Hi Nilesh, Am Fri, Mar 22, 2024 at 09:23:12AM +0530 schrieb Nilesh Patra: > I am interested in knowing about what the current candidates think about > accounting bits in Debian and how they think about spending the money.
I admit my knowledge about how Debian money is spent is currently low and incomplete. Here is a list of things I know / have heard about: 1. DebConf (and MiniDebConfs) In my perception the money usage for DebConf is transparet enough I have no idea about MiniDebConfs. 2. Smaller in person meetings (Bug squashing parties, team sprints) Sprint organisers have to estimate their budget and need confirmation. Confirmed budget is payed. I have no idea whether those data are published somewhere. 3. Infrasturture hardware I was always happy to see that it worked from my mere developer point of view and did not read the reports about this but I know there are some reports. 4. Hardware for developers I once profited from a Debian sponsored laptop in exchange for some review[1]. I know that other DDs also got hardware which is for different reasons interesing to make sure Debian runs properly. I have no idea whether there is some list about this (in terms of transparent usage of the money) 5. There is probably way more missing in this list. > As I have read and from time to time observed, the finances in the project > do not have a lot of transparency and there are updates posted > semi-occasionally > on -private and sometimes in DPL talks. Jonathan also wrote about it in one > of their > previous campaigns. I would love to be transparent about money. Currently I have no idea how time consuming this process compared to DPL tasks in general might be. I'd love to get help here which is also a way to increase transparency if more eyes are looking onto this topic. > Itd also be good to know if there's a plan on where the budget > shall be best spent. I have no idea how to measure "best" usage objectively. I strongly believe that in person meetings are very important so I consider the money for item 1. and 2. of my list above spent well and would encourage people to organise those events which should be supported by Debian money. Its probably without question that we need good infrastructure hardware. If bottlenecks might be spotted which can be fixed quickly with existing money I'm all for it. > I would like to know if the candidates for this term have any plans about it > or any thoughts > in general. In general I think that people donating money to Debian expect their money to be spent for the progress of Debian (rather than filling up our bank account[2]). I'm also open to exploring new ways to allocate funds. I'm hopeful that we can derive some positive insights from the Debian Developer's Survey on the Usage of Money in Debian[3]. Personally, I'm open to discussing whether to compensate contributors for important tasks that either nobody wants to do or lacks people with sufficient time capacity to undertake those tasks. I recall the various pros and cons raised during past discussions on this matter, but if people believe it's time to initiate a fresh discussion, I'm very receptive to that. BTW, I don't believe that only the DPL can initiate such a discussion. But for sure I'm very open for suggestions and will support any initiative to make Debian better. As a very personal note what I think about money: In my eyes money has a great power to divide people. Discussion about it is usually heated and it is hard to find a good consensus due to very different perspectives onto that matter specifically since there is hardly a technical proof what is right and what is wrong. This makes a great difference to other decisions we have to draw inside Debian. > Both of your platforms have only a (very) vague idea about it and I'd like to > know more > specifics about it. If you want to know more details please be more specific in your question. > PS: I urge _only_ the candidates to reply to this mail 😀 I'm personally interested into specific proposal how people consider money well spent and might answer these in different treads (since Nilesh wants only replies from candidates). > Best, > Nilesh Kind regards Andreas. [1] https://fam-tille.de/debian/frame.work.html [2] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/10/debian_project_address/ [3] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2023/04/msg00001.html -- https://fam-tille.de