unity-design team mailing list archive

[Mark Shuttleworth <mark@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 10/06/10 04:20, Sam Spilsbury wrote:
> That is a bad idea.
> You cannot just say "we're going to use [insert technology X], but
> that does not matter since what we care about is design" without
> ignoring the many upstreams who will ultimately be incredibly upset by
> that technical change for the sake of design.
>
> I really don't want to say it, but I seriously considered ceasing all
> development of a core ubuntu technology (compiz) today after what
> happened yesterday on the mailing lists. I don't ever want to work in
> a situation where other people are making my life harder.
>
> Canonical and ubuntu need to realize that the very upstreams they
> depend on do work out of the generosity of their heart and have a
> sound knowledge of how things work. Using a large desktop share and
> "the sake of design" to ignore technical issues is a surefire way to
> create walls between you and your upstreams.
>   

This is a really important issue, and one I thought about a lot before
putting the wheels in motion to build the design ethos and team at
Canonical, of which Ayatana is the visible piece to the free software
desktop community.

Sam, I think you're absolutely right that it's important to remember
that Ubuntu is the sum of the contributions of engineers (software
developers) who build what they build out of a love of building it.
Their expertise, distilled, is what makes Ubuntu.

But I think it's also important to remember who we (Ubuntu) are building
it FOR. And it's not for ourselves. Really it's not. We're building it
for end-users. And the best people to represent what those end-users
will want, and use, and appreciate, are people who are devoted to that
specific goal. Which is what this list is all about.

Now, we all like to tell other people what they SHOULD like. And so
there's a little bit of a designer in everyone, we'd like other people
to want the same things we want. We'd like them to care about FOSS, we'd
like them to be able to do more powerful things (more importantly, to
WANT to). Because that would make them more like us. But actually, if
you look at the spirit of Ubuntu, it should be more about what really
works for them!

So the way I see design is that it's about teasing out what our
end-users really want to get done, and shaping things to make that
possible for them. We have someone on the team who spends all day
sitting with users just to observe what they try to do and how they try
to do it!

Now, I also agree that the mission cannot become completely divorced
from technical reality. But my experience is that there are lots of
volunteers, lots of people who participate in FOSS for all the reasons
you describe, who are TOTALLY INSPIRED at the idea that they might have
their efforts value massively amplified by trying to achieve the things
that end-users will actually be delighted at. There are of course others
who are more motivated by personal challenges that they set for
themselves, and frankly Ubuntu needs ALL kinds of contributions. But
THIS list is all about trying to set the highest possible goals for the
experience that end-users want, to set a challenge which SOME developers
might want to rise to.

So, I'm not telling you that you're wrong. Far from it. I'm just asking
that you recognise that there IS value in having a conversation that is
purely grounded in "what will work best for users" and not restricted by
"what we have right now". Of course, knowing where we are starting from
helps to identify the places we can have the biggest immediate impact,
which is very useful. But it should not hold us back.

Mark

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