Re: paying people for Debian work (Re: Why do we take so long to realise good ideas (Was: Difficult Packaging Practices))
Hi, Why to support additional fragmentation? My opinion is debian was left behind regarding infrastructure. I do packaging for various distributions. Honestly, I am running debian. But you could provide continues integration for different architectures, not only i386 and amd64. Extend access to porter machines for debian maintainers. Make the request easier and faster. Especially for more exotic flavors like kfreebsd and hurd. I caught me different times setting up some VM, only to check why a test was failing on arch X and not on Y. Best regards, Joël On Mon, Jun 3, 2019 at 11:43 AM Raphael Hertzog wrote: > > Hi, > > On Mon, 03 Jun 2019, Paul Wise wrote: > > There are a few things that are possibly concerning: > > Thanks for sharing those. Let me answer them. > > > Freexian is essentially the only available-to-hire provider of > > services for Debian LTS, as the Freeside link doesn't lead anywhere > > useful. This means that Freexian essentially does not have any > > competition in the provision of these services. Individuals or > > companies who don't like Freexian's offering do not have any other > > choices, short of going to the general Debian consultants list, who > > may or may not have the needed skills and would take time to search > > through. > > That's correct. But the agreement was always that the relationship > was non-exclusive from the Debian point of view. I.e. someone else > could setup "Debian LTS by " and Debian would not endorse one more > than the other. > > > The funding breakdown for the LTS team appears to be 48% Freexian, 31% > > volunteer/unknown, 21% other companies. I don't have any data on the > > proportion of LTS work done by each of these groups, but I get the > > feeling that the majority of LTS uploads are done by Freexian folks. > > That breakdown does not reflect reality at all. Indeed the vast majority > of the work is done by contributors paid by Freexian. > > > This means that if Freexian decides to end its provision of services > > for Debian LTS, then the level of work done for LTS would go down > > significantly. Were this to happen, it would either significantly > > damage the image of Debian due to having to end the LTS effort or > > require us to do work which we have had a hard time finding volunteers > > for in the past. > > That's correct. However, there's no reason for this to happen. I do care > about Debian and the uninteresting paper work that I have to do to keep > the Freexian service running is paid for. > > That said there are multiple ways to avoid this: > - Debian organizes this by itself (it's possible, the criteria I use > to allocate work hours to contributors are relatively transparent) > - Debian defines clear rules for external services leveraging the Debian > name to fund Debian-related work and encourages to have more of those > > > There is strong coupling between Debian and Freexian in the language > > on the Debian LTS pages and the Freexian pages. This is free > > advertising for Freexian's LTS services and representing Freexian's > > LTS services as "blessed" by Debian or somehow "official", which could > > be objected to by other companies who might decide to provide security > > support services. It may be prudent to remove or alter the language on > > the Debian LTS pages. > > I don't see the need to act pro-actively here. The current description > is a fair representation of the reality. It might not be the ideal > situation that we want for Debian but then again I suggest we work on > defining criteria for all services/companies that would aim to have the > same kind of "Debian blessing". > > > LTS. This means that the individuals/organisations doing consulting > > around Debian miss out on the opportunities to work on LTS. > > This is not true. Many have joined the set of contributors paid by > Freexian. Some of the contributors are working as individuals > (freelancers) and others as members of an organization that invoices > Freexian (Codethink for Ben Hutchings for example). > > You are saying that they don't have an opportunity to work on LTS > outside of Freexian. That's also not true but the easy path is > definitely to go through Freexian who has an established situation > and whose join rules are open-enough to avoid the need to create > a competitor. > > > Freexian doesn't fund LTS contributors who are not DDs/DMs: this > > eliminates skilled developers from outside Debian who could contribute > > to LTS via Freexian and eventually work on Debian more generally. This > > seems to have prevented at least one former Debian member who was > > interested in Freexian's offer from contributing. It might also make > > LTS funding seem like a reward for Debian insiders. > > Or it creates an incentive to contribute to Debian to be able to join > the set of paid developers. > > I'm sorry that you see this as a problem. This job is about contributing > to Debian and we need persons who already know how to do this.
Re: paying people for Debian work (Re: Why do we take so long to realise good ideas (Was: Difficult Packaging Practices))
Hi, On Mon, 03 Jun 2019, Paul Wise wrote: > There are a few things that are possibly concerning: Thanks for sharing those. Let me answer them. > Freexian is essentially the only available-to-hire provider of > services for Debian LTS, as the Freeside link doesn't lead anywhere > useful. This means that Freexian essentially does not have any > competition in the provision of these services. Individuals or > companies who don't like Freexian's offering do not have any other > choices, short of going to the general Debian consultants list, who > may or may not have the needed skills and would take time to search > through. That's correct. But the agreement was always that the relationship was non-exclusive from the Debian point of view. I.e. someone else could setup "Debian LTS by " and Debian would not endorse one more than the other. > The funding breakdown for the LTS team appears to be 48% Freexian, 31% > volunteer/unknown, 21% other companies. I don't have any data on the > proportion of LTS work done by each of these groups, but I get the > feeling that the majority of LTS uploads are done by Freexian folks. That breakdown does not reflect reality at all. Indeed the vast majority of the work is done by contributors paid by Freexian. > This means that if Freexian decides to end its provision of services > for Debian LTS, then the level of work done for LTS would go down > significantly. Were this to happen, it would either significantly > damage the image of Debian due to having to end the LTS effort or > require us to do work which we have had a hard time finding volunteers > for in the past. That's correct. However, there's no reason for this to happen. I do care about Debian and the uninteresting paper work that I have to do to keep the Freexian service running is paid for. That said there are multiple ways to avoid this: - Debian organizes this by itself (it's possible, the criteria I use to allocate work hours to contributors are relatively transparent) - Debian defines clear rules for external services leveraging the Debian name to fund Debian-related work and encourages to have more of those > There is strong coupling between Debian and Freexian in the language > on the Debian LTS pages and the Freexian pages. This is free > advertising for Freexian's LTS services and representing Freexian's > LTS services as "blessed" by Debian or somehow "official", which could > be objected to by other companies who might decide to provide security > support services. It may be prudent to remove or alter the language on > the Debian LTS pages. I don't see the need to act pro-actively here. The current description is a fair representation of the reality. It might not be the ideal situation that we want for Debian but then again I suggest we work on defining criteria for all services/companies that would aim to have the same kind of "Debian blessing". > LTS. This means that the individuals/organisations doing consulting > around Debian miss out on the opportunities to work on LTS. This is not true. Many have joined the set of contributors paid by Freexian. Some of the contributors are working as individuals (freelancers) and others as members of an organization that invoices Freexian (Codethink for Ben Hutchings for example). You are saying that they don't have an opportunity to work on LTS outside of Freexian. That's also not true but the easy path is definitely to go through Freexian who has an established situation and whose join rules are open-enough to avoid the need to create a competitor. > Freexian doesn't fund LTS contributors who are not DDs/DMs: this > eliminates skilled developers from outside Debian who could contribute > to LTS via Freexian and eventually work on Debian more generally. This > seems to have prevented at least one former Debian member who was > interested in Freexian's offer from contributing. It might also make > LTS funding seem like a reward for Debian insiders. Or it creates an incentive to contribute to Debian to be able to join the set of paid developers. I'm sorry that you see this as a problem. This job is about contributing to Debian and we need persons who already know how to do this. Contrary to GSOC and others, our purpose is not to train outsiders to contribute to Debian. > The structure of using existing Debian contributors and funnelling > most of the funding to them through one company reduces incentives for > companies wanting security support to direct their employees to work > on Debian security support. This means that our contributor base stays > more static and reduces the chance that new folks will join us. An > alternate model where each of the companies currently sponsoring > Freexian LTS services instead directed their employees to spend some > hours on Debian security support seems more likely to lead to new > people getting involved. I certainly agree that the efficiency of the contributors paid by Freexian means that companies
Re: paying people for Debian work (Re: Why do we take so long to realise good ideas (Was: Difficult Packaging Practices))
On Fri, May 31, 2019 at 5:32 AM Holger Levsen wrote: > LTS is accepted by the Debian community. I'm not entirely sure this fully represents the range of feelings about the LTS efforts. There are a few things that are possibly concerning: Freexian is essentially the only available-to-hire provider of services for Debian LTS, as the Freeside link doesn't lead anywhere useful. This means that Freexian essentially does not have any competition in the provision of these services. Individuals or companies who don't like Freexian's offering do not have any other choices, short of going to the general Debian consultants list, who may or may not have the needed skills and would take time to search through. https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Funding The funding breakdown for the LTS team appears to be 48% Freexian, 31% volunteer/unknown, 21% other companies. I don't have any data on the proportion of LTS work done by each of these groups, but I get the feeling that the majority of LTS uploads are done by Freexian folks. This means that if Freexian decides to end its provision of services for Debian LTS, then the level of work done for LTS would go down significantly. Were this to happen, it would either significantly damage the image of Debian due to having to end the LTS effort or require us to do work which we have had a hard time finding volunteers for in the past. https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Team There is strong coupling between Debian and Freexian in the language on the Debian LTS pages and the Freexian pages. This is free advertising for Freexian's LTS services and representing Freexian's LTS services as "blessed" by Debian or somehow "official", which could be objected to by other companies who might decide to provide security support services. It may be prudent to remove or alter the language on the Debian LTS pages. https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Funding As far as I can tell, the sole communication between the LTS team and the list of individuals/organisations doing consulting around Debian is a mail attempting to recruit folks to work for Freexian. As far as I can tell, there has been no suggestion that individuals/organisations doing consulting around Debian add themselves to the list of organisations available to hire to work on LTS. This means that the individuals/organisations doing consulting around Debian miss out on the opportunities to work on LTS. https://www.debian.org/consultants/ https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/20160502094142.ga19...@home.ouaza.com Freexian doesn't fund LTS contributors who are not DDs/DMs: this eliminates skilled developers from outside Debian who could contribute to LTS via Freexian and eventually work on Debian more generally. This seems to have prevented at least one former Debian member who was interested in Freexian's offer from contributing. It might also make LTS funding seem like a reward for Debian insiders. https://www.freexian.com/services/debian-lts-details.html#join https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/calqvjpbwcpvr82jrmxmcwuga_mn7wot425-qftvpqpb7aa7...@mail.gmail.com The structure of using existing Debian contributors and funnelling most of the funding to them through one company reduces incentives for companies wanting security support to direct their employees to work on Debian security support. This means that our contributor base stays more static and reduces the chance that new folks will join us. An alternate model where each of the companies currently sponsoring Freexian LTS services instead directed their employees to spend some hours on Debian security support seems more likely to lead to new people getting involved. -- bye, pabs https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise
paying people for Debian work (Re: Why do we take so long to realise good ideas (Was: Difficult Packaging Practices))
On Wed, May 29, 2019 at 11:01:44AM +0200, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> > > Use the $300,000 on our bank accounts?
> > I heard that this didn't work out well the last time ("dunc tank"),
> > though that was before the time I followed Debian development.
> Yes, I was there (and mention it briefly in the questions of the talk I
> gave) but it's been a long time ago.
that dunc tank has been 10y ago doesnt really mean things have changed.
> There are things to learn
> from this failed experiment (such as "don't let the DPL decide alone who
> gets paid") but there are also many reasons to believe that we are no
> longer in the same situation.
well, "believe"...
> At that time, the number of persons working
> on open source as part of their paid work was rather low and the jealousy
> aspect was likely more problematic than it would be today. We have been
> getting used to have Debian contributors being paid (such as on LTS) and
> we know that with appropriate rules, the social impact of the use of money
> is acceptable.
I'm not sure this conclusion is true. True, nowadays there are probably
more people being paid to work on free software (but then, also 10y many
people were paid doing that) and true, there's now Debian LTS, which
pays very few Debian people to do work which many Debian people consider
boring.
But there's one significant difference between LTS and dunc tank: dunc
tank was ment as an initiative inside Debian, while LTS is carefully set
up on both sides, in- and outside Debian, and the money part of it is
*completly* handled outside Debian, and I very much like this and I
consider this a main reason why LTS is accepted by the Debian community.
I *believe* things can become ugly very easily if a volunteer projects
decides about salaries and whom to hire and fire, to give two basic
examples.
Also, once motivation has been destroyed, it can be very hard to
impossible to rebuild it. Money can be a huge motivator, and a huge
demotivator as well.
So I don't think LTS has shown that "this can work", as in LTS we have a
very nice benevolent dictator and as such the setup is very different
from what I imagine would be a Debian setup.
I'd much rather have an/more external entity/project/s paying people
doing Debian work. And if that entity is a charity as/under SPI, Debian
could even transfer money to that entity.
--
tschau,
Holger, who is getting paid for free software work, incl. LTS
---
holger@(debian|reproducible-builds|layer-acht).org
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