Summarized by Benjamin Mako Hill <mako@canonical.com>
The agenda and overview for the meeting was placed on the wiki. It read:
After extensive commentary on the lists and forums, there are some questions that we hope to answer in a community meeting.
The meeting will take place in #ubuntu from 14:00 UTC on Monday October 18th. Please read the Code Of Conduct before participating.
Questions that should be addressed at the meeting include:
- Is the existence of the artwork a problem even if it is not the default?
- Should it be on the CD?
- Should it be in the archive?
- General Questions for Future Reference
- Can we have default images that depict people at all?
- If so, do we have to observe the most conservative possible dress?
- What about an image of a woman in a business suit, would that be inappropriate for an Eastern audience?
- How do cultural issues affect derivatives? For example, are all the official derivatives required to observe the same global cultural sensitivities? Could an official derivative for a specific country use images and language that are appropriate in that country even if they may be inappropriate in another country?
- RC Artwork
- Login screen
- can this be the default login, if a plain version is available?
- should the plain version be the default?
- Calendar images
- Should these be on the CD, or in the archive, or separate?
- Splash screen
- Should this be installed if you also install calendar desktops?
- Are there any other elements of Ubuntu RC that might cause cultural conflict?
- country naming
- artwork, colors, translations
- bouncing cow
The format of the meeting included was such that the attendees tried to work through the issues in the list above one by one. People were invited to give their views but not to argue with each other. The point was to get a sense of the diversity of views, not to resolve the unresolvable differences in opinions within the community.
The general consensus was that the defaults should be conservative, unoffensive and uncontroversial. There were some disagreements on if that meant they needed to be plain. Some people felt very strongly that the images should be attractive and non-plain -- but also non-controversial.
In the context of the Ubuntu RC artwork, it was very difficult to get opinions that were general. While a few people spoke up to say that they felt that the artwork that was the subject of the question was fine, the general consensus was also that the images of people in question and in the RC did not fit that description.
While it was also brought up on the mailing list repeatedly, people felt that the artwork was particularly ill-suited to the corporate environment and in certain cultures where maintain stream culture has a more conservative approach and attitudes toward sexuality and nudity than in the West. Mark Shuttleworth explained that he was personally not interested in targetting the business market at the moment but that it was a nice to have.
Few, if any, people argued that the artwork should be removed all together. Nobody voiced a strong objection to the artwork being included an option but didn't like the idea of having it be people's "first impression" with the distribution.
Most people seemed to feel that depictions of people were fine but that they must not be default -- regardless of the nature of the pictures or photographs. Other people stated a preference for abstract themes in all defaults. Others suggested that conservative dress would be OK and a few even suggested that pictures of non-human images (abstract images) were abstract and alienating. Others suggested that it was photographs that were offensive.
A number of people raised concerns about the definition of "conservative dress" -- who is defining conservative. Since there are not clear answers. The consensus seemed to be that they would be alright to make available, but certainly not by default.
The question then moved to a discussion of which images with human forms could even be installed on the CD. A few participants expressed concern about having this installed by default or on the CD and preferred to leave the calendar images as a bonus that people that knew about them could install from over the network.
Others argued against this saying that although the images were risqué enough to not install by default, they were not so risqué or offensive that they could not be included as an option on the CD and even within the default installation. Only one or two people felt strongly that they should be removed and a few people suggested that they felt strongly that they should be kept on the CD.
While Warty has only one release, it is expected that for Hoary Hedgehog, there will be many derivatives. The question was posed:
Should we require that the Ubuntu derivative for the Netherlands follow a code acceptable in Iran?
There was completely consensus that the answer to this question was a resounding 'no.' Derivatives are, "a separate kettle of fish."
The conversation then moved to the GNOME splash screen which was the most difficult to change. Mark Shuttleworth called for opinions on what should be done about it.
Many people suggested that it was in their opinion, "the worst of all" the controversial images introduces in the Release Candidate.
Jeff Waugh suggested, and Scott James Remnant agreed, that it didn't make a whole lot of sense to ship more than one GNOME splash screen with Warty because they are rather difficult to change. However, that said, there was no real reason to not ship more than one if people are interested in doing the small amount of tweaking necessary to change it.
General consensus was, as before, that the new image with the not-so-well-clothed folks was a no-go in any default installation but could be included on the CD..
The feelings and conclusions were basically a reiteration of the above:
Keep the login screen but do not include it as the default for folks installing or upgrading.
The conversation then moved to a number of other potentially offensive bits in Ubuntu. In particular, people pointed out a "flaccid penis" label/option in the glsnake screensaver, the bouncing cow screensaver, and some chemistry models of drug molecules which were another screensaver. Someone pointed out that Redhat has a policy of modifying their screensaver package to remove these.
People didn't voice opinions that were as strong as the feeling about artwork on most of these although some people stated that since there were so many screensavers, it would be alright to remove screensavers that were offending people including the bouncing cow -- even the vast majority of people did not find it offensive.