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You can use this page to nominate items for discussion by the Ubuntu Community Council. See the Community Council website and launchpad pages for more information.

The CC meetings will now be regularly at:

• 21:00 UTC, 1st Tuesday of the month
• 11:00 UTC, 3rd Tuesday of the month

The next meeting is scheduled for 02 June 2009, 11:00 UTC and will be held in #ubuntu-meeting on irc.ubuntu.com. Past meeting logs are also available.

Hint: In order to get notified about next meeting's time, you can:

• Subscribe to The Fridge calendar page via iCal.

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Fixed Agenda Items

• Keep CommunityCouncil/TeamReport updated.

• Updating Next meeting time on the wiki

General Agenda Items and Proposals

Please put a brief statement of the issue to be discussed here, and link to a more detailed description or summary elsewhere in the wiki. You can use the /talk page to write about issues listed below.

Ubuntu One

Sladen's personal thoughts following last week's meeting. Mako is working on some too. Please discuss:

• Alot of software in daily use can be placed on a CD (Totem, Inkscape, OpenOffice.org).

• 1. Ubuntu is a collection of the best off-line Free software available, combined, packaged and closely integrated, with good defaults.

• 2. Ubuntu is Free Software. Ubuntu does not encourage proprietary/binary-only software, and no user is forced to use them. Where a user makes a choice to use proprietary software (eg. modem/video card drivers/AutoCAD/Oracle/Google Earth), Ubuntu will try to ensure that it "just works" ...to the extents possible. Software is kept in different repositories to ensure clear separation.

• 3. Where equivalent functionality is available, the best option (chosen by the Community Council) will be closely integrated and placed more prominently (eg. on the CD). The choice may be reanalysed at the start of a new release-cycle.
  • It is recognised that that support and integration of Free software will be better than for proprietary software, and that this is the downside that the user chooses to live with.

• 4. Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu refer to this fully integrated product and it recognised that this brand has value associated with its quality.

• Alot of software in daily use cannot be placed on a CD (openstreetmap.org, launchpad.net, last.fm).

• 5. Ubuntu One is a collection of the best on-line Free software available, combined, "packaged" and closely integrated, with good defaults.

• 6. Ubuntu One is Free Software. Ubuntu One does not encourage proprietary/webservice-only software, and no user is forced to use them. Where a user makes a choice to use proprietary services (eg. Hotmail, Google Maps, CanonicalSync, iTunes), Ubuntu will try to ensure that it "just works" ...to the extents possible. Services are kept in different categories to ensure clear separation.

• 7. Where equivalent functionality is available, the best option (chosen by the Community Council) will be closely integrated and placed prominently (eg. Ubuntu One store first-page). The choice may be reanalysed at the start of a new release-cycle.

  • It is recognised that that support and integration of Free services will be better than for proprietary services, and that this is the downside that the user chooses to live with.

• 8. Ubuntu One refers to this fully integrated collection of components and it is recognised that this sub-brand may accrue value associated with its demonstrated quality.

Effectively:

• Add/Remove... is the app-store for off-line applications.

• Ubuntu One is the app-store for on-line applications.

Notes:

• Ubuntu exists, because it is valuable to users.

• Ubuntu One should exist, because it adds value for users.

• Users often wish to access databases far bigger than will fit on a CD

  • Maps of the world
  • Five years worth of personal email
  • Auntie Elle's photos from Mozambique
  • Encyclopedias

• To fail to integration on-line services will mean that Ubuntu remains limited to the field off off-line installations; the size of this field is shirking ("clouds", "netbooks", "AJAX" and "the network is the computer".

Examples of on-line targets for integration to the Ubuntu One collection:

• FoobarSync (raison d'être)

• Amazon EC2
• Canonical Landscape (already done)
• Last.fm (example given in previous discussion)

• OpenStreetMap

• Jabber/MSN Chat/AoL chat
• $A_VOIP_PROVIDER

Interesting issues (discussion explicitly):

• What do to when there is a choice between Free and Non-Free and the non-free service/database is more extensive:

  • OpenStreetMap, Google Maps

• What do it when the vendor no longer provides a service:
  • Without an upstream, Ubuntu would likely drop it for the next release.
• Where a service requires a subscription, should Ubuntu One infrastructure process the monetary transaction:
  • Process centrally (iPhone App store)
  • Leave billing/payment to individual service providers (Waterstones)

Freeness preference:

• Four areas come to mind:

  • Local client (eg. FoobarSync, Google Earth, Webbrowser of choice)

  • Dataset within Backend (eg. OpenStreetmap, Wikipedia, Launchpad bugs database)

  • Communications protocol (eg. SOAP, REST, WebDAV, FoobarSyncProtcol, OSM API)

  • Backend server (eg. Tileserver, iTunes, Last.fm)
• Order of Freeness should be prioritised (discuss):

  • eg. FoobarSync has Free client, Free protocol and Free dataset (it is the user's own personal files).

  • eg. Youtube uses a HTML+SWF as it's local client, Flash streaming protocol and a video dataset where some are Free and some not.

Commercial aspects (expand further):

• There is a revenue stream from:

  • Selling placement in the Ubuntu One collection/"store".

  • Selling consultancy to allow for integration
    • "Packaging"
    • Writing Linux-specific client
    • Documenting the protocol.

  • Being a service provider (eg. Canonical running an instance of the FoobarSync backend that speaks the FoobarSyncProtocol)

Naming of on-line components and clients:

• Pre-existing on-line service are likely to have an established brandname, which a provider is likely to wish to promote. This name should used, unless licensing issues prevent it, or the operator of the service requests it.

• New on-line services developed and specifically engineered for inclusion into the Ubuntu One collection may wish to share the Ubuntu trademark.

  • As derviatives of Ubuntu One, these trademark requests are likely to be considered by Canonical in the same manner as derivative distributions of Ubuntu.

    • The naming parlance for derivative distributions is currently Ubuntu XYZ Remix and newer requests that integrate a prefix of the buntu mark are likely to be turned down.

    • A naming parlance for derivatives components within the Ubuntu One collection is likely to be forthcoming but elevated in a similar manner. (Discuss)

  • Any service using the buntu element in the name should be inline with the ethos of Ubuntu and add-value. (This is intentionally vague, Discuss especially!).

  • A generic name maybe preferable (eg. Alacarte over Ubuntu Menu Editor)

I too am a user. I am predisposed towards things that "just work". Go forth and make them! I will even pay for things that work really well.

Locoteams

Starting 2008-04-15, LoCoTeam approval is handled by the LoCo Council. So please add your TeamApproval to LoCoCouncilAgenda.

Membership candidates

Starting 2008-04-15, membership applications will be handled by regional teams, delegated by the Community Council, as described at StreamlineMembershipApproval. See Membership/RegionalBoards.

Before applying for membership, please see Membership.

Previous meetings

Logs for previous meetings may be found at http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/.

CategoryCommunityCouncil