Ayatana Design

Bug #882274
Comment #41

Comment 41 for bug 882274

Revision history for this message

Constantine (theaspect) wrote on 2011-11-03: Re: [Bug 882274] Re: Community engagement is broken

#41

Re TitanKing: main problem here, averadge user don't know about launchpad,
bugreport, maillist e.c. Moreover, they didn't even know that something
broken, or work not so good, as supposed to be.

2011/11/3 TitanKing <email address hidden>

> I think the community is too hard on Shuttleworth and his team (maybe
> even selfish), they are truly trying to achieve a vision here, lets
> honor this. I honor what they have done for Linux and open source thus
> far. I mean I use Launchpad for my own open source projects exclusively
> and I understand allot about making decisions. Sometimes you have a
> vision and to keep that enthusiastic flame burning, at times you have to
> do something exciting with your own creation, in the end it benefits
> everyone if it succeeds. Let Canonical push through their vision, if
> Unity makes it to the Desktop of millions it will benefit us enormously.
>
> I like to think of myself as a Linux power user, Ubuntu is much more
> than the desktop environment, don't forget the excellent backbone it
> runs on. Although Unity does not fit my needs, I moved over to Xfce, and
> I fell in love with it. I honestly think there is nothing to complain
> about. If you don't like Unity and call yourself a power user, its time
> to more on and let them do their work, as a power user you should
> realize that there are beautiful alternatives.
>
> Mark, please don't think the community is unappreciative of what you
> have done so far, they are just worried that their favorite Open Source
> tool might be falling apart, while the exact opposite is happening. I
> think you might want to market Xubuntu for power users more as it
> grossly underestimated, the solution is there, people just need to
> realize the alternative is great!
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/882274
>
> Title:
> Community engagement is broken
>
> Status in Ayatana Design:
> New
> Status in Unity:
> New
> Status in Unity 2D:
> New
> Status in “unity” package in Ubuntu:
> Confirmed
> Status in “unity-2d” package in Ubuntu:
> Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> This bug is opened with love.
>
> The issue appears to be a communications failure between the people
> who make Unity and its community of users. The bug is easy to
> reproduce: open a Launchpad bug about how Unity breaks a common usage
> pattern, and you get a "won't fix" status and then radio silence. The
> results of this bug are what seems to be a sizable community of
> disgruntled, dismayed and disappointed users, who go on to spread
> their discontent and ill will. I'm sure this ill will is painful for
> the awesome folk working on Unity. It's painful for the community,
> too.
>
> For a heartbreaking example, see:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/668415 or
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ayatana-design/+bug/733349
>
> The bug primarily affects Unity, but also affects Ayatana and Ubuntu
> quite directly. Unity is a rather small program and project in Ubuntu,
> but -- whether the Unity teams likes it or not -- it is the front face
> of Ubuntu, and the project and its ability to engage the community is
> considered as representative of Ubuntu as a whole.
>
> I can think of numerous causes for this bug:
>
> 1. A lack of transparency.
>
> Reasonable bugs seem to get closed because they do not fit in "Unity's
> vision," or are contradicted by the usability tests conducted for
> Ayatana, for which the team is rightfully proud. However, no details
> are provided beyond this claim: How does this contradict the "vision"?
> Where are the results of the usability tests that apply to this issue?
> It doesn't help that Mark Shuttleworth, who we look to for leadership,
> seems to enjoy being tight-lipped about the future specifics of this
> "vision," leaving the community in an anxious wait-and-see position.
> For example, when the window controls were moved from right to left,
> many of us were baffled. It took some time until we saw how this fit
> in Unity's global menu, but until then there was considerable
> confusion. It *seemed* arbitrary.
>
> 2. Marketing failure has caused unreasonable expectations.
>
> Unity has become the default shell for most Ubuntu distributions,
> leading users to expect general usability from it. However, Unity is
> known to be broken for common multi-monitor setups. This
> disappointment could have been easily avoided if Unity were the
> default for laptops and netbooks, but not for desktops. Or if there
> was a friendly popup opening when Unity were running in multi-monitor
> mode: "The Unity shell currently has limited support for multi-monitor
> setups. Would you like to switch to GNOME Shell instead? y/n".
>
> 3. The Unity team ignores strongly-worded criticism.
>
> Unfortunately, some members of the user community lack restraint.
> Moreover, the wonderfully international dimension of Ubuntu gathers
> people of various cultures, who do not always natively own English,
> the lingua franca of Launchpad. So, some words may appear stronger
> than they were intended. Sure, there's the golden rule of "never argue
> on the Internet," but this is not about arguing. It's about engaging
> your target audience. It's about friendship and neighborliness. It's
> about community. My suspicion is that there might be a formal policy
> for the project of not responding to strongly-worded criticism. But
> its motivation is likely a lack of patience, and also some
> condescension. That's not community.
>
> 4. The Unity team does not join the discussion.
>
> This might be a more technical issue. Could it be that they simply
> don't know what the community is saying? If that's the case, it should
> be a policy to actively look for community thought. This goes far
> beyond Launchpad: we would want to see Unity folk in the Ubuntu
> Forums. We want to see them responding to popular Ubuntu blogs.
>
> My fear is that this bug, too, will be closed as irrelevant, invalid,
> "won't fix" or whatever. I hope instead that the Unity project will
> use this as an opportunity to finally fix this. Moreover, I hope this
> bug won't be closed until the situation can objectively be deemed
> satisfactory.
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ayatana-design/+bug/882274/+subscriptions
>

--
With Best Regards,
Constantine

Re TitanKing: main problem here, averadge user don't know about launchpad,
bugreport, maillist e.c. Moreover, they didn't even know that something
broken, or work not so good, as supposed to be.

2011/11/3 TitanKing <882274@bugs.launchpad.net>

> I think the community is too hard on Shuttleworth and his team (maybe
> even selfish), they are truly trying to achieve a vision here, lets
> honor this. I honor what they have done for Linux and open source thus
> far. I mean I use Launchpad for my own open source projects exclusively
> and I understand allot about making decisions. Sometimes you have a
> vision and to keep that enthusiastic flame burning, at times you have to
> do something exciting with your own creation, in the end it benefits
> everyone if it succeeds. Let Canonical push through their vision, if
> Unity makes it to the Desktop of millions it will benefit us enormously.
>
> I like to think of myself as a Linux power user, Ubuntu is much more
> than the desktop environment, don't forget the excellent backbone it
> runs on. Although Unity does not fit my needs, I moved over to Xfce, and
> I fell in love with it. I honestly think there is nothing to complain
> about. If you don't like Unity and call yourself a power user, its time
> to more on and let them do their work, as a power user you should
> realize that there are beautiful alternatives.
>
> Mark, please don't think the community is unappreciative of what you
> have done so far, they are just worried that their favorite Open Source
> tool might be falling apart, while the exact opposite is happening. I
> think you might want to market Xubuntu for power users more as it
> grossly underestimated, the solution is there, people just need to
> realize the alternative is great!
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/882274
>
> Title:
>  Community engagement is broken
>
> Status in Ayatana Design:
>  New
> Status in Unity:
>  New
> Status in Unity 2D:
>  New
> Status in “unity” package in Ubuntu:
>  Confirmed
> Status in “unity-2d” package in Ubuntu:
>  Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
>  This bug is opened with love.
>
>  The issue appears to be a communications failure between the people
>  who make Unity and its community of users. The bug is easy to
>  reproduce: open a Launchpad bug about how Unity breaks a common usage
>  pattern, and you get a "won't fix" status and then radio silence. The
>  results of this bug are what seems to be a sizable community of
>  disgruntled, dismayed and disappointed users, who go on to spread
>  their discontent and ill will. I'm sure this ill will is painful for
>  the awesome folk working on Unity. It's painful for the community,
>  too.
>
>  For a heartbreaking example, see:
>  https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/668415 or
>  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ayatana-design/+bug/733349
>
>  The bug primarily affects Unity, but also affects Ayatana and Ubuntu
>  quite directly. Unity is a rather small program and project in Ubuntu,
>  but -- whether the Unity teams likes it or not -- it is the front face
>  of Ubuntu, and the project and its ability to engage the community is
>  considered as representative of Ubuntu as a whole.
>
>  I can think of numerous causes for this bug:
>
>  1. A lack of transparency.
>
>  Reasonable bugs seem to get closed because they do not fit in "Unity's
>  vision," or are contradicted by the usability tests conducted for
>  Ayatana, for which the team is rightfully proud. However, no details
>  are provided beyond this claim: How does this contradict the "vision"?
>  Where are the results of the usability tests that apply to this issue?
>  It doesn't help that Mark Shuttleworth, who we look to for leadership,
>  seems to enjoy being tight-lipped about the future specifics of this
>  "vision," leaving the community in an anxious wait-and-see position.
>  For example, when the window controls were moved from right to left,
>  many of us were baffled. It took some time until we saw how this fit
>  in Unity's global menu, but until then there was considerable
>  confusion. It *seemed* arbitrary.
>
>  2. Marketing failure has caused unreasonable expectations.
>
>  Unity has become the default shell for most Ubuntu distributions,
>  leading users to expect general usability from it. However, Unity is
>  known to be broken for common multi-monitor setups. This
>  disappointment could have been easily avoided if Unity were the
>  default for laptops and netbooks, but not for desktops. Or if there
>  was a friendly popup opening when Unity were running in multi-monitor
>  mode: "The Unity shell currently has limited support for multi-monitor
>  setups. Would you like to switch to GNOME Shell instead? y/n".
>
>  3. The Unity team ignores strongly-worded criticism.
>
>  Unfortunately, some members of the user community lack restraint.
>  Moreover, the wonderfully international dimension of Ubuntu gathers
>  people of various cultures, who do not always natively own English,
>  the lingua franca of Launchpad. So, some words may appear stronger
>  than they were intended. Sure, there's the golden rule of "never argue
>  on the Internet," but this is not about arguing. It's about engaging
>  your target audience. It's about friendship and neighborliness. It's
>  about community. My suspicion is that there might be a formal policy
>  for the project of not responding to strongly-worded criticism. But
>  its motivation is likely a lack of patience, and also some
>  condescension. That's not community.
>
>  4. The Unity team does not join the discussion.
>
>  This might be a more technical issue. Could it be that they simply
>  don't know what the community is saying? If that's the case, it should
>  be a policy to actively look for community thought. This goes far
>  beyond Launchpad: we would want to see Unity folk in the Ubuntu
>  Forums. We want to see them responding to popular Ubuntu blogs.
>
>  My fear is that this bug, too, will be closed as irrelevant, invalid,
>  "won't fix" or whatever. I hope instead that the Unity project will
>  use this as an opportunity to finally fix this. Moreover, I hope this
>  bug won't be closed until the situation can objectively be deemed
>  satisfactory.
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ayatana-design/+bug/882274/+subscriptions
>

-- 
With Best Regards,
Constantine