Anyone who makes a contribution is eligible for membership. Contributions range from submitting artwork and providing support on the forums to translating.. See contributors wiki page for exactly what is and is not considered a contribution.

A developer is someone who is an active member of the core development team. Development includes activities such as submitting patches, fixing bugs, and creating applications from scratch.

The majlis (“council”) is the executive body responsible for making major decisions for the UbuntuME project, such as name changes, release dates and approval of packages and teams. The majlis consists of 9 members:

• 6 members from the development team

• 3 members from the “community”.

The various constituents of the majlis are (s)elected by members of the development team and general members of the project.

Acceptance into the majlis is subject to a strict policy of being a reputable and active member of the development team/community. To be considered a legitimate candidate, one must be vouched for by at least two other active members. It is not good etiquette to nominate oneself for a position in the majlis, but rather, individuals will be nominated by others, and provided they do not decline, they will be considered a candidate and will be up for (s)election.

The majlis is (s)elected once every two releases. Members must give notice for any forseeable absence or inactivity, and nominate someone to represent them temporarily for the duration of their absence. In the case of resignation from the majlis, a temporary representative must be nominated until a replacement can be (s)elected.

Any member of the community is free to appeal to the ameer of the project regarding any feeling of abuse, misrepresentation or resentment of a member or members of the majlis. This appeal will be investigated by the entire majlis, with the ameer making a final decision.

The design of the majlis almost completely eradicates the possibility of stagnation of discussions and indecisivness. However, in the unlikely case that this occurs, the casting vote will always go to the ameer. This is to prevent stalemates, evidently the downfall of other projects.

The majlis will meet in its entirety at least once every ~14 days.

Example of how the governance structure of the project works:

• The development team has decided to include package2 in UbuntuME instead of package1
• A number of members of the community feel that package1 is in fact superior to package2 for reasons 1, 2 and 3
• They create a thread with poll in the forums to gauge the opinion of the general community, and receive positive feedback.
• They create a specification on the wiki citing reasons, discussion thread and poll result, and forward the request to the majlis
• The majlis opens a transparent discussion on the mailing list to discuss the request and the reasons cited. The discussion is scheduled for a defined period of time. They decide reason 1 is invalid, but 2 and 3 are legitimate.
• At the start of the discussions, each member puts forward his position. In this case, 4 were in favour of the motion, 3 against and 2 undecided. As the discussion took place, the 2 undecided members, and 1 member who was initially against, changed their minds and were in favour. A vote is called and the motion is passed.
  • Even in the case where a majority initially agrees on a point, the discussion will take place to provide all members an opportunity to argue their corner and see if they can persuade others around to their position, to ensure the correct decision is made.
  • Once the major points have been put forward, if 5 members of the majlis call for a vote, the decision is put to vote immediately.
• The development team replaces package2 with package1, as requested by the community.

Discussions are currently on going at this part of the google group. Team members please participate. http://groups.google.com/group/ubuntume/browse_thread/thread/753defa4662a9915?hl=en