Created attachment 166923 [details]
sabdfl hackergotchi

Hackergotchi attached as per recommendation.

Mark,

(In reply to comment #0)
> Please add my feed: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/feed to Planet. I'm a
> regular reader and contribute via Canonical, being part of it will help
> communication!

I think the main question is what is your direct contribution to GNOME. Being a regular reader, or enabling others to contribute (like you do via Canonical, which is something that I do appreciate) is not something that qualify someone to be on Planet GNOME.

I'm all to help communication, but for Planet GNOME, what is important is that the Canonical people contributing to GNOME do that, not you -- and to be completely honest, I would guess that adding you on Planet GNOME at the moment would have an effect opposite to what you want to achieve.

Keeping the bug open to see if Lucas or Jeff have a different opinion.

Btw, in case some people will take this bug as a reference for anything, I want to explicitly mention that any decision here is not about pushing for/against Canonical, or you, or the french president... What matters here is that we aggregate blogs of contributors on Planet GNOME.

I fully agree with Vincent.

We in the Gnome community pride ourselves in acknowledging the contributions from those that contribute bug reports, those that contribute documentation, those that spread Gnome and promote its use and not only those that write code directly that goes into Gnome itself.

This is for example part of the criteria that is used for becoming a member of the Gnome Foundation.

Mark and Ubuntu have done their share to spread Gnome, Linux and open source to places that we would have not reached before.   Regardless of Mark's direct contributions to the code base, he is a direct contributor to helping Gnome and he is an important voice in our community.

I believe that the Gnome community that regularly checks planet.gnome.org would benefit from Mark's voice.

My vote (if it counts for much) is to add Mark to the planet feed. I think that Canonical/Ubuntu has benefited GNOME a lot (helping it become more widespread, etc) and I think that counts for as much as many others on the planet. The fact that Mark might not contribute directly is, IMHO, irrelevant. He does pay the salaries of those who work for Canonical contributing to GNOME.

After the discussion about the census last week, I would agree with Vincent, the timing is not really good. This will likely restart the flamewar, whatever is decided.

But I agree that's a tough call.

IMHO, I don't think we should be worrying about what other people might think (in fear of resulting flame wars). We should be doing the Right Thing(tm) which in this particular case, I'd argue, is giving voice to Mark on PGO.

As Miguel noted, Mark's contributions to GNOME have been valuable and we should be welcoming him to PGO even if for no other reason than to promote a friendlier working relationship.

I think the recent discussion around the statistics in the census report were blown way out of proportion. I also think that the people upset over those numbers have settled down to the point where it wouldn't cause any problems. After all, this is just giving Mark a voice on PGO, not handing over the keys to the kingdom ;-)

Besides, anyone not interested in Mark's posts can simply opt to filter them out with the click of a button.

FWIW, this is still being discussed at the moment.

Mark,

Since we got your attention now.   I was reading your editorial on tribalism a couple of days ago, and sympathized with many of the points raised.

And yet, I see Canonical pushing for Ubuntu over the larger Linux community.   Creating its own form of tribalism instead of trying to create a better 

My latest gripe is how Canonical employees pushed for an "Ubuntu StackOverflow" while the alternative, a "Linux Stackoverflow" would have been a better option that would have encompassed our larger community and helped us all.

Instead this move helped divide our communities.   In one end we have Ubuntu, and in the other Red Hat, Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, Gentoo, OpenSUSE, SLES, CentOS, BusyBox and others.

A simple "[ubuntu]" tag on a question could have scoped the question and answer to a particular implementation of Ubuntu.   If StackOverflow could have Python and Fortran hosted on the same site, languages that are vastly separate, I am sure that a Linux stackoverflow could have catered to the needs of both the Ubuntu user base and even something as distant as BusyBox.

Moves like this divide.   Will you ask that the Ubuntu.Stackoverflow be renamed Linux.Stackoverflow?

I think Mark has done more for GNOME than most of the people aggregated, even if it's often not as direct as other contributions. He also meets all of the requirements outlined in http://live.gnome.org/PlanetGnome#Being_added_to_Planet_GNOME (apart from the missing hackergotchi), in particular the "blog should be remotely intersting to GNOME". We tend to discuss Marks blogs more than most others.

So I'm surprised this hasn't been a no-brainer from the start.

Miguel

I followed your blog and committed to the Linux stackexchange site, as I can see the need for it and there are many questions that are relevant both to users who are trying to use multiple distributions, or who are interested in Linux/Unix more generally. I wasn't able to start voting questions on/off-topic for some reason, either pebkac or chromium.

I'm not going to ask the folks behind the Ubuntu stackexchange site (it wasn't a Canonical initiative, ftr, has a mix of both Canonical and community motivators) to merge that with the general one, as I think they serve different groups.

On your blog, you referred to my post on tribalism. From my perspective, it's OK (and good) to self-identify with a particular brand or values, but it's bad when that turns into an automatic assumption that anybody associated with another brand / group is wrong. For example, to automatically reject a patch from a particular group, or assume when you overhear a difference of opinion that someone from a particular group has a particular agenda. So I don't see anything wrong with a "getsuse.org" effort, that's positive and affirming, but I would see a problem with someone assuming that a patch from a gentoo developer "must be on crack anyway" :-)

Anyhow, thanks for your support on adding my voice to pgo, I hope I won't let you down.

Mark

Done :-) We're using the free-software category at the moment.

Forgot to close, sorry for the spam.

With all due respect, I hope p.g.o will not turn into a meeting place of all the CEO and CTOs out there.

Popularity contests should not be a factor. You don't see p.g.o aggregating all the nice kernel/Xorg/whatever folks even if GNOME could not happen without them doing their part.

I am deeply disappointed with the resolution of this issue. FWIW, I second Patryk's comment.

I'd like to encourage Ubuntu to communicate with upstream as much as possible, so please let's have Mark on pgo.

I'm surprised by this conclusion, particularly given Vincent and Lucas's initial comments. Mark is hardly a participating contributor to the GNOME project (nor has emeritus status), and is not a Foundation member (and I'm not convinced he'd even qualify), so it does seems like an odd precedent.

That said, V & L have made the call.

the question seems to be whether pgo should aggregate only direct contributors or not. If only direct contributors are valid, one should define a what "direct" contributor means. Is maintaining a GTK application enough, or should it be part of "Desktop"?
A quick glance at pgo reveals that currently also loosely related projects have a voice.
And Ubuntu steers many Gnome related projects - many of which Mark directly influences.
So adding Mark is just consequent using the current method. Of course you might question the method per se...

pavel:

The same would be true for most if not all of the officials working for (and driving) Red Hat, Novell, vmWare and Xandros just to name a few.

(In reply to comment #17)
> I'm surprised by this conclusion, particularly given Vincent and Lucas's
> initial comments.

There's been quite some discussion outside of this bug. I've been mixed on this topic (indeed, look at my first comment and at the conclusion :-)), and I'm not the only one...

The main argument, for me, to add Mark's blog on pgo is to help upstream know what's happening in the Ubuntu world, design-wise. This way, we (upstream) get more opportunities to comment, and push downstream to make this work happen upstream. Since Mark works with the design team closely, he's well-positioned to talk about the work going on there.

And yes, we knew adding Mark would trigger some reactions. Let's first try to make it work, though :-)

Vincent:

I thought the planet was for others to read. It's a question of relevance.

We (upstream) can very well just add Mark to our private RSS readers :)

If we really want a "this week in Ubuntu" we could add a "this week in downstream" series to the GNOME News planet (as opposed to p.g.o).

(In reply to comment #21)
> Vincent:
> 
> I thought the planet was for others to read. It's a question of relevance.

"Others"? Who? The planet is first for us, I'd argue.

> We (upstream) can very well just add Mark to our private RSS readers :)
> 
> If we really want a "this week in Ubuntu" we could add a "this week in
> downstream" series to the GNOME News planet (as opposed to p.g.o).

Why do you think it'll be a "this week in Ubuntu" blog? This is what I added: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/category/free-software. Go and look at it. Part of this is definitely work that is happening downstream at the moment -- but don't you think it should happen upstream? I do think it should, and I want to help make it happen upstream. Having the work visible upstream is a (good, imho) first step for this to happen.

What strikes me as odd with everyone here isn't about who is right or who is wrong...but rather, what Mark's blog SHOWS on it's own merit.  A quick examination shows ONLY ONE POST about Gnome in the 7 years since it has been active.  http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/tag/gnome

I have more Gnome posts on my blog and I'm normally a KDE guy (only recently coming to Gnome).

That said, why did you not consider this before jumping?  Oh well, it's your BBQ...too bad you all brought gasoline instead of charcoal :)

(In reply to comment #23)
> What strikes me as odd with everyone here isn't about who is right or who is
> wrong...but rather, what Mark's blog SHOWS on it's own merit.  A quick
> examination shows ONLY ONE POST about Gnome in the 7 years since it has been
> active.  http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/tag/gnome
> 
> I have more Gnome posts on my blog and I'm normally a KDE guy (only recently
> coming to Gnome).

This is irrelevant, in my opinion.  When I was first invited to join Planet GNOME, I warned people that I might have more to say about classical music than about GNOME or software.  I was told that this didn't matter, and they just wanted to have GNOME people on Planet.  We were welcome to talk about anything we want.  So I went ahead and joined.

Guys,
From some of the comments I see here, there is a demand from GNOME to Mark to make Ubuntu do more upstream work, etc.

Mark has done his fair share of spreading GNOME. And I can start with a list of people that contributed less to GNOME, starting with myself TBH.

1) Mark put GNOME in the hands of many many new users who would have never bothered to try out Linux whatever people think of their alternative distros
2) Projects like Paper cut allowed a lot of patching to happen to GNOME apps even if not by GNOME or Ubuntu members.
3) Maybe by allowing Mark to be on the planet, we can attract more people to GNOME from the Ubuntu community. Thus changing some work from downstream to upstream.

In return I think that Mark should make his standpoint clear in his posts on how he affiliates with GNOME and encourage upstream development in public.

This is just my opinion. So +1 if my vote counts anyhow

To whoever said that Mark was being given preferential treatment for being an executive and then tried to claim that just about every executive needs to be on planet gnome, I wanted to say, you got it wrong.

Mark actively participates in our Guadec conferences;   He organizes his very Ubuntu-centric hack-a-thons, but they have become places where Gnome hackers get together. 

You can see Mark discussing with other people at Guadec, engaging and debating.  Even if he has not formally requested membership with the foundation, he is part of our community.   

I think that if other executives/owners of other Linux companies were as engaged with our community, and participated as much, they would also have the right to request being on Planet Gnome.

-----

On a separate matter, it is clear that Mark is an important voice in the Gnome universe and we should not deprive our users from it.

Don't we have enough Ubuntu love from Jono already on Planet GNOME? Will Mark talk about GNOME or just about Ubuntu all the time?

Honestly, I like to see both these people talk about GNOME more, not about Ubuntu on planet GNOME, which is sort of the point of being on Planet GNOME. People talk about other stuff but the Ubuntu people really do hammer on about Ubuntu way too much.

Ubuntu have a different goal to GNOME now it seems and just about zero code was accept from them, which says a lot.

At this point, I think is good idea to remember the proposal that we can have a GNOME planet and a GNOME universe like Gentoo people do:

In Gentoo, Universe Gentoo is an aggregation of weblog articles on all topics written by the Gentoo community. For a more refined aggregation of Gentoo-related topics only, they have Planet Gentoo.

So if your post is about your last holidays it will only go to the universe aggregator, but if your post is something to related to GNOME will go to the planet.

Just my 2 cents

Thanks to the planet custodians for the positive resolution, I hope my thoughts will surprise the skeptics in a good way ;-)

I recognize that my contributions to GNOME aren't necessarily obvious - I don't show up with patches to GNOME components. But my goals in life are very compatible with GNOME's, as they explicitly include the idea of getting GNOME onto as many devices as possible. Perhaps a 10x15 follow-on to Jdub's 10x10. WOrk that we do, while it may not begin as thoughts on a GNOME mailing list, is always aimed at being part of the broader community. I've always thought of the Ubuntu Netbook interface, now Unity, as a GNOME interface, and we've gone to lots of trouble to be true to that ethos when there were often more expedient options.

I believe that for GNOME to succeed it should be an open environment with a large periphery, encouraging folks to remix, reuse and reinvent around the core of GNOME and embracing the things which work best. The work I do is very much energising that periphery.

My rationale for wanting to be part of p.g.o is simply that work which we do under a GNOME desktop banner is most useful if it's on a trajectory, if it's successful, to become part of GNOME. But that won't happen if folks at the heart of GNOME are unaware of the thoughts, processes and events that shape the work. It's hard for people to embrace something eventually if they weren't aware of its existence and values.

Mark, you should probably apply for membership of the GNOME Foundation too. Direct advocacy alone is qualification enough.

I like the idea of planet + universe. It would be nice to have a "strictly GNOME" feed and not have to skip posts about private life and new downstream artwork. I am sure some of you like it and read it but some (like me and Toms) are only interested in the technical bits.

Mark, I'd like to think that most of us here don't question your intentions. I didn't even propose reversing the decision. It's just that your blog seems to set a precedence here. Anyway, now that you're here to stay, I hope to see you post some interesting bits.

(In reply to comment #31)
> I like the idea of planet + universe. It would be nice to have a "strictly
> GNOME" feed and not have to skip posts about private life and new downstream
> artwork. I am sure some of you like it and read it but some (like me and Toms)
> are only interested in the technical bits.
> 
It's called http://news.gnome.org and is so boring that no one even knows about it.

And I'm not going to apply an "interesting for technical purists" tag to my posts just so you know if they should appear on the Planet or on the Universe. Mostly because I don't want to but also because you'd never get the differentiation right.

(In reply to comment #32)
> It's called http://news.gnome.org and is so boring that no one even knows about
> it.

Filed bug 629990 about making news.gnome.org more interesting. Note that that bug is not about an universe planet, but rather about making news.gnome.org less boring.

Thank you to everyone for their feedback.  Vincent and Lucas are the editors of Planet GNOME, and as long time community members (and former board members) we should trust their decision.  The bug has been marked closed and the feed has been added.

Andreas, thanks for filing a bug about news.gnome.org.  If anyone would like to see pgo changed, please fie a bug against it for discussion.

Thanks.

Paul

BTW: Mark, I find your hackergotchi truly shuttle-worthy ;)

I have no problem with including Mark based on his contribution, no doubt it is generally interesting to hear what he is up to, and we have Jim Gettys syndicated. The choice of feed should help address the intense stomach pain caused by uncritical swallowing of Ubuntu marketing fodder ;-) What worries me much more are things like this:

> I've always thought of the Ubuntu Netbook interface, now Unity, as a
> GNOME interface, and we've gone to lots of trouble to be true to
> that ethos when there were often more expedient options.

While the thought counts for something; I would feel -much- happier if the realities of: choice of licensing, corporate code ownership, revision control, shared infrastructure, co-branding, code sharing/re-use and open collaboration were congruent with the GNOME project as a whole; and indeed that there was real engagement and compromise on these topics. It is unclear to me what being true to the ethos of GNOME means, outside of this consensus. It would certainly be good to hear more about the trouble that has been gone to here.

There are of course dangers to the idea that none of these issues truly matter to our ethos; I would love to see some radical solutions arrive in parallel with the olive leaf of words syndicated on planet gnome - but the decision to makes sense to me.