Maia

> As an Ubuntu Member, I feel uneasy having the privilege of being part of
> a closed beta (which I didn't even ask for) that non-members do not
> enjoy. I find it incompatible with my beliefs about openness and
> transparency - even if I'm not actually going to download from the PPA.

The goal in Ubuntu is to build the most effective processes for
collaboration, to get the best result. That sometimes means we don't do
the easy thing or the obvious thing. For example, we don't just hold a
referendum on every issue, we try to appoint the most talented members
of the community to make key decisions, and trust them. You could argue
that it would be more open to vote on everything, but it's certainly
more effective to run things as a firm meritocracy. Remember, openness
is a means to an end, the end being a better result. Openness is good
because it should result in a final product that meets the needs of more
people than something developed completely in seclusion. BUT, there are
useful places in between "completely closed" and "completely open", and
we try to use those places to good effect in Ubuntu.

Now, with regard to the font design process, think about it through the
lens of *effectiveness* rather than rigid openness.

Imagine if we had started with a blank sheet, and said to the whole
world (being completely open) "we want a font, what should it look
like"? The result, I hope you would agree, would be a horrible mishmash
of ideas. So obviously, starting with a completely open process from the
very beginning is actually NOT a good way to do it.

However, if we FINISH the font without ever having an open process, we
are likely to miss lots of important things that would make the font
more useful for everybody.

So the process we have settled on is one of gradually widening circles
of consultation. We start with a tight, professional design core, then
we widen the circle of consultation, as we improve the tools for
handling all the feedback we get.

The roadmap we have laid out is as follows:

 - we did the core design in a tight team lead by professionals, with me
being the voice of Ubuntu (the customer)
 - then we did an internal test within Canonical and the font design
community
 - then we made a tool for crowdsourcing font feedback (very cool, but
it had / has bugs still)
 - we then wanted to reach beyond Canonical, to a group which has global
representation and is still closely related to Ubuntu. The best group we
could think of was Ubuntu Members.
 - but we still don't want to be flooded with lots of duplicate bug
reports, and we need to start with a group that will be tolerant of
glitches in the fonttest tool, so we limit the initial feedback to that
group
 - once we are confident we have good glyph coverage and good tools, we
open the process completely

I think that's (a) a process designed to improve the font over time, (b)
a reasonable approach that achieves openness without breaking the tools
or people responsible for getting it done.

I was disappointed at your blog post, which criticised many aspects of
the process without showing any insight into that process. Did you ask
anybody close to it about it? Or did you just jump to conclusions? Did
you raise any of your issues directly with the people responsible, or
just broadcast your dissatisfaction?

Ubuntu depends on people figuring out how to work together effectively.
You can't really do that if you're going to criticise people publicly
before you engage with them in person.

Mark