This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Ubuntu Promises and Goals
So far, this Introduction has been about the prehistory, history, and context of the Ubuntu project. After this introduction, the book focuses on the distribution itself. Before proceeding, it’s important to understand the goals that motivated the project.
Philosophical Goals
The most important goals of the Ubuntu project are philosophical in nature. The Ubuntu project lays out its philosophy in a series of documents on its Web site. In the most central of these documents, the team summarizes the charter and the major philosophical goals and underpinnings:
Ubuntu is a community-driven project to create an operating system and a full set of applications using free and Open Source software. At the core of the Ubuntu Philosophy of Software Freedom are these core philosophical ideals:
- Every computer user should have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, share, change, and improve their software for any purpose without paying licensing fees.
- Every computer user should be able to use their software in the language of their choice.
- Every computer user should be given every opportunity to use software, even if they work under a disability.
The first item should be familiar by now. It is merely a recapitulation of Stallman’s free software definition quoted earlier in the section on free software history. In it, the Ubuntu project makes explicit its goal that every user of software should have the freedoms required by free software. This is important for a number of reasons. First, it offers users all of the practical benefits of software that runs better, faster, and more flexibly. More important, it gives every user the capability to transcend his or her role as a user and a consumer of software. Ubuntu wants software to be empowering and to work in the ways that users want it to work. Ubuntu wants all users to have the ability to make sure it works for them. To do this, software must be free, so Ubuntu makes this a requirement and a philosophical promise.
Of course, the core goals of Ubuntu do not end with the free software definition. Instead, the project articulates two new, but equally important, goals. The first of these, that all computer users should be able to use their computers in their chosen languages, is a nod to the fact that the majority of the world’s population does not speak English while the vast majority of software interacts only in that language. To be useful, source code comments, programming languages, documentation, and the texts and menus in computer programs must be written in some language. Arguably, the world’s most international language is a reasonably good choice. However, there is no language that everyone speaks, and English is not useful to the majority of the world’s population that does not speak it. A computer can be a great tool for empowerment and education, but only if the user can understand the words in the computer’s interface. As a result, Ubuntu believes that it is the project’s—and community’s—responsibility to ensure that every user can easily use Ubuntu to read and write in the language with which he or she is most comfortable.
Finally, just as no person should be blocked from using a computer simply because he or she does not know a particular language, no user should be blocked from using a computer because of a disability. Ubuntu must be accessible to users with motor disabilities, vision disabilities, and hearing disabilities. It should provide input and output in a variety of forms to account for each of these situations and for others. A significant percentage of the world’s most intelligent and creative individuals has disabilities. Ubuntu’s impact should not be limited to any subset of the world when it can be fully inclusive. More important, Ubuntu should be able to harness the ability of these individuals as community members to build a better and more effective community.
Conduct Goals and Code of Conduct
If Ubuntu’s philosophical commitments describe the why of the Ubuntu project, the Code of Conduct (CoC) describes Ubuntu’s how. Ubuntu’s CoC is, arguably, the most important document in the day-to-day operation of the Ubuntu community and sets the ground rules for work and cooperation within the project. Explicit agreement to the document is the only criterion for becoming an officially recognized Ubuntu activist—an Ubuntero—and is an essential step toward membership in the project.
The CoC covers “behavior as a member of the Ubuntu Community, in any forum, mailing list, wiki, Web site, IRC channel, install-fest, public meeting, or private correspondence.” The CoC goes into some degree of depth on a series of points that fall under the following headings:
- Be considerate.
- Be respectful.
- Be collaborative.
- When you disagree, consult others.
- When you are unsure, ask for help.
- Step down considerately.
Many of these headings seem like common sense or common courtesy to many, and that is by design. Nothing in the CoC is controversial or radical, and it was never designed to be.
More difficult is that nothing is easy to enforce or decide because acting considerately, respectfully, and collaboratively is often very subjective. There is room for honest disagreements and hurt feelings. These are accepted shortcomings. The CoC was not designed to be a law with explicit prohibitions on phrases, language, or actions. Instead, it aims to provide a constitution and a reminder that considerate and respectful discussion is essential to the health and vitality of the project. In situations where there is a serious disagreement on whether a community member has violated or is violating the code, the Community Council is available to arbitrate disputes and decide what action, if any, is appropriate.
Nobody involved in the Ubuntu project, including Mark Shuttleworth and the other members of the Community Council, is above the CoC. The CoC is never optional and never waived. In fact, the Ubuntu community recently created a Leadership Code of Conduct (LCoC), which extends and expands on the CoC and describes additional requirements and expectations for those in leadership positions in the community. Of course, in no way was either code designed to eliminate conflict or disagreement. Arguments are at least as common in Ubuntu as they are in other projects and online communities. However, there is a common understanding within the project that arguments should happen in an environment of collaboration and mutual respect. This allows for better arguments with better results—and with less hurt feelings and fewer bruised egos.
While they are sometimes incorrectly used as such, the CoC and LCoC are not sticks to be wielded against an opponent in an argument. Instead, they are useful points of reference upon which consensus can be assumed within the Ubuntu community. Frequently, if a group in the community feels a member is acting in a way that is out of line with the code, the group will gently remind the community member, often privately, that the CoC is in effect. In almost all situations, this is enough to avoid any further action or conflict. Very few CoC violations are ever brought before the Community Council.
Technical Goals
While a respectful community and adherence to a set of philosophical goals provide an important frame in which the Ubuntu project works, Ubuntu is, at the end of the day, a technical project. As a result, it only makes sense that in addition to philosophical goals and a project constitution, Ubuntu also has a set of technical goals.
The first technical goal of the project, and perhaps the most important one, is the coordination of regular and predictable releases—something particularly important to server users. In April 2004, at the Warthogs meeting, the project set a goal for its initial proof-of-concept release six months out. In part due to the resounding success of that project, and in larger part due to the GNOME release schedule, the team has stuck to a regular and predictable six-month release cycle and has only once chosen to extend the release schedule by six weeks and only after obtaining community consensus on the decision. The team then redoubled its efforts and made the next release in a mere four and a half months, putting its release schedule back on track. Frequent releases are important because users can then use the latest and greatest free software available—something that is essential in a development environment as vibrant and rapidly changing and improving as the free software community. Predictable releases are important, especially to businesses, because predictability means that they can organize their business plans around Ubuntu. Through consistent releases, Ubuntu can provide a platform upon which businesses and derivative distributions can rely to grow and build.
While releasing frequently and reliably is important, the released software must then be supported. Ubuntu, like all distributions, must deal with the fact that all software has bugs. Most bugs are minor, but fixing them may introduce even worse issues. Therefore, fixing bugs after a release must be done carefully or not at all. The Ubuntu project engages in major changes, including bug fixes, between releases only when the changes can be extensively tested. However, some bugs risk the loss of users’ information or pose a serious security vulnerability. These bugs are fixed immediately and made available as updates for the released distribution. The Ubuntu community works hard to find and minimize all types of bugs before releases and is largely successful in squashing the worst. However, because there is always the possibility that more of these bugs will be found, Ubuntu commits to supporting every release for 18 months after it is released. In the case of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake), released in 2006, the project went well beyond even this and committed to support the release for three full years on desktop computers and for five years in a server configuration (LTS stands for LongTerm Support). This proved so popular with businesses, institutions, and the users of Ubuntu servers that Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) was named as Ubuntu’s second LTS release with similar three- and five-year desktop and server extended support commitments. These five-year support commitments are specifically designed for server users and make Ubuntu a much more attractive option for an important class of server users.
This bipartite approach to servers and desktops implies the third major technical commitment of the Ubuntu project and, in a sense, the most important for this book: support for both servers and desktop computers in separate but equally emphasized modes. While Ubuntu continues to be more well known, and perhaps more popular, in desktop configurations, there exist teams of Ubuntu developers focused on both server and desktop users. The Ubuntu project believes that both desktops and servers are essential and provides installation methods on every CD for both types of systems. Ubuntu provides tested and supported software appropriate to the most common actions in both environments and documentation for each. LTS releases in particular mark an important step toward catering to users on the server.
Finally, the Ubuntu project is committed to making it as easy as possible for users to transcend their roles as consumers and users of software and to take advantage of each of the freedoms central to the Ubuntu philosophy. As a result, Ubuntu has tried to focus its development around the use and promotion of a single programming language, Python. The project has worked to ensure that Python is widely used throughout the system. By ensuring that many applications and many of the “guts” of the system are written in or extensible in Python, Ubuntu is working to ensure that users need to learn only one language in order to take advantage of, automate, and tweak many parts of their systems.