Ubuntu Wiki

The MOTU Council intends to reinstitute the prior requirement of Ubuntu Membership when considering MOTU applications, and would like to request approval to administer Membership applications from the development community to reduce the impact of this decision on the Membership Committees.

Historically, being an Ubuntu Member was a prior requirement to becoming MOTU. As the community grew, this requirement was dropped, and new MOTU applicants were increasingly judged solely on a combination of technical merit and visibility within the Ubuntu development community (and not necessarily the larger Ubuntu Community). Of the last five people to be approved for MOTU, only two were Ubuntu Members at the time of application.

As the number of active members of the development community grows (321 developers have uploaded to Hardy at the time of this writing), it seems appropriate to recognise those who can demonstrate significant and sustained development contribution with Ubuntu Membership, even if the necessary level of experience to qualify as MOTU has yet to be accumulated.

Further, such a separation of application for community recognition and upload access would allow the MOTU Council to more strongly consider each component, and would ideally lead to new MOTU having both a higher level of community involvement and more critically reviewed technical ability.

The anticipated workflow would be similar to that used currently for application to MOTU. Active developers who sought Ubuntu Membership would apply by mail to the MOTU Council mailing list, receive accolades from other members of the community, and be approved or not after MC deliberation. In exceptional cases, the MOTU Council would continue to entertain simultaneous requests for MOTU and Membership, but this would not be the expected process for most new entrants.