Re: metaphors and feminism

[Paul Wise]

On Sat, Mar 30, 2019 at 10:58 AM Paul Wise wrote:

> Personally I think the phrase "Debian Developer" and the abbreviation
> DD is a relic of an earlier era when the set of tasks available to
> Debian contributors were more technical and less varied. I try to use
> "Debian member" in mails since it is clearer what that means to a
> larger set of people and I'd like to see Debian culture (and perhaps
> the official documents) move towards that too.

Woops, I didn't intend to spawn more discussion on this topic. I won't
respond but I want to inject some links to past ideas about Debian's
social organisation.

https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2013/12/msg9.html
https://contributors.debian.org/
https://wiki.debian.org/CollabDebian
http://layer-acht.org/slides/20070601-debian-community.org.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20100209012159/http://debian-community.org/

-- 
bye,
pabs

https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise

Re: metaphors and feminism

[Mike Hommey]

On Sat, Mar 30, 2019 at 04:54:04PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Mike Hommey  writes:
> > On Sat, Mar 30, 2019 at 10:22:35PM +0200, Jonathan Carter wrote:
> 
> >> So, how about:
> 
> >> DM: Debian Members. Full members of the project that can represent
> >> themselves as such, vote in elections, and have a @debian.org email
> >> address. (Pretty much what a DD and non-uploading DD is).
> 
> > VDM: Vetted Debian Members.
> 
> If we're going to add the V, how about voting members?  That's the primary
> structural distinction, after all.

That's the primary structural distinction as an effect, but OTOH, the NM
process is a rather extensive vetting process. It feels more important
than the fact that those people can vote (which is a right they may or
may not exercise, not a mandate)

Mike

Re: metaphors and feminism

[Sam Hartman]

I always assumed debian member was a term that included developer and
maintainer.
I'm all for Debian member replacing developer, but if so, I'd like a
term that encompasses maintainer and developer.

Re: metaphors and feminism

[Russ Allbery]

Mike Hommey  writes:
> On Sat, Mar 30, 2019 at 10:22:35PM +0200, Jonathan Carter wrote:

>> So, how about:

>> DM: Debian Members. Full members of the project that can represent
>> themselves as such, vote in elections, and have a @debian.org email
>> address. (Pretty much what a DD and non-uploading DD is).

> VDM: Vetted Debian Members.

If we're going to add the V, how about voting members?  That's the primary
structural distinction, after all.

I like the "member" terminology in part because it's common terminology
for non-profits, meaning (roughly) what we mean by it:

http://www.nonprofitlawblog.com/starting-nonprofit-voting-membership-structure/

That does mean it also runs the risk of some confusion since Debian itself
is not a non-profit and does not have a legal existence, hence cannot have
members in the legal sense.  But still, the definition of "member" or
"voting member" of a non-profit is spot-on for how we currently use DD.

-- 
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org)   

Re: metaphors and feminism

[Mike Hommey]

On Sat, Mar 30, 2019 at 10:22:35PM +0200, Jonathan Carter wrote:
> Hi Ian
> 
> On 2019/03/30 20:46, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > Paul Wise writes ("Re: metaphors and feminism"):
> >> Personally I think the phrase "Debian Developer" and the abbreviation
> >> DD is a relic of an earlier era when the set of tasks available to
> >> Debian contributors were more technical and less varied.
> > 
> > As the person perhaps most responsible for the choice of the word
> > `Developer' I think your explanation is very ... charitable.  It is
> > certainly clear to at least me that it is the wrong word.
> > 
> >> I try to use "Debian member" in mails since it is clearer what that
> >> means to a larger set of people and I'd like to see Debian culture
> >> (and perhaps the official documents) move towards that too.
> > 
> > I see other people doing this too.  I like it.
> > 
> > The problem of course is that the official term is not "member" so
> > this is unclear and arguably wrong in some sense.  It should be.  I
> > would second a GR to change it.
> >
> > There is also a problem with acronyms.  Debian Member => "DM" but we
> > already have "Debian Maintainers".  I think it would be best to rename
> > Debian Maintainers too.  Particularly since you can be a maintainer of
> > a package in Debian without having your key in the Debian Maintainers'
> > keyring, so this term is very confusing.
> 
> +1 on renaming Debian Maintainers too in such a scenario.
> 
> > ADM = "Authorised Debian Maintainers" or "Assistant/Associate Debian
> > Members" or something maybe ?
> 
> So, how about:
> 
> DM: Debian Members. Full members of the project that can represent
> themselves as such, vote in elections, and have a @debian.org email
> address. (Pretty much what a DD and non-uploading DD is).

VDM: Vetted Debian Members.

Mike

Re: metaphors and feminism

[Jonathan Carter]

Hi Ian

On 2019/03/30 20:46, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Paul Wise writes ("Re: metaphors and feminism"):
>> Personally I think the phrase "Debian Developer" and the abbreviation
>> DD is a relic of an earlier era when the set of tasks available to
>> Debian contributors were more technical and less varied.
> 
> As the person perhaps most responsible for the choice of the word
> `Developer' I think your explanation is very ... charitable.  It is
> certainly clear to at least me that it is the wrong word.
> 
>> I try to use "Debian member" in mails since it is clearer what that
>> means to a larger set of people and I'd like to see Debian culture
>> (and perhaps the official documents) move towards that too.
> 
> I see other people doing this too.  I like it.
> 
> The problem of course is that the official term is not "member" so
> this is unclear and arguably wrong in some sense.  It should be.  I
> would second a GR to change it.
>
> There is also a problem with acronyms.  Debian Member => "DM" but we
> already have "Debian Maintainers".  I think it would be best to rename
> Debian Maintainers too.  Particularly since you can be a maintainer of
> a package in Debian without having your key in the Debian Maintainers'
> keyring, so this term is very confusing.

+1 on renaming Debian Maintainers too in such a scenario.

> ADM = "Authorised Debian Maintainers" or "Assistant/Associate Debian
> Members" or something maybe ?

So, how about:

DM: Debian Members. Full members of the project that can represent
themselves as such, vote in elections, and have a @debian.org email
address. (Pretty much what a DD and non-uploading DD is).

So, I'm just braindumping below and not sure that this is the best, but
it might be useful to have different types of non-member roles within
Debian. I also think it's useful to have a step-up to becoming a Debian
Member rather than an all or nothing approach. The DM -> DD process
works quite well, I recommend it to a lot of people that want to become
a DD, but we don't really have something like that for non-uploading
people. Below I went with "Community" as a word to describe non-member
contribution roles:

DCU: Debian Community Uploaders. These are people that are part of the
larger Debian community, but not formally part of Debian. They have
already uploaded some packages by means of sponsor and they have
demonstrated enough skill and that they can be trusted to have
unsupervised upload rights to the Debian archives (so, what DM is now)

DCM: Debian Community Members. These are people who might typically not
be interested in uploading, or even technical matters. They actively
work in community matters like improving local teams, organising meetups
and talks, contributing to Debian, etc. Just like DCM status would allow
unsupervised uploads, DCM members can get more access to certain
administrative areas that they might be involved in.

It might even be nice to offer something like an @debian.community email
address for DC* roles, which may make it easier in terms of access
control to certain services, but now I'm putting the cart before the
horse :)

-Jonathan

-- 
  ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀  Jonathan Carter (highvoltage) 
  ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁  Debian Developer - https://wiki.debian.org/highvoltage
  ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋   https://debian.org | https://jonathancarter.org
  ⠈⠳⣄  Be Bold. Be brave. Debian has got your back.

Re: metaphors and feminism

[Judit Foglszinger]

> I see other people doing this too.  I like it.
>
> The problem of course is that the official term is not "member" so
> this is unclear and arguably wrong in some sense.  It should be.  I
> would second a GR to change it.

While I would agree with the phrase "DDs are full Debian members",
I wouldn't want to see the term DD removed.

Being or becoming a DD has a strong meaning for many people.
The phrase Debian Member feels artificial, like a new role,
that is something else and possibly less than DD.

Re: metaphors and feminism

[Ian Jackson]

Paul Wise writes ("Re: metaphors and feminism"):
> Personally I think the phrase "Debian Developer" and the abbreviation
> DD is a relic of an earlier era when the set of tasks available to
> Debian contributors were more technical and less varied.

As the person perhaps most responsible for the choice of the word
`Developer' I think your explanation is very ... charitable.  It is
certainly clear to at least me that it is the wrong word.

> I try to use "Debian member" in mails since it is clearer what that
> means to a larger set of people and I'd like to see Debian culture
> (and perhaps the official documents) move towards that too.

I see other people doing this too.  I like it.

The problem of course is that the official term is not "member" so
this is unclear and arguably wrong in some sense.  It should be.  I
would second a GR to change it.

There is also a problem with acronyms.  Debian Member => "DM" but we
already have "Debian Maintainers".  I think it would be best to rename
Debian Maintainers too.  Particularly since you can be a maintainer of
a package in Debian without having your key in the Debian Maintainers'
keyring, so this term is very confusing.

ADM = "Authorised Debian Maintainers" or "Assistant/Associate Debian
Members" or something maybe ?

Ian.

-- 
Ian JacksonThese opinions are my own.

If I emailed you from an address @fyvzl.net or @evade.org.uk, that is
a private address which bypasses my fierce spamfilter.