Re: Position Statement to the Dunc-Tanc experiment
On Thu, Oct 26, 2006 at 08:37:43PM +0200, Marc Haber wrote: US$ 6000 is like 4.800 EUR. That's like a dayly rate of 220 EUR. Like a fourth of what a contractor of Andi's and Steve's expertise would cash in on the free market. You're kidding, right? Others already pointed out that the original text talked about taking care of their living expenses, not contracting them. The only way for you to argue that 880 EUR would be a fair amount of money is if you consider that they are paid to do work that only these two can do. Of course in a situation like this you can write your pay check yourself, at least almost. Given a market situation with some competition the number simply is ridiculous. Michael -- Michael Meskes Email: Michael at Fam-Meskes dot De, Michael at Meskes dot (De|Com|Net|Org) ICQ: 179140304, AIM/Yahoo: michaelmeskes, Jabber: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Go SF 49ers! Go Rhein Fire! Use Debian GNU/Linux! Use PostgreSQL! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: d-d-a abuse, was Re: Position Statement to the Dunc-Tanc experiment
On Thu, 26 Oct 2006, [iso-8859-2] Miros?aw Baran wrote: Please stop abusing the debian-devel-announce, this is not acceptable. I can not see any abuse of d-d-a. The mail is well thought, written in a style that is by far less offending than todays standard and has a major point concerning Debian development. If you just cannot stand the fact that the majority of the developers that happen to be interested in voting just out-voted you in regard of the Dunc-Tank, fine. Even if I'm continue to be in favour of paying DDs in critical times I'm not blind about the harm the whole affair did to Debian and I want to thank these people that they asked for kind of a journal as it is done in experiments to enable us to learn from it. My personal opinion is that the experiment is close to fail the goal of making Debian's cycle more predictable. So I'm keen on hearing an hopefully objective report from the experimentators. I admit I have underestimated the effect of a suggestion that I regarded reasonable and straightforeward in my eyes. So please stop flaming and I hope that Debian as a project is strong enough to go strengthened through this time. Kind regards Andreas. -- http://fam-tille.de -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Position Statement to the Dunc-Tanc experiment
Anthony Towns wrote: For the record, I haven't seen any such offers, and I've been looking for them since May or so. (Proviso: offers should be accompanied by some direct evidence that whoever's offering has the time and ability to actually do stuff) If at least any NEW queue package information was accessible, people could take an interest. If there's a problem with allowing access to the new packages themselves, cool, but there used to be at least some information on merkel.d.o's mirror of ftp.d.o (disabled for load problems for over a year[1]) and more, e.g. the .katie files if not also the whole .diff.gz and .changes - leave the orig.tar.gz and the .debs if these are problematic, could likely be made available for inspection at least for DDs. Letting people make suggestions for rejecting packages that they've found mistakes should be not very dangerous to the archive. Kind regards T. 1. I freely admit that I've not asked for it recently. -- Thomas Viehmann, http://thomas.viehmann.net/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Position Statement to the Dunc-Tanc experiment
First I will state my personal position. I think the original intent and idea of the DPL - to leverage available funds to assist the process of finishing a stable release - is a great one. Money is a tool to be used, there's no sense letting it lie around just gathering interest. The fact that one or two others might happen to be getting paid to do their Debian work does not in anyway affect my own work, it does not make me second class. My reasons for supporting Debian and free software have nothing to do with money or paid work, and they remain the same whether or not anyone else is getting paid for it. If anything I find the idea of someone else getting paid makes me more motivated, because it makes me think good, we'll be able to get more done then. On Thu, 2006-10-26 at 19:46 +0200, Joerg Jaspert wrote: So, to summarize DTs effects on Debian: It has demotivated a lot of people who now either resigned, simply stopped doing (parts of their) Debian work or are doing a lot less than they did before DT was started. The freeze got delayed and getting the release out on schedule has become nearly impossible. We are unable to see any good virtue in this experiment. Now despite my support for the experiment, I agree with this summary of the results of the experiment. It seems to me that the result of the experiment is that it has revealed a profound cultural divide within the Debian project. There are two groups, and the views of the two groups in regards to the significance of money are wholly alien and antagonistic to one another. The first group, the minority, believes that any use of money to increase the time developers spend on Debian is always intrinsically a bad idea. The second group, the majority, sees, like me, that money is a tool which when available can be used to help things happen more quickly. They are not threatened by the notion of using money to increase the concentration of time that people can spend on Debian. I think the result of the experiment is that the first group has had to face just how unperturbed the second group is at the idea of using money to increase developer time, and that the second group has had to face just how antagonised the first group is over the same idea. Following from these results, my conclusion from this experiment is that, as long as the first group still exists within Debian, this kind of funding idea ought not to be repeated in the future, not in the same way. I do not believe the project gains any advantage by deliberately driving out the contributors from the first group. (There was none such deliberation in this instance, that is why is it was an experiment, to reach these conclusions.) Perhaps it is yet possible to arrive at a different funding model in the future in consensus with the first group? Drew -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Position Statement to the Dunc-Tanc experiment
On Fri, Oct 27, 2006 at 02:44:20PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: On Thu, Oct 26, 2006 at 08:37:43PM +0200, Marc Haber wrote: Just let me pick the NEW queue: Has it been stated publicly that ftpmaster is going to reduce work spent on NEW due to dunc tank? Have ftpmaster considered to accept offers to take over some of the work load they are not motivated to do any more because they're not being paid? For the record, I haven't seen any such offers, and I've been looking for them since May or so. For the record, I haven't seen a request for help issued by ftpmaster, and ftpmaster didn't even say that the amount of time spent would be reduced by dunc tank until the position statement yesterday. Greetings Marc -- - Marc Haber | I don't trust Computers. They | Mailadresse im Header Mannheim, Germany | lose things.Winona Ryder | Fon: *49 621 72739834 Nordisch by Nature | How to make an American Quilt | Fax: *49 621 72739835 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Position Statement to the Dunc-Tanc experiment
On Fri, Oct 27, 2006 at 09:40:24AM +0200, Thomas Viehmann wrote: If at least any NEW queue package information was accessible, people could take an interest. If there's a problem with allowing access to the new packages themselves, cool, but there used to be at least some information on merkel.d.o's mirror of ftp.d.o The packages themselves can't be made available until they've left the NEW queue. Whether on spohr or merkel, doesn't make a difference. What seems like it should be possible would be automatically running the dak examine-package tool and providing that output on a public webpage for other people to review. That currently uses neat markup that colourises things for less, so presumably isn't tremendously compatible with the web though. Presumably someone could change that if they were so enthused. (Personally, I'd consider a patch that gives examine-package a --html-output option pretty good evidence that someone's got enough m4d skillz to be made an ftpassistant, others mileage may vary) Cheers, aj signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Position Statement to the Dunc-Tanc experiment
Hi, I'd like to thank you for putting up this email which summarize extremely well my feelings about what's happening, feelings I haven't been able to elaborate on in an email, out of disgust, despair and outrage. I'd add that the harm done by this experiment is already so huge that there's unfortunately no turning back, and it seems quite obvious that Debian will never be again what it was before, and that is very sad. I'm not very keen on plot theories, but I'd say that had somebody wanted to kill (or inflict maximum damage) to the project, he couldn't have done any better than the current DPL. This being blattant unconsciousness and irresponsability or the result of a deliberate conscious will to harm is almost the same: it is totally unacceptable. Note: this is not a personal attack. I don't know Anthony and bear no particular opinion about the guy. But I do bear special and strong opinions about what he /did/, hence the comment. On 10/26/06, Joerg Jaspert [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] So, to summarize DTs effects on Debian: It has demotivated a lot of people who now either resigned, simply stopped doing (parts of their) Debian work or are doing a lot less than they did before DT was started. I'm part of those. The freeze got delayed and getting the release out on schedule has become nearly impossible. We are unable to see any good virtue in this experiment. Neither do I. Having said all this and also risking yet another flamewar, let us make a last request for now: Please have a healthy discussion, let the DT people answer these questions, tell them (or us) if they (or we) made wrong assumptions or something, but please do not flame. Agreed. The above comments I made in this email are not intended to start a flame. They are mere expressions of my current thoughts, and such strong thoughts can only be expressed with strong words. Signed by: Jörg Jaspert, ftp-master assistant, DAM, DebConf Organizer Alexander Schmehl, Debian Developer, press, event manager, DebConf Organizer Alexander Wirt, Debian Developer Daniel Priem, New Maintainer Martin Würtele, Debian Developer Gerfried Fuchs, Debian Developer Patrick Jäger, User Otavio Salvador, Debian Developer Joey Schulze, Debian Developer, Security, DWN, DSA, press, promoter Felipe Augusto van de Wiel, New Maintainer Sam Hocevar, Debian Developer Pierre Habouzit, Debian Developer Julien Danjou, Debian Developer, Stable Release Manager Peter Palfrader, Debian Developer Julien Blache, Debian Developer, promoter Christoph Berg, Debian Developer, QA, NM front-desk Holger Levsen, New Maintainer, DebConf Organizer I would totally have signed this letter too had I known about it earlier. I endorse everything it says. T-Bone PS: people willing to constructively interract with me can CC me on replies, as I'm not subscribed to the d-project m-l. -- Thibaut VARENE http://www.parisc-linux.org/~varenet/
Re: Position Statement to the Dunc-Tanc experiment
Drew Parsons writes (Re: Position Statement to the Dunc-Tanc experiment): The first group, the minority, believes that any use of money to increase the time developers spend on Debian is always intrinsically a bad idea. This an oft-repeated straw-man characterisation of dunc-tank's opponents. It's completely unsupportable; if you read Joerg's statement, it explains what the signatories feel is different about dunc-tank. Would everybody please stop repeating the straw man. (My name isn't at the bottom of the position statement, even though I agree with it, because I was too slow to respond and also because I wasn't convinced that prolonging the discussion was the right thing to do given that the nay-sayers seem to have been comprehensively outvoted. However, I cannot let this persistent mischaracterisation of our views go unchallenged.) Ian. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Position Statement to the Dunc-Tanc experiment
On Fri, Oct 27, 2006 at 10:26:43AM +0200, Marc Haber wrote: For the record, I haven't seen any such offers, and I've been looking for them since May or so. For the record, I haven't seen a request for help issued by ftpmaster, http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/06/msg00019.html I'm pretty sure I wrote something that went into a bit more detail about how Jeroen and Joerg demonstrated their competence prior to joining too, but I can't recall where. and ftpmaster didn't even say that the amount of time spent would be reduced by dunc tank until the position statement yesterday. That position statement is Joerg's personal opinion. Jeroen has been spending more time doing NEW processing over the past few months, eg. Cheers, aj signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Response to Position Statement to the Dunc-Tanc experiment
Hi all, I'm posting this to d-d-a since it doesn't make sense to me to answer questions in a different forum to where they've been raised. It's already been pointed out [0] that this sort of discussion isn't appropriate for -devel-announce, so I'll try to keep it brief. Followups to -project [1], please. [0] http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/10/msg00264.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/10/msg00266.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/10/msg00269.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/10/msg00273.html [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/10/msg00260.html Beyond this mail, I won't be posting any further about Dunc-Tank on Debian lists. Debian's lists are for improving Debian, not for discussions about other projects, and counting this mail, Dunc-Tank has had eight messages on -devel-announce, over a thousand messages in various threads on other lists, along with a large number of posts on Planet Debian. While people are free to discuss whatever they want, I personally don't think the Dunc-Tank project is that much more important than other parts of Debian to warrant such a huge focus, so I won't be a part of those discussions on Debian lists. On Thu, Oct 26, 2006 at 07:46:00PM +0200, Joerg Jaspert wrote: - Why were the release managers (RMs) chosen as [participants] for this experiment? There are three aspects required for funding free software in this sort of manner that line up well for release management at the moment. The first is we already have people who have been working on release management in an unpaid manner, who are able to take it on as a full time task at short notice. This avoids the difficult tasks of recruiting people with the appropriate skills and motivation, and dealing with the possibility that they may, in fact, not have the skills they claimed, or turn out not to be as interested as they thought; or having to worry about people who aren't familiar with contract work having to become familiar with it (in particular the tax and reporting requirements associated with it, and the issues of dealing with the risks associated with not having any employment benefits, paid vacations or sick leave, or a reliable salary and requirements that your employer give notice before you have to go job hunting). The second is that as a task, release management has a defined end point, with the release of etch giving a very clear point at which we can stop funding people and work out what to do next, without risking any harm to the release process in general, since the release team are expecting to take a break after etch is out anyway. In addition, release management work becomes significantly more effort as the release date approaches, which makes a time-limited experiment at the end of the release cycle make much more sense than a similar experiment would on a task that needs to continue on an ongoing basis, such as security support or development of packages in unstable. The third is that release management is widely recognised as an important and timely issue for Debian by our users at the moment. That's important not only in and of itself, but it also makes it more likely that users will be willing to say I can't help fix any of the bugs and I don't have any time to do testing and such, but I'd be happy to donate some money on this, because I think it's important. There are likely other projects where all of those aspects apply, but in my opinion, right now, release management is the one where they apply best. There are several areas within the Debian project that we consider equally important and full-time work there could benefit the project way more. Dunc-Tank is operating through the Public Software Fund [2], which allows people to fund any free software development activities through donations (which are tax deductible in the US), so there's absolutely nothing stopping any of those projects being funded in the same way. To the best of my knowledge, no one has asked for support from either myself (as DPL) or the Dunc-Tank board or given details of other such projects or how funding would help them. [2] http://www.pubsoft.org/ https://www.pubsoft.org/pubsoft.py/how-funding https://www.pubsoft.org/pubsoft.py/philosophy https://www.pubsoft.org/pubsoft.py/determination - What exactly are the release managers being paid for? There surely must be more than a simple Stay at home, work on Debian in their contract. They're not required to stay at home. :) The principles we're using for Steve's work primarily relies on mutual trust rather than nailing down too many details: (1) Steve will work full-time on release management tasks for etch, beginning Thursday 12th October, ending Monday 13th November. Full-time is intended to be equivalent to at least 8-10 hours per day, 5 days per week to the
Re: Response to Position Statement to the Dunc-Tanc experiment
Sorry for the wording but it's way more than I can take: On 10/27/06, Anthony Towns aj@azure.humbug.org.au wrote: [...] - How is the success of this experiment measured? (For the release as well as for the entire project) An experiment is successful as long as it provides useful information. What the fuck is this definition of successful??! It's so stupid I wonder whether you're playing smarts thinking you're addressing idiots in your reply, and you believe you can get away with it; or if you're actually mentally deficient, which I'd rather hope not. Both makes me wanna puke. I'm reaching the conclusion that electing you as DPL was the worst experiment Debian has ever gotten itself into. This opinion being based solely on your sayings and acts about this experiment, as I don't know you, and don't care anymore about what you've done before (good or bad). Indeed, do you actually /think/ about what you write on public mailing-lists, and keep in mind that even when you're not posting as [EMAIL PROTECTED], you're actually the DPL in charge anyway? Or is the whole concept of leadership and the accompanying responsibilities totally unknown to you? Understanding that successful has nothing to do with useful is probably within the reach of a 10-year-old kid... I guess the vast majority of d-d-a readers can spot the difference as well! Here's an example of successful experiment based on such metrics: fatal human experimentation of new drugs (the patient dies, but at least the scientists/doctors can collect useful data. I doubt they'd call it a successful experiment though). There are many more examples but I'd rather avoid falling under Godwin's Law (though, according to the rule, it would probably end the thread). T-Bone PS: I won't annoy anyone with further emails, this was the last one, so no need to send me please stop being an arse and the like. -- Thibaut VARENE http://www.parisc-linux.org/~varenet/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Take a deep breath...
This is an edited copy of something I posted to -private yesterday. I think it is relevant to all the discussions here, and have a few things to add. Back in the old FidoNet days, the policy for discussion was something along the lines of: Don't be excessively annoying, and don't be easily annoyed. I think that we all need to make sure we step back before we post to a mailing list and consider: does this post really help make Debian better? Along with that, there are a lot of arguments here lately. It is natural for people to want to win an argument. But too often, we forget to ask: is this argument worth the trouble? There have been so many arguments lately that aren't really worth it, and in the end, the participants all wind up looking silly for having perpetuated that discussion. I am annoyed with this acrimonous attitude in Debian, and have been for years. The scary part is that it's actually *better* than it used to be. But that doesn't mean that we are all acting like responsible people all the time. You might want to read my blog post [1]. There are quite a few people in Debian that have done things to annoy me, including many of the people on your list. The right thing to do about it, though, is to forgive and move on -- not to stew about it for weeks or months. If you forgive and move on, you show that you are being a productive member of the project, instead of one that fans flames. When I wrote that blog post, I knew it would be carried on Planet Debian. I didn't write it specifically for Debian, but I feel it is tremendously relevant for Debian. There are a lot of people that carry their dissatisfaction with one thing into other areas, and it doesn't hep Debian. Let's remember to always evaluate things based on their technical merit, not based on the list of people in favor or opposed to them. To those who are withdrawing because of various recent events, I would say this: please consider trying to change Debian for the better instead of leaving it now. Remember that dunc-tank is still a one-time experiment, and with your voice, could stay that way. Remember that political winds can change. To those who say all this makes Debian less fun: you're right. I've found Debian to be a lot more fun if I unsubscribe from a few mailing lists. There's no need to be involved with every discussion. We all need to compromise, to work together on things rather than try to beat each other over the head with policy, GRs, the constitution, and all the other bureaucracy. These are tools to empower us to work together efficiently and produce a great OS. Using them to try to win over others is not helping. Let's try to be more open-minded, and at least understand that people with differing viewpoints are still trying to do what's best for the project. This attitude I have seen all to often recently (including from myself) of I have a strong conviction that action A is best for Debian, so I will do everything I can to make A happen, no matter what happens as a result is not healthy. I've seen that from every side of every debate we've had recently. Does it remind you of any current world political situation? Let's try to be better than those people. As an example... we have this dispute about policy. Rather than rush to a GR right away, and rather than start making accusations of impropriety against both of the main people involved in it, why not try to help everyone understand why the dispute exists and help to make it go away? The GR will be just as good if it waits 24 hours. And in the meantime, perhaps things can get resolved just as well -- but without weeks of debate, and faster than a GR. (In fact, I saw aj and manoj talking about it on IRC yesterday, and yes, it seemed that they were inching closer towards agreement.) Let's give peace a chance[2]. [1] http://changelog.complete.org/posts/555-We-need-to-follow-the-Amish-example.html [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Give_Peace_a_Chance -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Position Statement to the Dunc-Tanc experiment
On Fri, Oct 27, 2006 at 09:40:24AM +0200, Thomas Viehmann wrote: Anthony Towns wrote: For the record, I haven't seen any such offers, and I've been looking for them since May or so. (Proviso: offers should be accompanied by some direct evidence that whoever's offering has the time and ability to actually do stuff) If at least any NEW queue package information was accessible, people could take an interest. If there's a problem with allowing access to the new packages themselves, cool, but there used to be at least some information on merkel.d.o's mirror of ftp.d.o (disabled for load problems for over a year[1]) and more, e.g. the .katie files if not also the whole .diff.gz and .changes - leave the orig.tar.gz and the .debs if these are problematic, could likely be made available for inspection at least for DDs. Letting people make suggestions for rejecting packages that they've found mistakes should be not very dangerous to the archive. BTW, maybe one cool solution would be to make all NEW packages available, not to the outside world, but behind some DD-access only area of some kind. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Position Statement to the Dunc-Tanc experiment
On Thu, Oct 26, 2006 at 07:46:00PM +0200, Joerg Jaspert [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Signed by: Jörg Jaspert, ftp-master assistant, DAM, DebConf Organizer Alexander Schmehl, Debian Developer, press, event manager, DebConf Organizer Alexander Wirt, Debian Developer Daniel Priem, New Maintainer Martin Würtele, Debian Developer Gerfried Fuchs, Debian Developer Patrick Jäger, User Otavio Salvador, Debian Developer Joey Schulze, Debian Developer, Security, DWN, DSA, press, promoter Felipe Augusto van de Wiel, New Maintainer Sam Hocevar, Debian Developer Pierre Habouzit, Debian Developer Julien Danjou, Debian Developer, Stable Release Manager Peter Palfrader, Debian Developer Julien Blache, Debian Developer, promoter Christoph Berg, Debian Developer, QA, NM front-desk Holger Levsen, New Maintainer, DebConf Organizer If I'd have been aware of this letter before, I'd have asked to be in that list. I fully agree with what Jörg wrote. Mike Hommey, Debian Developer, Mozilla® hater. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
