Help Us Chart the Ubuntu Community Roadmap

It hasn’t even been a week since the release of Impish Indri, and we already are gearing up for the journey to Jammy Jellyfish. If releases were a roadtrip, this is when we pull over, have some snacks, and find the best way to get to our next destination. The Desktop and Community Team want to know what your priorities are to be better advocates for the community and to make a better Ubuntu community roadmap, together!

What’s a roadmap?

Canonical’s product engineering teams meet every six months to plan what’s called a roadmap. This roadmap describes the overall goals for the release and the steps and tasks each teams will take to achieve them. During a week-long sprint at the start of each cycle, all the teams share their parts of the roadmap with each other, which gives us a chance to sync up before the journey starts. However, there can be unexpected detours between the beginning and end of the development cycle. People on teams can leave the company, or move to other teams, and these changes make goals harder to accomplish. We want everyone in the Ubuntu community to find that happy place between optimistic and realistic in the roadmap process.

Even with hazards ahead, we still want to hear from all the passengers in the car. When everyone weighs in on the roadmap, the journey is much better! Oli Smith is our new Product Manager for the Desktop developer and community experience. He’s focused on developing clear narratives around how you use (and would like to use) Ubuntu and championing those stories during planning and prioritisation. Likewise, the Community Team is the Ubuntu community’s support team. When you get a metaphorical flat tire, we want to get you back on the road. And you should be the ones who shape a roadmap that supports your goals and priorities, not the team’s guesses on what those goals and priorities are.

What kind of feedback do these teams want?

For the Desktop Team, it’s about how you use Ubuntu, and how you wish you could use it. What are the common activities we should be polishing, or the new opportunities we should be exploring? We want to hear what frustrates you when you use Ubuntu and what you’re most excited about going forward. For the Community Team, we want to know about the contributor experience. What would make it easier to become a new contributor, and to grow and thrive in the community? We want to know what makes contributing difficult, and also what makes it wonderful.

How can you help craft the roadmap?

The first way to help us craft our roadmaps is to come to this week’s Ubuntu Community Office Hours. We will be streaming on our Twitch channel and on our YouTube channel at 17:30 on Thursday, 21 October. Representatives from the Desktop and Community Teams will both be there to listen to your suggestions and get your feedback. If you aren’t able to make the Office Hours, don’t worry. Leave your comments for either the Desktop or the Community Team on the Discourse topic all about input for the 22.04 roadmap, and we’ll be sure to let you know we got them.

So dust off your atlases and stock up on your favorite snacks, and let’s make this next leg of the Ubuntu journey a great ride.