14 DAY TRIAL // The Ubuntu community is going through some problems after the Community Council asked the Jonathan Riddell to step down from his position in the Kubuntu project. One of the members of the community team from Canonical has explained the role and the importance of the Community Council.
Jonathan Riddell is a full-time developer for Kubuntu and one of the people in charge of the project, although not in a formal way (we'll explain that right away). He has been having an argument with Canonical and various people from the community, most likely about some licensing issue, but some people said that he had been confrontational and not very nice when he was contradicted.
It's a long story, but the conclusion was that the Community Council decided to ask him to step down from his position in Kubuntu while remaining a regular developer and member of the community. Riddell later explained that he can't do that since he doesn't have any official capacity in the Kubuntu project, with the exception of his membership in the Kubuntu Community Council.
Nicholas Skaggs from Canonical explains why that happened
Canonical has a community team that interacts with the users and Nicholas Skaggs is part of that team. He wasn't involved in the discussions regarding Jonathan Riddell, but he posted a lengthy post on his blog explaining what is the Community Council and why it's important to respect its decisions. One phrase, in particular, is very interesting.
"So please respect the authority of our community governance structure. Respect those who serve on both councils. Not satisfied? We vote again on Community Council members this year! Think we should tweak/enhance/change our governance structure? I welcome the discussion! I enjoyed learning more about Ubuntu governance, and I challenge you to do the same before you let your emotions run with your decisions," wrote Nicholas Skaggs.
This type of discussions might be a gold mine for news sites, but they are hurting the Linux community and the Ubuntu community in particular. Cooler heads must prevail, but it remains to be seen what will happen next.