[Consortium] problem about inclusion of Ubuntu

[Ivica Ico Bukvic]

Hi Jaromil,

> there are many needs, many people and many distributions.

Yes, and it is this variety in conjunction with the freedom of choice that
is libre software's strength and as such it should be celebrated, not judged
or worse yet, limited...

As I mentioned earlier, Linuxaudio.org welcomes any legal project which is
compatible with our mission, helps further our mission, and whose membership
is supported by a majority of the existing consortium members. If because of
Ubuntu we get more Linux audio users/developers/maintainers/whatever, then
this certainly is a welcome thought.

Ubuntu is just another member of the consortium who has as much of a vote as
you do. Hence, if a majority doesn't like something that Ubuntu
representative, yourself, me, or members X, Y, and/or Z do, tough luck. The
consortium will make decisions that the consortium as a whole believes are
the best for the consortium. I think your concern of "abduction" is really
difficult to comprehend...

> consider that Ubuntu is not oriented to multimedia nor is properly
> prepared for it: needs quite some re-configuration

And vanilla debian doesn't? Also, I would not say "quite," as I only needed
to install realtime-lsm module and I've been getting very nice latencies
since. Is it as good as a custom kernel? Not really, but then again I do not
have that kind of a need either, at least not on my current setup. It does
what I want it to do and does it by order of magnitude better than the
commercial offering.

FWIW, I've tried Redhat (starting with 5.0 in '98), Mandriva, Debian,
DeMuDi, Gentoo, and now Ubuntu. I think I can safely say that my decision
was an informed one from at least a practical standpoint. This is not to say
that other distributions do not cut it. Quite the contrary, I've been
similarly productive using all of the aforementioned distributions. I simply
love to enjoy the variety that is offered to the libre software user.
Perhaps my next install may be something else...

> Mako Hill says about Ubuntu that yes is a fork but forking is not a
> problem. i think it's right unless the branch grows more than the tree;
> then we're gonna have a problem at the roots.

Not to be suggestive of anything, but we could hypothetically consider that
maybe there was a preexisting problem in the root which warranted the branch
in the first place?

How is this any different from Debian->AGNULA DeMuDi, or Redhat->Mandriva
(both are Linuxaudio.org members)? Does the branch always have to be
inferior to the root to be eligible for the consortium membership? Perhaps
we could consider that at some point the branch has become a root in itself?
 
> in order to properly recognize the communities and developers that
> really make things possible, i suggest you take more care to look into
> the bush Ivica, we need this for the good of our own consortium members.

Sorry, but you lost me again. How is consortium not catering to the needs of
its members by reinforcing membership and/or trying to gather resources so
that it can offer more opportunities to its membership base?

> > > linking with hardware manufacturers has been mentioned (and done?)
> > > what else?
> >
> > Expos, conferences, presentations, outreach, recruiting, CD
> > compilation, just to name a few. However, many of which were made
> > possible only through some kind of external support (monetary or
> > other).
> 
> that's merchandising. do we need it? yes, until a certain degree, if
> there is someone good at it willing to do more, but such activities
> should form a chapter that sustains itself IMHO.

I truly appreciate that, but you did not offer the most critical component
of your proposal: how?

Yes, I also dream of a truly free society without, division, conflict, or
poverty, but that in and of itself will not get us far in the real world.
The question is what can we do to get closer to our dream and more
importantly how to do it in the world we live in? In an institution such as
a consortium, things get even more complex as our individual
ideals/goals/visions/dreams may not sync, and therefore we have to seek the
best possible way of maintaining a direction that caters to at least most of
us (ouch, that's a messy sentence :-), but hopefully you get the point).

> well then, my issue is just about inclusion of Ubuntu (and not
> ubuntustudio) and of Mark Shuttleworth here.
> we already sent out an announcement mail without discussing it first
> here, i'm glad to see there is still some space for discussion.

You are more than welcome to make a call for a vote for/against the
inclusion of Ubuntu, or for anything else for that matter.

> so we go for a membership support scheme to gather some money for our
> consirtium? yes, i think can be a good way! especially when someon here
> has the money, which happened already, can really help.
> 
> i just hope that the most of the money out of that doesn't gets all
> expended in beaurocracy and mantainance, but we can do some more...
> well, let's see how many we are first :)

I agree. That's what the "roll call" was all about.

FWIW, the "maintenance" component of the consortium so far has not spent any
of the consortium's resources on themselves (even though we've had our share
of the expenses we covered from our own pockets), in part because consortium
has none, nor are there any plans to do so anytime soon, even though our
time is arguably the most precious commodity (and I can assure you that all
involved in the maintenance component have spent ample time in making things
happen--hopefully you will appreciate that).

Ico