If you haven’t noticed, I am a big fan of Ubuntu Brainstorm, particularly the concept of allowing the end-user to propose ideas in an open and transparent way. One of the things I have been most hoping for, though, was the Brainstorm clones. Unfortunately, they have not come yet.

Quite a while ago, Dell introduced IdeaStorm, a site where people could submit ideas and other people could vote on them. It was as a result of this that Dell now sells Ubuntu pre-installed on some computers (like the one I am typing this on). I don’t know if Ubuntu Brainstorm was officially based on IdeaStorm, but is certainly does look (*ahem*) inspired by IdeaStorm.

After Dell and Ubuntu both adopted this form of user feedback, I was really hoping that it would catch on among other open-source projects. Imagine if every project had their own version of Brainstorm, so that you could submit ideas to any project. A while ago when Brainstorm as still young, Brainstorm project member Nicolas Deschildre even discussed the idea of the a so-called “decentralized brainstorm,” where all of these separate Brainstorms could share ideas between them.

The problem is, these Brainstorms clones just have not appeared. I am not aware of any other major open-source project using a system like this. For me, this is a big disappointment. I felt, and still feel, that Brainstorm-like approaches hold the potential to serve as an amazing platform for bringing the average user into the development and creation process. With an effective Brainstorm system, a project can truly be made by the users, even if only a small group of people can actually do the coding.

I would love to know why more projects have not adopted something like Ubuntu Brainstorm. Is it just too early? Are they not convinced it will help them in the long run? I have no idea, but I would really love to see more use of Brainstorm-like systems in open-source projects.