Proposed membership category - Debian Bureaucrat
With Debian Maintainers, Members and Developers available for new memberships, we seem to have one important missing category: the Debian Bureaucrat. This proposal should, of course, be discussed and committeed to death in light of its contents. Job Description: 1) to ensure that agreed procedure is not wavered in any way 2) to ensure that standards of paperwork do not slip 3) to record in minute detail all discussion and decision for the benefit of future Bureaucrats and other Members 4) to carry out other tasks from the Chief Bureaucrat following approval from the Bureaucrat Committee as may from time to time be desirable Debian Bureaucrats are full members of Debian but do not have upload rights. They can, however, petition the appropriate persons to ensure that any upload is denied if the requisite paperwork is not in place, for example if an Intent to Package has not been filed with a suitable notice period, package description, copyright information and so on. A key role of the Debian Bureaucrat is to ensure that all views are taken into consideration during discussion on mailing lists. It should be stressed that this is not a discretionary role (the Bureaucrat does not try to reach a consensus or put forward his own proposals to resolve the dispute) but instead refers such matters to the Bureaucrat Committee. The Committee will in this case set up a sub-committee to examine the issue, taking all views into consideration, in a manner which is consistent with the British Royal Commission. It is envisaged that the sub-committee will not be in a position to report its findings to the Developers until the discussion has become boring, irrelevant and abandoned anyway. Debian Bureaucrats must pass through the New Members process as for any other Member, but they should not be accepted until every 'i' is dotted and 't' crossed on their application, in preparation for the diligent work ahead. Similarly it may seem beneficial for them to undertake NM more than once, but as this is a judgement call and not fixed procedure it should be decided by the Front Desk and not another Bureaucrat. Real-life Bureaucrats are known to relish any opportunity to impose rigid procedure to some aim by an individual. With this in mind, some fun starter tasks might be to: 1) determine, document and enforce a complete procedure for NEW packages, beginning with an Intent to Package and ending with acceptance from the NEW queue - for bonus marks, several rounds of consultation with Developers should be undertaken at various stages of the process 2) regulate mailing list discussion by establishing a system of proposal before discussion begins, with perhaps a sub-committee considering what the agreed aims of any discussion should be and how to measure their success 3) regularly produce statistics and analysis on all areas of Debian life, and ensure that appropriate interpretation and guidance notes accompany them. Finally it should be stressed that on no account may a Debian Bureaucrat undertake work to simplify any procedure, paperwork or system. Such action would be wholly against the spirit of the job. Instead, Debian Bureaucrats should ensure that no stone is left unturned in the search for a perfect eco-system; one in which every Member has a voice and all views are taken into consideration at the appropriate stage, and no decision is rushed or taken lightly. To paraphrase Sir Humphrey: to that end, I recommend that we set up an interdepartmental committee with fairly broad terms of reference so that at the end of the day we'll be in the position to think through the various implications and arrive at a decision based on long-term considerations rather than rush prematurely into precipitate and possibly ill-conceived action which might well have unforeseen repercussions. -- Jonathan Wiltshire j...@debian.org Debian Developer http://people.debian.org/~jmw 4096R: 0xD3524C51 / 0A55 B7C5 1223 3942 86EC 74C3 5394 479D D352 4C51 directhex i have six years of solaris sysadmin experience, from 8-10. i am well qualified to say it is made from bonghits layered on top of bonghits -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120401104501.gb14...@lupin.home.powdarrmonkey.net
Re: Diversity statement for the Debian Project
On Sat, 31 Mar 2012 19:07:33 -0400, Kevin Mark kevin.m...@verizon.net wrote: If we say we accept people of all races or that we dont discriminate based on race, then we are not the ones who are going to discriminate, and this is a good thing and is welcoming. Well, except for the fact that by saying that one is reinforcing the notion that race means something useful, which it really doesn't. For instance, what race would Sandra Laing be, daugher of gernerations of white Afrikaners, with the misfortune to have been born with black skin under apartheid: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2003/mar/17/features11.g2 The concept of race only seems to be useful to racists, and perhaps bean-counters who want to demonstrate their organisation's lack of racism by the racial diversity that they can get people to admit to on forms. Cheers, Phil. -- |)| Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560]http://www.hands.com/ |-| HANDS.COM Ltd.http://www.uk.debian.org/ |(| 10 Onslow Gardens, South Woodford, London E18 1NE ENGLAND pgpWORFEF36N9.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Proposed membership category - Debian Bureaucrat
Hi Jonathan, First, many thanks for your proposal. This is a longstanding issue that definitely needs addressing. At the risk of nitpicking, I still have concerns about your proposal (expressed below). The first of my concerns is that I'm not really sure that you are entitled to make such a proposal: we _do_ have procedures in place for new membership categories proposal and we _do_ have delegates to make such proposals. Since when can random developers propose discussion topics not within their delegated area? (Especially on debian-project@l.d.o!) I really think that the first decision of the Bureaucrat Comitte should then be a Condorcet vote on a Public Blame of Jonathan Wilthsire ballot, to avoid future repetitions of such intents. Le dimanche, 1 avril 2012 12.45:01, Jonathan Wiltshire a écrit : Debian Bureaucrats are full members of Debian but do not have upload rights. They can, however, petition the appropriate persons to ensure that any upload is denied if the requisite paperwork is not in place, for example if an Intent to Package has not been filed with a suitable notice period, package description, copyright information and so on. This rises my second concern about this proposal: what justifies denying the Bureaucrat hat to existing Debian Developers? I think that this would severely limit the pool of potential Debian Bureaucrats. Can't you think of existing Debian Developers that would be entitled the Debian Bureaucrat membership hat right now? My personal list of possible candidates has several names on it and also includes my name. So, given that the procedures in place at the time this message is sent permit it, I am hereby candidating to be a Debian Bureaucrat. A key role of the Debian Bureaucrat is to ensure that all views are taken into consideration during discussion on mailing lists. It should be stressed that this is not a discretionary role (the Bureaucrat does not try to reach a consensus or put forward his own proposals to resolve the dispute) but instead refers such matters to the Bureaucrat Committee. The Committee will in this case set up a sub-committee to examine the issue, taking all views into consideration, in a manner which is consistent with the British Royal Commission. It is envisaged that the sub-committee will not be in a position to report its findings to the Developers until the discussion has become boring, irrelevant and abandoned anyway. In that case, the sub-committee should probably delegate the responsibility for evaluating the boring'ness, irrelevant'ness and abandoned'ness of the discussion to another Comittee; for example the Technical Committee as it seems to have some expertise in that domain. Debian Bureaucrats must pass through the New Members process as for any other Member, but they should not be accepted until every 'i' is dotted and 't' crossed on their application, in preparation for the diligent work ahead. Similarly it may seem beneficial for them to undertake NM more than once, but as this is a judgement call and not fixed procedure it should be decided by the Front Desk and not another Bureaucrat. For existing Debian Developers, I propose that those candidating for the Bureaucrat status should act as AMs on their own NM process (which would be restarted for that purpose), to have them identify and correct all their past erratas. Finally it should be stressed that on no account may a Debian Bureaucrat undertake work to simplify any procedure, paperwork or system. Such action would be wholly against the spirit of the job. Fully agreed! Many thanks again for this proposal Jonathan! Cheers, OdyX signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: Report from DSA Team Sprint in Oslo
On 12803 March 1977, Russ Allbery wrote: I think some of this has since gotten simpler and I heard some rumors that the US was giving up on even the notification requirement for export of open source software, but I haven't been following the details closely. We don't send the notices to them anymore, but we store them all, so/as they could come and ask for them all. And technically it would need to be just the NEW queue in the US, but thats not entirely easy to do. -- bye, Joerg [...] when an Idea and a developer get laid, code awakes to the world, then a Debian package is made and pulled in the unstable distribution[...] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87k41z1ot4@gkar.ganneff.de
Re: Diversity statement for the Debian Project
Hello, Original-Nachricht Datum: Sun, 1 Apr 2012 13:43:46 -0400 Von: Kevin Mark kevin.m...@verizon.net An: Philip Hands p...@hands.com CC: Kevin Mark kevin.m...@verizon.net, debian-project@lists.debian.org Betreff: Re: Diversity statement for the Debian Project On Sun, Apr 01, 2012 at 11:59:01AM +0100, Philip Hands wrote: On Sat, 31 Mar 2012 19:07:33 -0400, Kevin Mark kevin.m...@verizon.net wrote: If we say we accept people of all races or that we dont discriminate based on race, then we are not the ones who are going to discriminate, and this is a good thing and is welcoming. Well, except for the fact that by saying that one is reinforcing the notion that race means something useful, which it really doesn't. In an ideal world, none of this would matter. Alas, we do not live in that place. Not in RL, but from the Debian packaging perspective, I think we are at least very very close to such idealism and the only race conditions we have are very technical and are reported as bugs already. I am with Philip and suggest to postpone discussions about racial discrimination until we have an issue within Debian or with those redistributing our packages. If you refer to an unequal distribution of our distribution in the world, to me the answer is about helping our marketing, or help some team building somewhere as a seed/bridge into a remote community. Steffen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120401191703.203...@gmx.net
Re: Diversity statement for the Debian Project
On Sun, Apr 01, 2012 at 09:17:03PM +0200, Steffen Möller wrote: Hello, Original-Nachricht Datum: Sun, 1 Apr 2012 13:43:46 -0400 Von: Kevin Mark kevin.m...@verizon.net An: Philip Hands p...@hands.com CC: Kevin Mark kevin.m...@verizon.net, debian-project@lists.debian.org Betreff: Re: Diversity statement for the Debian Project On Sun, Apr 01, 2012 at 11:59:01AM +0100, Philip Hands wrote: On Sat, 31 Mar 2012 19:07:33 -0400, Kevin Mark kevin.m...@verizon.net wrote: If we say we accept people of all races or that we dont discriminate based on race, then we are not the ones who are going to discriminate, and this is a good thing and is welcoming. Well, except for the fact that by saying that one is reinforcing the notion that race means something useful, which it really doesn't. In an ideal world, none of this would matter. Alas, we do not live in that place. Not in RL, but from the Debian packaging perspective, I think we are at least very very close to such idealism and the only race conditions we have are very technical and are reported as bugs already. race conditions are more of an issue for upstart or systemd or similar. I am with Philip and suggest to postpone discussions about racial discrimination The discussion at hand is not about determining who can contribute to debian based upon aspects of identity. It is about creating an atmostphere where people look at the signals and signs that debian transmits and they get an impression that Debian will welcome them. What does this[0] do with respect to who codes on Android? What does it signal when at Debconf (and other conferences) they include t-shirts that fit women? What does it say when a woman goes to a conference and they dont have such t-shirts? It signals who they expect to join them and who should not. until we have an issue within Debian If you look at the statistical makeup of the humans that contribute and examine the components of identity that they consider themselves, you'll find lots of people who would be male, hetronormative, american/european, caucasian humans. If you think that this group is who you wish to be in the majority, then there is no issue and no action is required. or with those redistributing our packages. If you refer to an unequal distribution of our distribution in the world, to me the answer is about helping our marketing, or help some team building somewhere as a seed/bridge into a remote community. The location of where digital bits are stored is of no concern for the purpose of this statement. [0] http://www.googlestore.com/Wearables/Android+Pride+T-Shirt+-+Black.axd -- | .''`. == Debian GNU/Linux ==.| http://kevix.myopenid.com..| | : :' : The Universal OS| mysite.verizon.net/kevin.mark/.| | `. `' http://www.debian.org/.| http://counter.li.org [#238656]| |___`-Unless I ask to be CCd,.assume I am subscribed._| QOTD: I love your outfit, does it come in your size? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120402031137.GA10983@horacrux
Re: Diversity statement for the Debian Project
Le Sun, Apr 01, 2012 at 11:11:37PM -0400, Kevin Mark a écrit : If you look at the statistical makeup of the humans that contribute and examine the components of identity that they consider themselves, you'll find lots of people who would be male, hetronormative, american/european, caucasian humans. If you think that this group is who you wish to be in the majority, then there is no issue and no action is required. Hi Kevin and everybody, I would like to underline again that it is a fundamental flaw to express wishes for diversity in a way that itself is culturally biased. I do not recognise myself as caucasian. Genetics and paleontology make very clear that million of years ago, all of our common ancestors were apes in Africa. In science and medecine, the use of caucasian is vastly deprecated. See for instance Ethnic Groups and Geographic Origins in the following URL. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/nd03/nd03_med_data_changes.html When people tell me things like you caucasians, I feel offended, even if I know that they are actually trying to be kind to avoid more culturally or emotionally charged words. Please use causasian at the first person as you whish, since the whole point of this discussion is to tell everybody that they are welcome in Debian regardless of the group they feel they belong, but please do not categorize others; it is finger-pointing. I think that this is important that, when considering joining Debian, contributors can be reassured that they will not be put a sticker on their head by others. This dicussion tends to the contrary. Cheers, -- Charles Plessy Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120402040940.ga8...@falafel.plessy.net
