Friction Building Around An Ubuntu Community Council Decision

[DanL]

Mark is OK with anyone using Mir or Wayland. Is even in the repos now.

Noted. (Thanks)

They're just asking for a temporary step down to another position because of the drama created till the waters finish calming, so we can all move forward from that phase. Is not like they are banning him or killing Kubuntu or imposing Mir or anything like that.

Asking someone to step down from a long-held position of leadership could be seen as a passive-aggressive way of forcing someone out.

How I wished Michael would have closed this thread instantly. Inb4 10 pages of how Canonical is the devil

Discussion has been very tame so far. Don't encourage the flame war by assuming it will happen.

[dh04000]

Here's the CC's official message on the situation. Seems that he burned the only only people that could help him when he decided to abuse people's trust during private emails. I know that if a co-worker did that to me, I would work to get them canned over it. That's messed up. There is no way I could ever trust or work well with them again. I hate that Pit-In-the-Belly feeling of dealing with people you know are fully willing to harm you at their advantage. Makes for a terrible work experience.


This is the first email: (note that "elfy" is just the Ubuntu Forums admin XD)

Subj: Jonathan Riddell From: elfy [email protected] To: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] CC: cc [email protected] Date: Wed May 20 03:04:51 2015 Dear members of the Kubuntu Council:

It is with regret that we write this email to discuss an issue that we feel is negatively impacting the Ubuntu Community. Over a long period of time Jonathan Riddell has become increasingly difficult to deal with. Jonathan raised valid issues and concerns, but reacted poorly when he received answers he did not agree with. As things progressed Jonathan made public statements impugning the integrity of the Community Council(CC)and twisting the words of others. He was also argumentative to the point we feel he violated the code of conduct. Out of respect for Jonathan’s contributions we allowed this situation to continue in the hopes it would self-correct, but that has not happened.
Over the past year, and increasingly over the past month, Jonathan

• has been overly aggressive and confrontational in his communication, both in private with the CC and in public
• has not been responsive to multiple calls for moderation in this communication
• has not accepted the findings and conclusions from the CC, even though he was the one who requested them from us
• has taken private communications public when he did not like the way they went
• has knowingly misrepresented the statements and positions of others
• made accusations about the integrity and honesty of members of the community
• made accusations of apathy against the CC, in blatant disregard to the time and energy he knows we have been putting into the issue he raises
• has been disrespectful towards the CC and Canonical in both private and public communication
• has abused his leadership position to cause divisions within the community, rather than uniting it

At this time we have sent an email to Jonathan requesting that he step aside from all positions of leadership in the Ubuntu Communityfor at least 12 months. This request will require him to step aside from leadership in Kubuntu as well. We apologize that this happens just after the election of the Kubuntu Council and are willing to assist in anyway to help with the transition.
Jonathan will be able to keep his upload and commit rights and is still allowed to participate as a member of the Ubuntu Community. He is allowed to request funds from the community donations program as an individual, but requests for funding of Kubuntu activities, such as sprints, should be requested by another Kubuntu leader. Likewise we would like for any concerns that Kubuntu would like to raise with the Community Council be brought to us by somebody other than Jonathan.
It is important to stress that this decision was not a result of his raising issues of concern to us, or because of the issues that were raised. The CC agreed that the issues were valid and important, and we took them on and followed through with them to the best of our ability. It was not the issues, but rather this response to our work and our conclusions, and his continuing confrontational attitude in private and public communication that has forced us into this position.
regards
Kev on behalf of the Community Council
---END------

[asdfblah]

If Kubuntu is not even managed by Canonical... why do they even TALK to them? Kubuntu leaders should make Kubuntu even MORE independent and tell Canonical to go fsck itself.
There has ALWAYS been drama with Kubuntu, and not because of Kubuntu itself, but because Canonical has always relegated it to a 2nd place, even if it's one of the most popular Ubuntu flavors. I remember when Unity was going to be made, and my friends (Kubuntu users) kept saying that Canonical should have used Qt instead of GTK... well, see how times have changed, Canonical was WRONG, they are always WRONG and keep wasting resources on stupid things (including the creation of unnecessary DRAMA).
My guess is that Shuttleworth believes that he's entitled to this because he has so much money... well, Mr. Shuttleworth, your company is just leeching from DEBIAN and the linux community as a whole, while most projects started by Canonical have FAILED and aren't even original.

[dh04000]

If Kubuntu is not even managed by Canonical... why do they even TALK to them? Kubuntu leaders should make Kubuntu even MORE independent and tell Canonical to go fsck itself.
There has ALWAYS been drama with Kubuntu, and not because of Kubuntu itself, but because Canonical has always relegated it to a 2nd place, even if it's one of the most popular Ubuntu flavors. I remember when Unity was going to be made, and my friends (Kubuntu users) kept saying that Canonical should have used Qt instead of GTK... well, see how times have changed, Canonical was WRONG, they are always WRONG and keep wasting resources on stupid things (including the creation of unnecessary DRAMA).
My guess is that Shuttleworth believes that he's entitled to this because he has so much money... well, Mr. Shuttleworth, your company is just leeching from DEBIAN and the linux community as a whole, while most projects started by Canonical have FAILED and aren't even original.

Did you even read, or is this an emotional outcry? Seems like the later. Please read my last post, thank you.

[duby229]

I agree with him. Emotional or not, the truth is what the truth is. It's ok to get emotional over something you care about. Kubuntu has always been the best derivative despite Canonical trying to screw it at every turn. (edit: you can be damn sure this is in fact just another attempt by Canonical to screw Kubuntu again)

I still say the project should be rebased on debian and then renamed.

[computerquip]

Here's the CC's official message on the situation. Seems that he burned the only only people that could help him when he decided to abuse people's trust during private emails. I know that if a co-worker did that to me, I would work to get them canned over it. That's messed up. There is no way I could ever trust or work well with them again. I hate that Pit-In-the-Belly feeling of dealing with people you know are fully willing to harm you at their advantage. Makes for a terrible work experience.


This is the first email: (note that "elfy" is just the Ubuntu Forums admin XD)

Subj: Jonathan Riddell From: elfy [email protected] To: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] CC: cc [email protected] Date: Wed May 20 03:04:51 2015 Dear members of the Kubuntu Council:

It is with regret that we write this email to discuss an issue that we feel is negatively impacting the Ubuntu Community. Over a long period of time Jonathan Riddell has become increasingly difficult to deal with. Jonathan raised valid issues and concerns, but reacted poorly when he received answers he did not agree with. As things progressed Jonathan made public statements impugning the integrity of the Community Council(CC)and twisting the words of others. He was also argumentative to the point we feel he violated the code of conduct. Out of respect for Jonathan?s contributions we allowed this situation to continue in the hopes it would self-correct, but that has not happened.
Over the past year, and increasingly over the past month, Jonathan

• has been overly aggressive and confrontational in his communication, both in private with the CC and in public
• has not been responsive to multiple calls for moderation in this communication
• has not accepted the findings and conclusions from the CC, even though he was the one who requested them from us
• has taken private communications public when he did not like the way they went
• has knowingly misrepresented the statements and positions of others
• made accusations about the integrity and honesty of members of the community
• made accusations of apathy against the CC, in blatant disregard to the time and energy he knows we have been putting into the issue he raises
• has been disrespectful towards the CC and Canonical in both private and public communication
• has abused his leadership position to cause divisions within the community, rather than uniting it

At this time we have sent an email to Jonathan requesting that he step aside from all positions of leadership in the Ubuntu Communityfor at least 12 months. This request will require him to step aside from leadership in Kubuntu as well. We apologize that this happens just after the election of the Kubuntu Council and are willing to assist in anyway to help with the transition.
Jonathan will be able to keep his upload and commit rights and is still allowed to participate as a member of the Ubuntu Community. He is allowed to request funds from the community donations program as an individual, but requests for funding of Kubuntu activities, such as sprints, should be requested by another Kubuntu leader. Likewise we would like for any concerns that Kubuntu would like to raise with the Community Council be brought to us by somebody other than Jonathan.
It is important to stress that this decision was not a result of his raising issues of concern to us, or because of the issues that were raised. The CC agreed that the issues were valid and important, and we took them on and followed through with them to the best of our ability. It was not the issues, but rather this response to our work and our conclusions, and his continuing confrontational attitude in private and public communication that has forced us into this position.
regards
Kev on behalf of the Community Council
---END------

This email doesnt bring to light any references to the accusations which is the problem in the first place. Ive seen this all too many times where a group of people collectively hate on someone as a common interest and search for reasons to create drama for that person.

This decision is surprising people because nobody seems to have seen the poor behavior.

Edit: At the very least, nothing that warrants such a potentially damaging decision.

[grndzro]

I agree with him. Emotional or not, the truth is what the truth is. It's ok to get emotional over something you care about. Kubuntu has always been the best derivative despite Canonical trying to screw it at every turn. (edit: you can be damn sure this is in fact just another attempt by Canonical to screw Kubuntu again)

I still say the project should be rebased on debian and then renamed.

Xubuntu/Lubuntu users would disagree. Both are slightly more popular than Kubuntu.

[duby229]

Xubuntu/Lubuntu users would disagree. Both are slightly more popular than Kubuntu.

It's attempts marginalize it that make it even more necessary. I didn't say anything at all about marketshare, which in fact is very hard to prove, if not impossible.

[asdfblah]

Did you even read, or is this an emotional outcry? Seems like the later. Please read my last post, thank you.

Did you notice that I posted only 2 minutes after you? You know, writing a consistent post takes time... And now I think that my post was correct. Kubuntu should move away from Canonical, and simply ignore it, except for the very basic things they need to agree on.

Xubuntu/Lubuntu users would disagree. Both are slightly more popular than Kubuntu.

Judging by the number of users in their respective IRC channels in Freenode...:
-alis- #kubuntu 291
-alis- #kubuntu-devel 110
-alis- #xubuntu 132
-alis- #xubuntu-devel 52
-alis- #lubuntu 76
-alis- #lubuntu-devel 19
then no, not even close.

[Luke_Wolf]

Here's the CC's official message on the situation. Seems that he burned the only only people that could help him when he decided to abuse people's trust during private emails. I know that if a co-worker did that to me, I would work to get them canned over it. That's messed up. There is no way I could ever trust or work well with them again. I hate that Pit-In-the-Belly feeling of dealing with people you know are fully willing to harm you at their advantage. Makes for a terrible work experience.


This is the first email: (note that "elfy" is just the Ubuntu Forums admin XD)

Subj: Jonathan Riddell From: elfy [email protected] To: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] CC: cc [email protected] Date: Wed May 20 03:04:51 2015 Dear members of the Kubuntu Council:

It is with regret that we write this email to discuss an issue that we feel is negatively impacting the Ubuntu Community. Over a long period of time Jonathan Riddell has become increasingly difficult to deal with. Jonathan raised valid issues and concerns, but reacted poorly when he received answers he did not agree with. As things progressed Jonathan made public statements impugning the integrity of the Community Council(CC)and twisting the words of others. He was also argumentative to the point we feel he violated the code of conduct. Out of respect for Jonathan’s contributions we allowed this situation to continue in the hopes it would self-correct, but that has not happened.
Over the past year, and increasingly over the past month, Jonathan

• has been overly aggressive and confrontational in his communication, both in private with the CC and in public
• has not been responsive to multiple calls for moderation in this communication
• has not accepted the findings and conclusions from the CC, even though he was the one who requested them from us
• has taken private communications public when he did not like the way they went
• has knowingly misrepresented the statements and positions of others
• made accusations about the integrity and honesty of members of the community
• made accusations of apathy against the CC, in blatant disregard to the time and energy he knows we have been putting into the issue he raises
• has been disrespectful towards the CC and Canonical in both private and public communication
• has abused his leadership position to cause divisions within the community, rather than uniting it

At this time we have sent an email to Jonathan requesting that he step aside from all positions of leadership in the Ubuntu Communityfor at least 12 months. This request will require him to step aside from leadership in Kubuntu as well. We apologize that this happens just after the election of the Kubuntu Council and are willing to assist in anyway to help with the transition.
Jonathan will be able to keep his upload and commit rights and is still allowed to participate as a member of the Ubuntu Community. He is allowed to request funds from the community donations program as an individual, but requests for funding of Kubuntu activities, such as sprints, should be requested by another Kubuntu leader. Likewise we would like for any concerns that Kubuntu would like to raise with the Community Council be brought to us by somebody other than Jonathan.
It is important to stress that this decision was not a result of his raising issues of concern to us, or because of the issues that were raised. The CC agreed that the issues were valid and important, and we took them on and followed through with them to the best of our ability. It was not the issues, but rather this response to our work and our conclusions, and his continuing confrontational attitude in private and public communication that has forced us into this position.
regards
Kev on behalf of the Community Council
---END------

Do take the time to read through ScottK's blog on the matter as was linked in the article https://skitterman.wordpress.com/201...buntu-council/ .

Having read through it myself, it's quite clear that the move is driven by politics as opposed to any actual complaint, otherwise the Ubuntu CC would be acting more transparently and would have actually provided Scott with examples and would have actually worked with the Kubuntu council to resolve the situation rather than issuing that edict and refusing to rescind it or even have a proper public discussion about it. To be honest I wouldn't be surprised if this was an attempt by Shuttleworth to disable or destroy the Kubuntu community.