethos. It kicked off when Canonical, Ubuntu's primary sponsor, announced a refreshed brand for the project. A new lick of paint was applied to the logo, wallpaper and more, and new colour schemes, textures, photographic treatments and other artistic flourishes were shared with the wider community.
As part of the brand development, key members of the community were flown to London to work with the design team, and senior community governance boards were told about the brand before it was publicly announced.
The announcement that I drafted included two screenshots showing the new light and a dark themes. Although seemingly innocuous to the casual observer, within the screenshots was a detail that got a few people a little worked up: the window close/maximise/minimise buttons had moved from the right to the left.
Community controversy
A bug was filed regarding the change, and everyone and their dog weighed in to share their opinions. Some offered genuinely thoughtful usability critiques, but many spewed forth disjointed, rambling opinions.
The debate raged on before Mark threw his two cents into the well: "We all make Ubuntu, but we do not all make all of it. In other words, we delegate well. We have a kernel team, and they make kernel decisions. You don't get to make kernel decisions unless you're in that kernel team. You can file bugs and comment and engage, but you don't get to second-guess their decisions. … We have processes to help make sure we're doing a good job of delegation, but being an open community is not the same as saying everybody has a say in everything."
At the heart of Shuttleworth's response was a clarification that decisions at Ubuntu are not made by consensus but by recognised and informed decisionmakers. He concluded his post in response to a previous comment, affirming this position of Ubuntu:
"This is not a democracy. Good feedback, good data, are welcome. But we are not voting on design decisions." Within seconds of his comment on the bug being posted, Linux and open source newswires were ablaze with stories that Ubuntu was not a democracy, with some mis-reporting that there had been a fundamental change in how we build Ubuntu. My inbox filled up.
When the story broke, it reminded me of a conversation I had with Mark three years ago at an Ubuntu Developer Summit in California. It was my first UDS and I was still learning the ropes. At the time, I was putting together a community-led governance board for the Ubuntu Forums.
We'd codified the expectations of the council, fleshed out term lengths, decided on governance infrastructure and identified what the council would focus on. All we needed to do was decide who was going to serve on the council.
As we discussed different approaches, I recommended that we could hold a vote, to which Mark responded: "No, this is not a democracy." At first, my reaction was pretty much the same rabbit-caught-in-headlights response that some people experienced recently. Democracy felt like a culturally familiar, comfortable and fair approach to community, so the idea it was not our culture came as a bit of a bolt out of the blue. Mark continued to explain the position:
"In Ubuntu, decisions are not driven by a popularity contest, but instead by informed decision-makers with firm experience of the problem and making solutions." After he'd clarified what Ubuntu was not, he followed up with what it was: "Ubuntu is a meritocracy."
Merit-based change
For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a meritocracy doesn't assume that everyone has a right to a vote, but instead that leadership and direction is driven by those who've developed a reputation based on merit and good work.
In a meritocracy, you don't climb the community hierarchy by driving a nicer car, having finer clothes or other such material attributes. Progress is made through great work that's identified and respected, and grounded in experience and informed judgment.
Meritocratic communities are at the heart of how people share and collaborate in an idealised manner. As kids, we're warned of the temptation of bending the rules, or using status or a materialistic veneer as a fast-track to getting on in the world. From our earliest memories we're taught that good deeds are rewarded with good deeds.
Communities such as Ubuntu work in this very manner. Fundamentally, communities are economies, but instead of growing financial capital, we develop our reserves of social capital. We build this by giving gifts to the community (such as patches, documentation, bug reports or other contributions), and when others see our gifts and respect our work, we grow in their minds as good citizens; citizens who have experience and who we typically trust to lead.
These attributes are by no means specific to Ubuntu; the majority of open source communities are also meritocratic and leaders are identified through good work, recognised contributions and trust generated by the community.
I'm hugely proud of the incredible work the global Ubuntu community has achieved in the last six years, and meritocracy has helped bring viability, respect and acknowledgement to their work.
We still have work to do and problems to solve, but opportunity is lighting the path forward and I, for one, am ready to roll.
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First published in Linux Format Issue 132
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Your comments (17) Click to add a new comment
starfar
June 14th 2010
17. Ups! One sentence fell out:
Regardless of this issue the quality of the decisions taken by Ubuntu are very good and it is still the best distro for the "just works" kind of user
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starfar
June 14th 2010
16. So, I read through these comments and a lot of the ones erupting after infamous "left-window-button" debacle, an important moment in Ubuntu history.
Most comments are, to me, driven by aversion to change. I too don't like the left placement, I'm change averse - for obvious reasons: why create change for no apparent reason!?
Anyway the change itself is, in my view, a MEGA BIG non-issue: for those who care it takes all of 5 sec to change, for the other 70%-90% it won't matter at all.
Two things, though, matter to me:
1) the uninspired Mac-conformity:
Recent design decisions seem so clearly Mac inspired which makes me think of the old saying "If the only tool you know is a hammer..." and if the only design language these people know is that of Mac's, well... pretty boring. After all the Ubuntu design team use all Macs, and Mark himself has expressed the same Mac-envy/-admiration., so no surprise there
I know there is a lot of Mac envy in the tech world, and I personally fought almost a year with a macbook pro before deciding for a thinkpad with Ubuntu. I believed in the Mac dream, today I find OSX-ui somewhat mediocre (too much posture too little function). I definitely don't want Ubuntu to go that way.
2) The real dangers regarding this issue
I've seen one important comment on the button issue (I believe from a lead KDE developer) which took issue with the argument that moving the buttons would leave room for apps to place notifications on the decoration or perhaps generate the decorations directly. He gave a very compelling argument against that idea which mirrored my own thought on the same issue. We most certainly don't want Ubuntu to create a situation where apps and window managers compete.
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lorinkundert
June 14th 2010
15. gollypop, that is a great description, so in this case the users can either accept it or move to another linux based on Ubuntu or to something else entirely, While everyone points out how easy it is for a Linux user to change it, Ubuntu is supposed to be targeted to the new linux user moving away from Windows or Mac.
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phatcartoon
June 14th 2010
14. Wow, this is still an issue for people? First off, I'm glad they moved the buttons. I like it. I don't understand why people are whining about it. I always disliked it, even when I used windows. But, it shouldn't be that big of an issue, anyhow. Second, of course it's not a democracy; it's a business. It's criticism and input, but not a vote. Even if it was a democracy, too many voices would never be heard. Extreme hobbyist voices would be heard, but not that casual user's voice.
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gollypop
June 14th 2010
13. "Meritocracy" is Orwellian double-speak for "Dictatorship". Why? Because it hides the issue of who has power (the "-cracy" part) behind the concept of "merit". In a democracy, the people have power. In relation to "merit", this means that the people decide what counts as "merit". If the decisions as to what counts as "merit" in a "meritocracy" are made by a dictator, then what you have is simply a dictatorship, period. Disguising this behind another term is dishonest.
A "benevolent dictator" is what Mark claimed to be from the outset. Personally I don't agree that any dictatorship is entirely benevolent, but Mark was largely responsible for Ubuntu's success so if wanted to set it up that way and people wanted to jump on board, fine: I respect the fact that he was honest about it. But "meritocracy"? Please. Everyone from Gandhi to Hitler argues the "merits" of how they do things and the people they assign to positions of responsibility. There is no "meritocracy", there is democracy or dictatorship. Ubuntu is a dictatorship, period.
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lorinkundert
June 14th 2010
12. Sounds more like a mediocracy, come on, three years to get a fakeraid install working on the live system
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randiroo76073
June 14th 2010
11. I too was a little put off by the decision, but, I've always used a custom layout(great thing about Ubuntu) to suit me,right side-close,maximize, space, minimize. It actually didn't make a hoot to me & to much was made of it as far as I'm concerned, time to move on.
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wesley
June 13th 2010
10. Must be quite a few left-handed people in the department that decided to put close/minimise/maximise on the left. Dumb decision nevertheless.
I tried the latest version. It is possible to easily change it to the right side and also enable the backspace key to go back in the different browsers, which it strangely doesn't do by default.
I liked the new Ubuntu very much, but I can't switch to it without a power management utility to change the power settings in my laptop. I would like more control over the power settings.
Does anyone know of a program that would do that, cause I couldn't find one?
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lovlid
June 13th 2010
9. "The debate raged on"
Yeah,right.
You lot can make Absolutely Anything, Absolutely Boring.
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ishnid
June 13th 2010
8. Meritocracy is nice when the merits of the decisions it makes are explained, rather than the rather arrogant "we're in charge because we know what we're doing". Especially when faced with well-reasoned usability critiques, as you say yourself.
The comparison with a kernel or security team makes no sense either. Those are areas where a high-level of technical expertise is necessary in any decision-maker. The aesthetic decision of placing buttons on one side or the other is not such an area.
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dandellion
June 12th 2010
7. Meritocracy instead of simple democracy is very sane and efficient way to run a community.
But I still don't understand why the buttons shifted on the left side. :)
Luckily, community provided themes that fix my problem and push the buttons back where they belong.
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auser2
June 11th 2010
6. "Progress is made through great work that's identified and respected, and grounded in experience and informed judgment."
That would be wonderful if applied however it wasn't.
A sample poll:
Left thanks! 20% (1039 votes)
Right please! 80% (4142 votes)
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/03/poll-do-you-want-ubuntu-window-controls.html
Your "Meritocracy" obviously needs work as your developers are grossly uninformed as to what your USERS want and need.
Stop making excuses for Marks bad decisions. Your job as community manager is NOT to make excuses for decisions, it is to REPRESENT us.
Maybe we just need a new community manager.
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abc
June 11th 2010
5. @ mgillespie
1- There is "no Mac side", there is "Left" and "Right". I know Apple whish they could patent everything on earth, but as far as I know they cannot patent "left" and "right" (...yet).
2- Now, if your only issue with Ubuntu is that windows control are on the left by default, then you can change it in 5 sec. So no big deal.
(I am happy to help you with that if you want)
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phryyyk
June 11th 2010
4. So you're moaning about the position of the controls? Something which only occurs on the default theme and one other? Something which any user with enough wanton could change? I don't see either side as being Windows or Mac, just whatever you want, only Ubuntu and Linux in general gives you the choice. I'm peeved about not being able to scroll my Rhthymbox volume from the taskbar, but I can fix it. So they change something, isn't that a good thing? They don't have to abide by anyone else's paradigms, they make their own; that's why Linux is what it is.
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mgillespie
June 11th 2010
3. @abc
Then why screw over everyone that's used previous Ubuntu releases and Windows users (which accounts for 90% of all PCs) by switching the window control to "the mac side".
Seems to me like the final decision was down to a mac user (there must be one somewhere).
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abc
June 11th 2010
2. @ mgillespie:
I dont see your point..
Canonical wants to make a great OS, that's it.
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mgillespie
June 11th 2010
1. Canonical need to decide who they want to alienate. Windows and existing users, or Mac users..
Simple as that. You can't have it all ways. I stopped using Ubuntu because of this change (and their dropping of support for ARMV6 on my Sheevaplug)
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