This blog post is a follow-up to UDS-P, the Ubuntu Developer Summit.
"Ubuntu Community". What does it mean?
During UDS-P, I asked publicly for a favour: When we speak about community, lets use adjectives. Let's use more than one adjective if one isn't enough. Let's use precise language to help frame the problems we are trying to solve in the Precise cycle.
To that end, and being a visual thinker, I have begun to map out the Ubuntu community as a first step in developing a lexicon. I hope this will help us frame our discussions and develop a common understanding of what our community looks like.
The words in black are the adjectives that help scope out different parts of the community. The words in blue are processes.
From the map we can see that:
- There are far more "non-consumers" of Ubuntu than there are "consumers",
- Not everyone who consumes Ubuntu contributes to Ubuntu,
- There is a small group of "core" "contributors". Some of them work for Canonical. There are many "contributors" in the "core" and outside the "core" that do not.
- Not all "consumers" of Ubuntu are part of "loco teams",
- Not all people in "loco teams" contribute.
- Some Ubuntu Members "consume" only.
- LoCo teams currently play a role in onboarding "contributors".
There are two key processes we need to build/optimize:
- Contributor Onboarding: How do we turn "consumers" into "contributors"? Though I've shown the process flowing exclusively through LoCo teams, that's likely not the only on-ramp. Consider the case where a "consumer" hits the boundary of "contributor" on their own. Do we have a process for that? Do we need one?
- Consumer Onboarding: How do we bring those who don't currently "consume" Ubuntu into one of the inner circles as quickly and as smoothly as possible?
The diagram has (at least) two distinct cultural boundaries. "Non-consumers" are immersed in a different culture (paradigm) than "consumers" (I pay for my software and I get what I get. My software provider has only a passing interest in me and only where it satisfies their business plan.) "Consumers" are immersed in a different culture (paradigm) than "contributors" (Software is done TO us rather than software is done BY us.). We need to think about these boundaries as potential points of friction.
This is just a beginning of what will become a much richer picture and I've only really scratched the surface of what this depicts. Please add your thoughts in the comments on how we can improve this map. And, if you know of similar work elsewhere, please let me know.
Thanks!
