on Toshareproject.it - curated by Bruce Sterling
*Into the tall administrivia weeds of open-source in an extensive screen by a software engineer.
https://jnsgr.uk/2025/02/engineering-ubuntu-for-the-next-20-years/
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Process is closely tied to automation, but is frequently viewed negatively in software engineering, carrying connotations of bureaucracy and slowdowns. In my experience, a well-designed process empowers people to enact changes with confidence.
Ubuntu is built by all of us, in many countries and across all timezones. Concise, well-defined, lightweight processes promote autonomy and reduce uncertainty – enabling people to unblock themselves. Ubuntu is no stranger to process: the Main Inclusion Review (MIR), the aforementioned Stable Release Updates (SRU) process, the process for Snap store requests and many more have contributed to the success of Ubuntu, setting clear guardrails for contributors and ensuring we work to common standards.
My goal over the coming months is to work with you, the people behind Ubuntu, to identify which of these processes still serve us, and which need revising to simplify our work while maintaining our dedication to stability. I’ll consolidate the definitions of these processes, make them searchable, peer-reviewable, and more discoverable. Examples of where this has worked well are the Go proposal process, and the Ethereum Improvement Proposal process – both of which make it trivial to create, track and discuss proposals across the breadth of their respective projects.
If you submit an MIR, or work on an SRU, it should be trivial to understand the status of that request, and to communicate with the team executing that process where needed. If you’re interested in joining our community, it should be simple to get a sense of what is changing across the project, and where you might be able to help…. (etc etc etc)