Question to all candidates: financing of development
Hello, this is a question to all DPL candidates. Imagine a DD contacts you, she wants to setup an infrastructure to finance Debian related projects (i.e. paying people to enable them to work on the projects that they'd like to do for Debian) but she wants to avoid the main mistakes made during Dunc-Tank; in her project: - everybody can propose projects to be financed - the projects to be financed are selected by the Debian developers and by the donors - eligible projects can only concern new developements and not recurring tasks What advice would you give her? What other pitfalls from Dunc-Tank must she pay attention to? Do you have concrete suggestions for her on how it should be working? Would you encourage her to go forward or would you try to convince her to forget this idea? Cheers, -- Raphaël Hertzog Like what I do? Sponsor me: http://ouaza.com/wp/2010/01/05/5-years-of-freexian/ My Debian goals: http://ouaza.com/wp/2010/01/09/debian-related-goals-for-2010/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Question to all Candidates: 2IC
On Sat, 13 Mar 2010, Paul Wise wrote: > On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 12:47 PM, Margarita Manterola > wrote: > > On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 2:11 AM, Raphael Geissert > > wrote: > >> What tasks do you have in mind that you plan to delegate? > > > > There are a bunch listed in my yet-to-be-published platform. > > I wonder if the questions period of the DPL elections would be more > productive if platforms were published beforehand? That's how it's supposed to work, it's just that I have never seen all DPL candidates to be ready at that point (and the secretary usually tries to publish them at the same time so that one candidate can't benefit from having seen the platform of other candidates). Cheers, -- Raphaël Hertzog Like what I do? Sponsor me: http://ouaza.com/wp/2010/01/05/5-years-of-freexian/ My Debian goals: http://ouaza.com/wp/2010/01/09/debian-related-goals-for-2010/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100313065331.ga8...@rivendell
Re: Question to all the candidates: time
Le Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 12:56:17PM +0700, Paul Wise a écrit : > #include > > How much time do you currently devote to Debian? How will that amount > of time change for the DPL term? How will you balance your DPL time > and time for other Debian activities. Hi Paul, most of my involvement in Debian is on my free time. I usually give to Debian a couple of evenings per week, and a couple of week-end days per month. If I am elected DPL, I will reduce the time I spend updating packages in my team (all my packages are team-maintained) and focus on DPL activities. Since there is no synergy between my full-time work (molecular biologist) and the duties of a DPL, I will not be able to give more time in total this year. For instance, I will not travel to distant timezones, and therefore will not attend DebConf. I intend to spend most of my DPL time on tasks that can be fragmented. In particular, making sure that the delegation system is working (no MIA, …), and leading long-overdue discussion on subjects such as membership. Cheers, -- Charles Plessy Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100313061938.gd11...@kunpuu.plessy.org
Question to all the candidates: time
#include How much time do you currently devote to Debian? How will that amount of time change for the DPL term? How will you balance your DPL time and time for other Debian activities. -- bye, pabs http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e13a36b31003122156k507289a0q6c92deb83df1b...@mail.gmail.com
Re: Question to all Candidates: 2IC
On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 12:47 PM, Margarita Manterola wrote: > On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 2:11 AM, Raphael Geissert wrote: >> What tasks do you have in mind that you plan to delegate? > > There are a bunch listed in my yet-to-be-published platform. I wonder if the questions period of the DPL elections would be more productive if platforms were published beforehand? -- bye, pabs http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e13a36b31003122155v6cc76a27r212ea8d894ae6...@mail.gmail.com
Re: Question to all Candidates: 2IC
On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 2:11 AM, Raphael Geissert wrote: >> So, while not having a particular appointed 2IC, I do plan to ask a >> lot of people for help on the many things I'd like to accomplish. And >> I also do plan to mention, thank and appreciate all the help received, >> no matter how small the task. > > What tasks do you have in mind that you plan to delegate? There are a bunch listed in my yet-to-be-published platform. But just to give an example from the previous mail, I'd like to have a page with rankings of people reporting and fixing bugs, in order to give some nice Debian merchandise to the ones that help the most, but I don't think I'd have the time to organize the whole thing myself. So, I'd probably find a group of people that like the idea and are willing to put up the work to have the system running. -- Besos, Marga -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e8bbf0361003122147y5fc45980p69df222f81da...@mail.gmail.com
Re: Question to all Candidates: Project Funds and donations
On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 8:02 PM, Martin Zobel-Helas wrote: > The Debian Project receives quite a number of monetary donations as well > as contributions in kind via several umbrella organization like SPI, > ffis, debian.ch, etc. > > a) What do you think are valid goals to spend this money on? I've been thinking about this for a long while now. I think that the areas that deserve spending Debian's money are: keeping Debian running, improving the overall quality of the OS, getting more people to contribute to Debian, and getting more people to use Debian. Currently, there's a portion that is used to fund developers travelling to work-meetings or to DebConf, and another one for shipping and setting up hardware. I think that these are all valid ways to spend money, and that we should encourage them. I also would like to see some money spent on promoting Debian, by providing materials for booths in conferences around the world. This would not be too much money from our accounts, but it could make a lot of difference regarding the image that people have of Debian. Another possibility that would help giving Debian visibility as well as improving the overall quality of the distribution, would be holding bug-fixing and bug-reporting bounties, but with Debian merchandise (t-shirts, mugs, stickers, etc) as prizes (i.e. not monetary prizes)... And if it works we could maybe even get sponsors to donate some bigger prizes. I think that more money could be spent in financing travel for developers to attend conferences, meet with other contributors and give talks related to Debian. For this part, I think we should form a delegated committee, like we do for DebConf to allocate the money, so that it's not left to the arbitrary decision of the DPL. Obviously this should all be done as long as there's enough money left in the Debian accounts for hardware and emergency needs. > b) How would you think is a valid way to thank (hardware) contributors? > b) What qualifies a contributor to become a "Debian Partner"? What > qualifies a "Debian Partner"? This feels like a question from the NM process. The way to thank donors is by showing their logos and listing their contributions in the Debian Partners page. I'm not totally sure of what the question is. I don't know how it was decided which contributors are listed and which are not. But I guess that current providers of hardware and big money contributors should be listed, while past contributors should be listed in a separate "Previous Partners" or the like. -- Besos, Marga -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e8bbf0361003122139rdbcba13ucb86e5b09f89d...@mail.gmail.com
Re: Question to all Candidates: 2IC
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Margarita Manterola wrote: > I do plan, however, to delegate many tasks. Both in the > constitutional and in the everyday use of the word. [...] > So, while not having a particular appointed 2IC, I do plan to ask a > lot of people for help on the many things I'd like to accomplish. And > I also do plan to mention, thank and appreciate all the help received, > no matter how small the task. What tasks do you have in mind that you plan to delegate? Regards, - -- Raphael Geissert - Debian Developer www.debian.org - get.debian.net -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkubHoUACgkQYy49rUbZzlq8NACeNP4C2aZySROOMkmRKIVg5L5D qa4An2x8Rm2TS2LQeZxSOqB9RdNm1kuL =C6ZD -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/hnf6q7$9m...@dough.gmane.org
Re: Question to all Candidates: Project Funds and donations
Le Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 12:02:59AM +0100, Martin Zobel-Helas a écrit : > > The Debian Project receives quite a number of monetary donations as well > as contributions in kind via several umbrella organization like SPI, > ffis, debian.ch, etc. > > a) What do you think are valid goals to spend this money on? > b) How would you think is a valid way to thank (hardware) contributors? > b) What qualifies a contributor to become a "Debian Partner"? What >qualifies a "Debian Partner"? Hello Martin, The discussion initiated by Steve about how to use our money did not reach a conclusion, and I think that it shows how delicate that subject is. From this thread, I personally conclude that direct donations (hardware, bandwidth, booth space, time, meeting rooms, …) are much more valuable for a project like Debian, whose do-o-cratic traditions do not accommodate with open questions like how to spend our money. Direct donations are in essence more focused, and very importantly are more rooted to reality: we get what our sponsors produce or use; what they give to us influence how we grow. That is a much more intimate relationship than money exchange. So to answer your first question, I think that the Debian money is best spent on what we can not receive by donation. The biggest examples that come to my mind are shipping hardware between private locations and helping people to travel and meet. In particular I will not agree with paying to develop software. Also if we do not manage to spend our money in a meaningful manner, I think that we can modify the donations page of our website to reflect that direct contributions have a much more immediate effect than sending money. Our project does not accept non-voting members nor legal persons (companies, associations, …) as members. In the long term, I think that it would be useful to re-open the discussion on membership, and that would be a good opportunity to give a more formal definition of what a Debian Partner is. I suppose that the concept was created before I joined the project, because I do not remember a discussion on the subject. There is a detailed description on our website (http://www.debian.org/partners/partners) and I am sure you know it, so I suppose that you are also asking what the candidates are thinking of this definition? I agree on its core, that the partnership must be an ongoing story. It does not mean that point contributions are not appreciated, but I think that only with this criterion (contribution that is ongoing), we can aim at maintaining an accurate list of partners. Of course, thanks for past partners or point contributors are much welcome as well. If tomorrow we receive a large donation, we can make a press release together with the sponsor; this press release will have even more echo than being listed on our Partners page. After visiting our website, I saw that the Partner Program is listed in our organization page, with names of active persons. I admit that I have no idea if they are DPL Delegates or not (and I intent do make a general ping and inventory, but that is off-topic here). I think that the role of the DPL is to make sure that teams that take decisions in our name are doing so in a consensual manner, but I do not think that the DPL has to be intrusive on the details. So I will not comment on the details on the Partnership Program. Therefore, the answer to your questions are that what qualifies a Debian Partner is currently decided by the Partners team, and as a simple developer I am not aware of major disagreements about their work. I note however that the page describing Partners is not completely up to date (Financial Partners from page http://www.debian.org/partners/ are not described in the partners/partners page). Perhaps if that team had more visibility (it has no description on http://wiki.debian.org/Teams either) it would attract more contributors? In a separate part of my platform, I will propose to give more detailed delegations and collect them in a single reference point, not only to avoid misunderstanding on who does what, but also to advertise teams that are lead by DPL Delegates and help them to attract manpower. Have a nice week-end, -- Charles Plessy Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100313035746.ga11...@kunpuu.plessy.org
Question to all Candidates: Project Funds and donations
Hi, this question goes to all candidates: The Debian Project receives quite a number of monetary donations as well as contributions in kind via several umbrella organization like SPI, ffis, debian.ch, etc. a) What do you think are valid goals to spend this money on? b) How would you think is a valid way to thank (hardware) contributors? b) What qualifies a contributor to become a "Debian Partner"? What qualifies a "Debian Partner"? Greetings Martin -- Martin Zobel-Helas | Debian System Administrator Debian & GNU/Linux Developer | Debian Listmaster Public key http://zobel.ftbfs.de/5d64f870.asc - KeyID: 5D64 F870 GPG Fingerprint: 5DB3 1301 375A A50F 07E7 302F 493E FB8E 5D64 F870 signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Question to all Candidates: 2IC
On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 9:12 PM, Joerg Jaspert wrote: > a little question to all those up for the next DPL: > Do you plan on taking on a "2IC" or a team? > If so: Who? And why this/those? I don't plan to take a 2IC or a DPL team, in the sense of someone else receiving lea...@. I do plan, however, to delegate many tasks. Both in the constitutional and in the everyday use of the word. One of the things I learned from DebConf organization, particularly while organizing DebConf8, is that delegating is hard, but it's very important to be able to do it. In my experience, we geeks tend to feel that we have to do everything ourselves, otherwise the task won't get done properly (or at least not exactly how we thought about it). However, my vision is that it's essential to delegate, otherwise the task won't get done at all. So, while not having a particular appointed 2IC, I do plan to ask a lot of people for help on the many things I'd like to accomplish. And I also do plan to mention, thank and appreciate all the help received, no matter how small the task. -- Besos, Marga -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e8bbf0361003121008x2c9de0b8l7944fad35a139...@mail.gmail.com
Re: Question to all Candidates: 2IC
On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 03:47:53PM +0100, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: > In fact, if you think about it, the proposal of a DPL board / 2IC just > gives a formal status to something that should be normal, > i.e. interaction among DPL and people knowledgeable/competent on > specific topics/tasks. FWIW, I think a 2IC is much more effective for outside-leaning communication, i.e. filtering and/or answering leader@ mail (which apparently can be overwhelming) and such, not for communication with other project members or teams. Michael -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100312161025.ga24...@nighthawk.chemicalconnection.dyndns.org
Re: Question to all Candidates: 2IC
Le Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 01:12:57AM +0100, Joerg Jaspert a écrit : > Heyho, > > a little question to all those up for the next DPL: > > Do you plan on taking on a "2IC" or a team? > If so: Who? And why this/those? Hi Joerg, If I understand correctly, the 2IC is another person that gets the emails for lea...@debian.org. I hope that the traffic on this address is low enough and that I can take vacations without blocking the project, so I do not plan to team up with a 2IC. I do not plan either to assemble a team. I think that the role of the DPL is to help the Project to keep cohesion and avoid inertia, and I am not sure that a team will be more efficient in this than a single person: if we stimulate Debian in many different directions, the opposite effect can be reached! Cheers, -- Charles Plessy Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100312155132.gb10...@kunpuu.plessy.org
Re: Question to all Candidates: 2IC
thanks for the detailed answer, good summary of what is also my impression (that i have about it, as an unqualified observer). -- Address:Daniel Baumann, Burgunderstrasse 3, CH-4562 Biberist Email: daniel.baum...@panthera-systems.net Internet: http://people.panthera-systems.net/~daniel-baumann/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4b9a5d2e.7080...@debian.org
Re: Question to all Candidates: 2IC
On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 12:14:42PM +0100, Daniel Baumann wrote:
> >I personally don't plan to have neither a DPL board, nor a 2IC.
> why not?
First of all because I don't think it is needed, then because we lack
evidence that having either a DPL board or a 2IC actually improves the
outcome of a DPL term or even only the communication with the project.
In fact, if you think about it, the proposal of a DPL board / 2IC just
gives a formal status to something that should be normal,
i.e. interaction among DPL and people knowledgeable/competent on
specific topics/tasks. In all my Debian activities thus far, I've always
talked with people, asked for advice, etc. If elected, I'll surely
continue to do so. There is no need to formalize that in a extra
structure that, especially for the DPL board, will induce extra
coordination hops.
For formal delegation of specific tasks, our constitution already
entails the notion of delegates, which I will use when and if needed. I
think we could use a bit more of that, possibly adding time constraints
to delegations, to avoid that a specific power lingers around attached
to people once their interest in a specific task has faded out, or the
task is completed (but no, I don't have any specific new delegation in
mind ATM).
The advantage of delegations over a DPL board / 2IC is that they are
task-specific and then more fair to the project: as a DD, I can trust
someone to work on a specific task, especially when that someone has
already shown competence in it, but not on a different one.
FWIW, I've discussed a bit more about all this in my platform, which is
pending publication.
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
z...@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -<>- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Dietro un grande uomo c'è ..| . |. Et ne m'en veux pas si je te tutoie
sempre uno zaino ...| ..: | Je dis tu à tous ceux que j'aime
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Re: Question to all Candidates: 2IC
On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 01:12:57AM +0100, Joerg Jaspert wrote: > Heyho, > > a little question to all those up for the next DPL: > > Do you plan on taking on a "2IC" or a team? I don't plan on doing so, no. We've had a few DPLs in the past who did so, but I don't see a significant difference in performance between those who did have a 2IC and those who didn't; so I don't see the benefit. -- The biometric identification system at the gates of the CIA headquarters works because there's a guard with a large gun making sure no one is trying to fool the system. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/01/biometrics.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100312144151.ga17...@celtic.nixsys.be
Re: Question to all Candidates: 2IC
On 03/12/2010 10:55 AM, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: I personally don't plan to have neither a DPL board, nor a 2IC. why not? -- Address:Daniel Baumann, Burgunderstrasse 3, CH-4562 Biberist Email: daniel.baum...@panthera-systems.net Internet: http://people.panthera-systems.net/~daniel-baumann/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4b9a.1050...@debian.org
Re: Question to all Candidates: 2IC
On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 01:12:57AM +0100, Joerg Jaspert wrote:
> Do you plan on taking on a "2IC" or a team?
I personally don't plan to have neither a DPL board, nor a 2IC.
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
z...@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -<>- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Dietro un grande uomo c'è ..| . |. Et ne m'en veux pas si je te tutoie
sempre uno zaino ...| ..: | Je dis tu à tous ceux que j'aime
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