Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Wed, Oct 11, 2006 at 10:09:06AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote: Roberto C. Sanchez [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] Person A gets mad becuase he is afraid that person B will will get pay for something that both had originally agreed to do for free. Now there's a key part of the problem: this changes agreements that some developers made with the debian project. While that doesn't make it wrong in itself, some people may not agree with the new terms. I believe they should be allowed to state their objections in an effective way and suggest ways to find a wider agreement, as a bare minimum. ... and this change ignores year of consensus whereas using Debian money to pay Debian developers was not OK. For example the thread including this post [EMAIL PROTECTED] to debian-private. That consensus was certainly important for my continued contribution to the project. Cheers, -- Bill. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Imagine a large red swirl here. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Tue, 10 Oct 2006 00:00:12 +0200, Jérôme Marant [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: Le lundi 09 octobre 2006 18:54, Martin Schulze a écrit : hard on getting Debian better be funded similarily? I know that several people have lost their motivation to work on Debian as before (yes, others will hate me for writing this again) because of this. Some developers ask themselves already why they should work on some tasks, when others are to be paid for their Debian work, and they have other obligations as well. You never loose your motivation because some developers get paid to work on Debian tasks, unless you're jealous. So some people are jealous. That's basic human nature -- in a project with 1000 developers, most common traits of human nature shall be encountered. And, no, you are wrong about jealousy as the only concern -- though I applaud the tactic of framing the discussion around jealousy, that is a masterful debating tactic. The other concern is social dynamics -- Debian was born peer based volunteer environment, with the social dynamics appropriate to that. The interactions between peers and colleagues is different from interactions between employees and supervisors/bosses; and with the ability of some Debian developers having the ability to direct funding to others introduces the employer-employee dynamic into the mix. It also shifts the criteria for electing which area one concentrates on in Debian -- no one in Debian is likely to pay for things like introducing Globus to Debian. So, in order to improve the chances of future employability by Debian, there are areas of effort that is not worth going into. You might argue that this does not matter. I have also seen people equating money == time -- and forgetting to add the assumptions behind that statement. Money is only equal to time when one is getting paid. When one is laid off, money is far more welcome than someone helping out with the project; so If person a is unemployed, and person A and person B are working on tasks for debian, and person B gets paid -- well, person A is not gonna feel like person B just got a helper. Getting a herlpr does not help pay rent. So there is a fundamental difference between getting paid by debian, or getting someone to help out on a debian task; trying to eliminate the distinction is specious. manoj -- I've been trey-dueced. An Algonquinite with a hand of threes and twos Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/ 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 10:36:57 +0200, Jérôme Marant [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: Le mercredi 11 octobre 2006 10:16, vous avez écrit : It's not Dunc Tank's fault if your jealous. Hmm, maybe it is because the developer is jealous on/of somebody being directly or indirectly paid by the project while they are not? My personal belief is that being jealous is wrong. Is any personal belief relevant here? Given our size, we can't just assume that basic human nature would be suppressed by personal codas and ethics; and thus any major initiative has the onus to judge if the perceived benefits are outweighed by people being ... human. So just saying that people should be perfect is not a very effective advocacy for the initiative, in my opinion. manoj -- President Reagan has noted that there are too many economic pundits and forecasters and has decided on an excess prophets tax. Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/ 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Thu, 12 Oct 2006 10:52:57 +1000, Anthony Towns aj@azure.humbug.org.au said: If you want to get paid to work on Debian, then there's a few things that are a good idea: demonstrating you're competent and skilled, that you're willing to work on areas that other people think are important, Oooh. Can we have a statement from the DD's that are part of dunc-tank which areas they consider important, so those developers who are financially constrained may drop all work on everything else and see how to maximize their future earning potential? and that you're comfortable doing some of the other things that are associated with getting paid in short term contracts -- like dealing with taxes, being prepared to find new work if your current funding dries up, and being willing to go out of your way to cooperate with the people you're getting funds from. All that is already done for those of us in between jobs. Some things are really bad ideas too: Another bad thing is to complain about other people getting paid when you're not -- different people have different priorities, Does criticizing dunc-tank also fall in this category? if you spend all your time focussing on the people who don't share your priorities, you won't have any time to spare for the people who think like you -- who are the ones most likely to want to give you money for the work you do in the first place. Err, no. People who control the purse strings are really not people who think like me -- does that mean either I conform my way of thinking to that of the people who hold the purse strings, or I'm less likely to be a happy recipient? manoj -- miracle: an extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment. Webster's Dictionary Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/ 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Wed, Oct 11, 2006 at 03:00:02PM +0100, Ian Jackson wrote: The RMs personally are in a privileged position for requesting funding: The RMs didn't request funding. their role within Debian is critical for the whole project; Plenty of people run unstable, and it's often been mooted that we shouldn't bother with stable releases at all. Debian would continue if we didn't do stable releases, just as it would continue if we didn't support some particular architecture, or some particular packages: it would be less amazing for the loss, but that's all. it is not easy for someone else to come and learn how to do it; Steve started learning how to do release stuff in March 2003, following the request for help I sent out [0] and was given the title of Release Assistant in Aug 2003. In Aug 2004 Steve and Colin took over as joint Release Managers (that's not much more time than it often takes to go through new-maintainer, note), and in September 2005 Colin resigned as RM, with Andi becoming an RM in October 2005 [2]; in July 2005 there had already been a call for new assistants [3], which led to Marc Brockschmidt, Luk Claes and Adeodato Simo being appointed RAs earlier this year, and getting the extra special release permissions. [0] http://lwn.net/Articles/25154/ [1] http://lwn.net/Articles/45232/ [2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/10/msg4.html [3] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/07/msg9.html it is not easy for someone else to get permission to do the work instead; IME, all you have to do is volunteer. If I decide I can do the RM job better than the RMs, and my pet benefactor agrees with me, I still can't get paid to do it unless I can get the existing RMs and/or the DPL to agree. That's not true -- we've already had an instance of that happening with Mark Shuttleworth as the benefactor and Jeff Waugh amongst others as the guys who think they can do the RM job better than the RMs. We've had other, unfunded, examples of that within Debian too, in the form of the volatile and backports archives that implement a different stable update policy than the Stable Release Manager used. For that matter, we've also had the debian-amd64 release of sarge for amd64, which was done not only separately to regular release management, but separately to the main archive too. And of course there is a (financial, now!) incentive for the existing RMs not to agree. [1] There's also a (financial, now!) incentive for them to look at the ideas the new RM volunteers have had and implement them themselves if they work better, so as to encourage more people to see that release management is working well, and be willing to contribute in the future to its continued success. Furthermore, what you're arguing for is that benefactors should not be involved with people who volunteer to do the RM job in the first place, so even at worst, you're still better off with the RMs having a incentive (financial or not) to ignore your contributions, than having the project as a whole develop a stated policy against accepting contributions enabled by a benefactor. Better a chance to contribute than a certainty that you'll be ignored. Cheers, aj signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Wednesday 11 October 2006 13:18, Martin Schulze wrote: Jérôme Marant wrote: It's not Dunc Tank's fault if your jealous. Hmm, maybe it is because the developer is jealous on/of somebody being directly or indirectly paid by the project while they are not? My personal belief is that being jealous is wrong. Many people consider feelings/attitude of other people wrong. That doesn't remove their feelings, though. If you, Martin Schulze, were given financial compensation to work full time on key Debian taks, and you'd enjoy it, I'd be very happy for you. I would probably reject this. Depending on the source I would reject it at least. If one wants to devote more of his/her time to the Debian Project then the most natural thing is to find/get a job which allows him/her to work on Debian as much as s/he can, also allowing him/her to comply with debian's rules, procedures, practices, etc. Btw, do you think that people paid by OSDL do the wrong thing and their salaries destroy their free software projects ? I don't think so. Surely money can destoy or create, but no one asks for money for himself here, there is a group of people who wants to bring more of the time of another group of people and are willing to donate for that purpose... and Debian (resp. SPI) has always accepted donations of money, equipment and services AFAIK. Please re-read the reply of Russ Allbery on that topic [1] and describe why a given Uni can fund DDs, but DDs shouldn't fund other DDs if they want to ... [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/10/msg00074.html -- pub 4096R/0E4BD0AB 2003-03-18 people.fccf.net/danchev/key pgp.mit.edu fingerprint 1AE7 7C66 0A26 5BFF DF22 5D55 1C57 0C89 0E4B D0AB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Wed, Oct 11, 2006 at 03:00:02PM +0100, Ian Jackson wrote: Raphael Hertzog writes (Re: Using money to fund real Debian work): But if the structure is open to everyone, then everybody has a chance to request funding. This is precisely what is wrong with funding the RMs, and what makes it different from funding some particular package development or feature or what have you. The structure is _not_ open to everyone. The RMs personally are in a privileged position for requesting funding: their role within Debian is critical for the whole project; it is not easy for someone else to come and learn how to do it; it is not easy for someone else to get permission to do the work instead; and of course their decisions are politically important for many people (so it's right and proper that we are cautious about who we give the RM power). If I decide I can do the RM job better than the RMs, and my pet benefactor agrees with me, I still can't get paid to do it unless I can get the existing RMs and/or the DPL to agree. And of course there is a (financial, now!) incentive for the existing RMs not to agree. [1] I am aware of at least one DD, who was *not* a member of the release team, that was funded for a while to work on fixing RC bugs to help improve the quality of the Debian release. He did not acquire this contract because of any privileged position he held in the project, but AFAIK because of his reputation in the community for being a skilled developer. I think it would be wonderful if more DDs were able to get paid to work on improving the quality of Debian. Being an official member of the release team does not give one any exclusive advantage in being able to help get us ready for release, with the exception of certain activities related to the freeze and testing updates/removals which are a minority of all release team work. So I see no particular reason that other developers couldn't be funded for working on the etch release as well as / instead of the RMs; the big advantage that the release team has as a target for funding is that they're the people that have *already* demonstrated a committment to doing the work necessary to get us to a release... -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
Jérôme Marant wrote: Le lundi 09 octobre 2006 18:54, Martin Schulze a écrit : hard on getting Debian better be funded similarily? I know that several people have lost their motivation to work on Debian as before (yes, others will hate me for writing this again) because of this. Some developers ask themselves already why they should work on some tasks, when others are to be paid for their Debian work, and they have other obligations as well. You never loose your motivation because some developers get paid to work on Debian tasks, unless you're jealous. So? I personaly have no real idea whether Dunc Tank is a good thing or a bad one, but seeing that a group of people is trying to improve Debian in some respect increases my motivation. Right, before Dunc-Tank was started nobody tried to improve Debian. Regards, Joey -- Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
Le mercredi 11 octobre 2006 09:05, Martin Schulze a écrit : Jérôme Marant wrote: Le lundi 09 octobre 2006 18:54, Martin Schulze a écrit : hard on getting Debian better be funded similarily? I know that several people have lost their motivation to work on Debian as before (yes, others will hate me for writing this again) because of this. Some developers ask themselves already why they should work on some tasks, when others are to be paid for their Debian work, and they have other obligations as well. You never loose your motivation because some developers get paid to work on Debian tasks, unless you're jealous. So? It's not Dunc Tank's fault if your jealous. I personaly have no real idea whether Dunc Tank is a good thing or a bad one, but seeing that a group of people is trying to improve Debian in some respect increases my motivation. Right, before Dunc-Tank was started nobody tried to improve Debian. The time between two Debian releases has always increased. So, yes, nobody has ever improved that. Objectively, it looks to me that that Dunc Tank wants to improve this, which would be great for our users. Let's put our selfishness aside for once? -- Jérôme Marant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: Huh? I hate to be the one to break it to you, but many things life boil down to a question of time or money. * Do I mow my lawn (time) or hire someone to do it (money)? * Do I was my car (time) or hire someone to do it (money)? * Do I program my own OS (time) or hire someone to do it (money)? * Do I work for Debian (time) or work for a client (money)? Regards, Joey -- Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
Jérôme Marant wrote: hard on getting Debian better be funded similarily? I know that several people have lost their motivation to work on Debian as before (yes, others will hate me for writing this again) because of this. Some developers ask themselves already why they should work on some tasks, when others are to be paid for their Debian work, and they have other obligations as well. You never loose your motivation because some developers get paid to work on Debian tasks, unless you're jealous. So? It's not Dunc Tank's fault if your jealous. Hmm, maybe it is because the developer is jealous on/of somebody being directly or indirectly paid by the project while they are not? I personaly have no real idea whether Dunc Tank is a good thing or a bad one, but seeing that a group of people is trying to improve Debian in some respect increases my motivation. Right, before Dunc-Tank was started nobody tried to improve Debian. The time between two Debian releases has always increased. So, yes, nobody has ever improved that. Objectively, it looks to me that that Dunc Tank wants to improve this, which would be great for our users. Let's put our selfishness aside for once? Maybe you should've started to get Debian only release on i386 and amd64 and not accept any complex dependencies of packages? I believe that that would've hurt Debian as well. Regards, Joey -- Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Wed, Oct 11, 2006 at 10:16:07AM +0200, Martin Schulze wrote: Jérôme Marant wrote: hard on getting Debian better be funded similarily? I know that several people have lost their motivation to work on Debian as before (yes, others will hate me for writing this again) because of this. Some developers ask themselves already why they should work on some tasks, when others are to be paid for their Debian work, and they have other obligations as well. You never loose your motivation because some developers get paid to work on Debian tasks, unless you're jealous. So? It's not Dunc Tank's fault if your jealous. Hmm, maybe it is because the developer is jealous on/of somebody being directly or indirectly paid by the project while they are not? Which is why the paiement should have come from the debian funds. It would have been order's of magnitude more useful ways to handle this money, than letting it enrich US banks, or paying for vacations, ... err travel, for a few select DDs, whose choice is at least as suspect as what is happening here. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
Le mercredi 11 octobre 2006 10:16, vous avez écrit : It's not Dunc Tank's fault if your jealous. Hmm, maybe it is because the developer is jealous on/of somebody being directly or indirectly paid by the project while they are not? My personal belief is that being jealous is wrong. If you, Martin Schulze, were given financial compensation to work full time on key Debian taks, and you'd enjoy it, I'd be very happy for you. And you know what? I'm convinced you'd continue to do a great work within the project. Of course, I don't know you. But I believe it. And I believe it would be a benefit for the project and for our users. It is all that matters. I personaly have no real idea whether Dunc Tank is a good thing or a bad one, but seeing that a group of people is trying to improve Debian in some respect increases my motivation. Right, before Dunc-Tank was started nobody tried to improve Debian. The time between two Debian releases has always increased. So, yes, nobody has ever improved that. Objectively, it looks to me that that Dunc Tank wants to improve this, which would be great for our users. Let's put our selfishness aside for once? Maybe you should've started to get Debian only release on i386 and amd64 and not accept any complex dependencies of packages? I believe that that would've hurt Debian as well. That wouldn't be Debian, the Universal Operating System then? -- Jérôme Marant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
Le mercredi 11 octobre 2006 10:30, vous avez écrit : Hmm, maybe it is because the developer is jealous on/of somebody being directly or indirectly paid by the project while they are not? Which is why the paiement should have come from the debian funds. It would have been order's of magnitude more useful ways to handle this money, than letting it enrich US banks, or paying for vacations, ... err travel, for a few select DDs, whose choice is at least as suspect as what is happening here. You're right and I'm pretty sure our donors would be pleased to see that their money is really used by the project instead of sleeping in bank accounts. -- Jérôme Marant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
Roberto C. Sanchez [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] Person A gets mad becuase he is afraid that person B will will get pay for something that both had originally agreed to do for free. Now there's a key part of the problem: this changes agreements that some developers made with the debian project. While that doesn't make it wrong in itself, some people may not agree with the new terms. I believe they should be allowed to state their objections in an effective way and suggest ways to find a wider agreement, as a bare minimum. However, Dunc-Tank seems to be a bizarre half-in-yet-half-out-of the debian project structure which changes the agreement and still tries to involve DDs, yet is ultimately beyond the project's control. Well, tough. It is the donor's resource. It is utterly insane for a resource limited organization to refuse additional resources, If the cost of accepting a donation is greater than refusing it, then it is insane to accept it. especially when there are not any additional restrictions imposed. I thought all donations from dunc-tank were restricted to particular people and times. Please, people get over it. So what if someone else gets paid and you don't? If you came into it with the notion that you were going to do it for free, then that is a decision you made for yourself. For some of us, that is fine. Others will move debian down their list of priorities if they feel debian is becoming Yet Another Pay The Bills scheme. Others may move it down until they feel it benefits them more. Others may try to build little empires that only they can service, in the hope of being paid for running that empire later. We've seen these patterns happen for other free software projects. Can we avoid them for debian, or at least try to predict what damage we need to take into consideration? This money is not without potential loss. Now, go read the parable one more time to make sure you understand it. It's amazing what inequalities and injustices can be defended with scripture if you squint at it the right way. Roberto C. Sanchez [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There is no sanity attack. In fact, what I was implying is that there is an apparent lack of maturity on the part of those who are irrationally against something which is supposed to help improve the project. Right, it's not a personal attack, you're just saying all objectors are immature(!) 8-/ [...] Can Dunc-Tank advocates answer these essential questions? | Why is devel 1 paid but not devel 2? 1) Because there are limited funds. Not an answer. For example, we could split the limited funds between devel 1 and devel 2 in some way. Why is devel 1 paid but not devel 2? Is devel 2 not doing good work? 2) No. Devel 1's work was deemed more important/critical/visible/etc. So why would anyone expect devel 2 not to see this as a message that her work is more unimportant, non-critical, invisible than others? Also, if getting paid is motivating for some, then you can be fairly sure that not getting paid will be demotivating for others. | Will it work for devel 1 if they work more on Debian so get paid as | well? 3) Why does it matter? I don't know, but it clearly does matter, else the question wouldn't be there from someone as serious about this as Martin Schulze. Why does devel 1 have to work on a day-job to get something to | eat but not devel 2? 4) Because the project cannot afford to pay someone completely full-time. Or perhaps, the resources need to be spread out over more tasks. Or perhaps, the task does not require as much time. Or perhaps, devel 2 is a student and is able to his/her work in conjunction with a school project or something. Again, not an answer. How about paying people according to their needs, or according to their desire? Why is the project involved in selecting people | worth for funding? 5) Because the project is in the best position to prioritize tasks that are important to the project. Currently, dunc-tank is not task-based. Why is the project involved in selecting *people* worth funding? Why can't all developers who work hard on getting | Debian better be funded similarily? 6) Because the resources are not unlimited. Again, not an answer. If one doesn't assume that it's only worthwhile paying people for big blocks of time, this reason does not work. I hope the above shows that there are some tough questions underlying the complaints of some against Dunc-Tank and not just personality problems. For example, why join the Debian project in the first place? Because it's more efficient than the alternatives for many tasks. Then that is fine. It is why we have a choice to use Debian or to use something else. It is why we have a choice to contribute to Debian or to contribute to something else. Not unreasonably, people who have been major contributors to Debian feel unhappy with the prospect
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Wed, Oct 11, 2006 at 09:58:45AM +0200, Martin Schulze wrote: Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: Huh? I hate to be the one to break it to you, but many things life boil down to a question of time or money. * Do I mow my lawn (time) or hire someone to do it (money)? * Do I was my car (time) or hire someone to do it (money)? * Do I program my own OS (time) or hire someone to do it (money)? * Do I work for Debian (time) or work for a client (money)? Yet, if you are able to make Debian your client, then you can do that which you enjoy *and* get paid for it. With my list, I was trying to list things that are less than desirable to most people. Things which, given the chance and sufficient surplus money, they would hire out to let someone else. You clearly enjoy, even love, working on Debian. I would most happy if someone who has contributed as much as you have to Debian could find a way to get paid to work full-time on Debian. I think that everyone would benefit greatly with such an arrangement. In the case of allocating monetary resources, the Debian project needs to identify those developers who: * have a history of dedication to the project * have a history of good quality work * have the technical ability to tackle/solve problems which Debian * will continue to be dedicated and do good work Now, AIUI, those criteria are also used for things selecting release managers, ftpmasters and even by many DDs when they elect a DPL. So, I fail to see how introducing money into the equation changes a single thing, other than that it gives people with sufficient finicial resources (or insufficient technical ability, depending on your/their perspective) the opporunity to improve Debian in ways which they would individually not be able to effect on their own. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
Jérôme Marant wrote: It's not Dunc Tank's fault if your jealous. Hmm, maybe it is because the developer is jealous on/of somebody being directly or indirectly paid by the project while they are not? My personal belief is that being jealous is wrong. Many people consider feelings/attitude of other people wrong. That doesn't remove their feelings, though. If you, Martin Schulze, were given financial compensation to work full time on key Debian taks, and you'd enjoy it, I'd be very happy for you. I would probably reject this. Depending on the source I would reject it at least. And you know what? I'm convinced you'd continue to do a great work within the project. Of course, I don't know you. But I believe it. And I believe it would be a benefit for the project and for our users. It is all that matters. I don't think this would be a benefit in the long-term as long as others with similar work won't be given the same chance. Until then, it's unfair and belittles their work. Thanks for your confidence by the way. Regards, Joey -- Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
Le mercredi 11 octobre 2006 01:52, Stephen Gran a écrit : This one time, at band camp, Thibaut VARENE said: It's obvious giving money will affect someone's behaviour (allowing him/her to work full time on a project, for instance). And as action induces reaction, the moment there's someone which is given money, there will be two class of peoples: the ones who are given money, and those who aren't. How would those who aren't be unaffected by the fact that some are?? Ever heard of jealousy for one thing? I would argue that people feeling jealous need to get over themselves and grow up, but maybe that's just me. No, it is not just you. You are exactly right. It is not Dunc Tank's fault if people feel jealous. -- Jérôme Marant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Wed, Oct 11, 2006 at 10:09:06AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote: Roberto C. Sanchez [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] Person A gets mad becuase he is afraid that person B will will get pay for something that both had originally agreed to do for free. Now there's a key part of the problem: this changes agreements that some developers made with the debian project. While that doesn't make it wrong in itself, some people may not agree with the new terms. I believe they should be allowed to state their objections in an effective way and suggest ways to find a wider agreement, as a bare minimum. However, Dunc-Tank seems to be a bizarre half-in-yet-half-out-of the debian project structure which changes the agreement and still tries to involve DDs, yet is ultimately beyond the project's control. I'm not aware of the particulars of dunc-tank. However, in most cases where a benefactor donates monetery resources to an organization, think school, non-profit org, etc, the donor is ultimately beyond the control of the organization. Now, based on your reasoning, the United Way should reject a $10 million donation from Warren Buffet. I mean, seriously, that money would be used to pay full-time and part-time staff. But others are there volunteering to work for free. Paying some people and not others would make those who are not payed unhappy. Such a thing would cause the entire organization to collapse. To say nothing of the fact that they United Way has no control over Warren Buffet. Now, if you would be so kind as to tell me what fantasy world you live in, where all charitable organizations refuse donations so as not upset their membership, I would like to come and visit. Well, tough. It is the donor's resource. It is utterly insane for a resource limited organization to refuse additional resources, If the cost of accepting a donation is greater than refusing it, then it is insane to accept it. What is the cost of accepting a donation? Making a few people jealous? Life is filled with decisions. It is not possible to make everyone happy. Personally, if it will make Debian that much better, more improved, whatever, then I would rather see some DDs get jealous, or even leave the project, as in the end it will result in a better Debian GNU/Linux operating system. Is that not the goal here? especially when there are not any additional restrictions imposed. I thought all donations from dunc-tank were restricted to particular people and times. Again, I am not familiar with the particulars of dunc-tank. All of the arguments that I have seen/read have simply against the introduction of money into the projct to pay developers. But then, I don't really see anything wrong with the donor setting the terms for use of the donation. Ever hear of earmarking? The university where I attended received a large donation from a wealthy local family. They made the donation specifically for the construction of a new medical school building. That appears to be a restriction. So what? Was it going to make the engineering faculty jealous? Probably. Did the university refuse the gift? No way. It would have been foolish to do so. Now, in an ideal world, the donation would come with the instructions: spend this how you see fit, no restrictions. But even when there are restrictions, unless they go against the core beliefs of the organization (thing donation to a church to provide abortions), there is really not a good reason to refuse. It just makes the organization look like a bunch of unreasonable fanatics. Now, what core belief is violated if the Debian project allows some developers to be paid for their work on Debian? None, you say? Because it already happens? Please, people get over it. So what if someone else gets paid and you don't? If you came into it with the notion that you were going to do it for free, then that is a decision you made for yourself. For some of us, that is fine. Others will move debian down their list of priorities if they feel debian is becoming Yet Another Pay The Bills scheme. Others may move it down until they feel it benefits them more. Others may try to build little empires that only they can service, in the hope of being paid for running that empire later. How is this different than now? I'll be honest. I enjoy working on Debian. But I have limited time. One of my motivations for working on Debian is that one day I'd like to become a consultant specializing in open source solutions. Working on Debian and becoming a Debian developer will help me in that goal because I gain skills. Now, does that make me a bad person? Hopefully not :-) We've seen these patterns happen for other free software projects. Can we avoid them for debian, or at least try to predict what damage we need to take into consideration? This money is not without potential loss. Please give one example. Now, go read the parable one
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 11:54:46PM +, Bill Allombert wrote: On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 12:34:01PM +0200, Raphael Hertzog wrote: The set of projects that can be funded are projects proposed by Debian developers. I expect Debian developers to propose only projects that are improving Debian. If some of those projects also serve the private interest of someone external to Debian, then it's a net win for us to have someone ready to fund the associated work. The sponsor has not gained any decision power, he has only been accelerating something that a Debian developer already wanted to do. This means that someone with a lot of money will be able to decide which projects will be completed just be funding them. Other projects will not be completed because people will lack time and incentive even if these projects would improve Debian more. Developers will tend to propose task that are likely to be funded. The sponsors will have a large decision power of what is done and rightly since they funding the development. Right. Unfortunately, that already happens, totally off the project control. And exactly the same happens in upstream projects, too. So, I'm missing the point. Why situation should be better without d-t? Because it is out of the project control? -- Francesco P. Lovergine -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
Martin Schulze, 2006-10-11 10:10:15 +0200 : Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: Huh? I hate to be the one to break it to you, but many things life boil down to a question of time or money. * Do I mow my lawn (time) or hire someone to do it (money)? * Do I was my car (time) or hire someone to do it (money)? * Do I program my own OS (time) or hire someone to do it (money)? * Do I work for Debian (time) or work for a client (money)? That final choice is between spending time and earning money. I don't see how it relates to the other ones. Roland. -- Roland Mas Depuis 1977. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
Hi, Jérôme Marant schrieb: My personal belief is that being jealous is wrong. This may be morally true. But humans are not morally perfect. They are corrupted easily, as a matter of fact. The greatest corruptors are money and power. Best wishes Michael Kallas -- Nobody can save your freedom but YOU - become a fellow of the FSF Europe! http://www.fsfe.org/en signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
Raphael Hertzog writes (Re: Using money to fund real Debian work): But if the structure is open to everyone, then everybody has a chance to request funding. This is precisely what is wrong with funding the RMs, and what makes it different from funding some particular package development or feature or what have you. The structure is _not_ open to everyone. The RMs personally are in a privileged position for requesting funding: their role within Debian is critical for the whole project; it is not easy for someone else to come and learn how to do it; it is not easy for someone else to get permission to do the work instead; and of course their decisions are politically important for many people (so it's right and proper that we are cautious about who we give the RM power). If I decide I can do the RM job better than the RMs, and my pet benefactor agrees with me, I still can't get paid to do it unless I can get the existing RMs and/or the DPL to agree. And of course there is a (financial, now!) incentive for the existing RMs not to agree. [1] This is quite different from the case with a programming task: if I decide I can do some D-I work that needs doing better than the D-I maintainers, I can just do it, and if my pet benefactor agrees with me, I can get paid to do it and the result _will_ end up in Debian, if it's actually any good. Ian. [1] I want to make clear once again that I do not think the RMs have anything but the purest of motives. But if we set up a system where those who are impure of motive are rewarded with money as well as power, we're asking for trouble. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: On Wed, Oct 11, 2006 at 09:58:45AM +0200, Martin Schulze wrote: Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: Huh? I hate to be the one to break it to you, but many things life boil down to a question of time or money. * Do I mow my lawn (time) or hire someone to do it (money)? * Do I was my car (time) or hire someone to do it (money)? * Do I program my own OS (time) or hire someone to do it (money)? * Do I work for Debian (time) or work for a client (money)? Yet, if you are able to make Debian your client, then you can do that which you enjoy *and* get paid for it. With my list, I was trying to That would involve taking over the person of either Andreas Barth or Steve Langasek. I don't think I'm able to, nor do I believe it would be useful in the long-term. Maybe I should postpone my Debian work until Debian becomes my client and work for other clients in the meantime? Interesting plan. Need to think about this for a while. Regards, Joey -- Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Wed, Oct 11, 2006 at 10:15:00PM +0200, Martin Schulze wrote: Yet, if you are able to make Debian your client, then you can do that which you enjoy *and* get paid for it. With my list, I was trying to That would involve taking over the person of either Andreas Barth or Steve Langasek. I don't think I'm able to, nor do I believe it would be useful in the long-term. Maybe I should postpone my Debian work until Debian becomes my client and work for other clients in the meantime? Interesting plan. Need to think about this for a while. If you don't want to work on Debian, you don't have to. There's no need to invent reasons not to if you're not enjoying it, and don't think it's worth your time. If you want to get paid to work on Debian, then there's a few things that are a good idea: demonstrating you're competent and skilled, that you're willing to work on areas that other people think are important, and that you're comfortable doing some of the other things that are associated with getting paid in short term contracts -- like dealing with taxes, being prepared to find new work if your current funding dries up, and being willing to go out of your way to cooperate with the people you're getting funds from. Some things are really bad ideas too: not doing work in the hopes of getting paid for it is one of them -- that both gives other people the opportunity to step up and demonstrate that they're more interested and committed and also seems like you're the sort of person who'd try blackmail to get what they want and thus not someone people would probably like to work with. Another bad thing is to complain about other people getting paid when you're not -- different people have different priorities, if you spend all your time focussing on the people who don't share your priorities, you won't have any time to spare for the people who think like you -- who are the ones most likely to want to give you money for the work you do in the first place. Seriously, organising for the people doing security work to be funded would probably be even easier than getting release stuff funded -- there's no need to do anything more than say hey, I'd be willing to deal with the problems that will cause, for me and for others to get started on that. And if you're not willing to deal with the problems it will cause for you (in terms of having to work on Debian stuff you've agreed to even if it gets boring or unfun, or dealing with taxes and government forms, or having irregular payments), and others (in terms of people complaining about how money is corrupting, or worried that they're not getting paid, or trying to join a team because it gets money even though they don't have enough skills in the area), then you're not really in a position to be paid anyway. Cheers, aj signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
Ian Jackson, 2006-10-11 21:10:12 +0200 : This is quite different from the case with a programming task: if I decide I can do some D-I work that needs doing better than the D-I maintainers, I can just do it, and if my pet benefactor agrees with me, I can get paid to do it and the result _will_ end up in Debian, if it's actually any good. Funny you should use d-i as an example. I suggest you read some of the (numerous) emails written by Sven Luther during the last six months. I don't know whether he has a benefactor or not, I have no reason to assume his work on d-i was (or wasn't) bad since it seems to focus mostly on an architecture I have no contact with, but apparently it's not going to end in Debian, or so he oh-so-repeatedly told us. Roland. -- Roland Mas LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rolandmas -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
Roberto C. Sanchez [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] I would submit that people who consider quitting or actually quit over something like that probably have other issues to deal with. Can we leave the sanity attacks out of it, please? It's unhelpful to suggest that all the people with concerns about this experiment have personality problems. Are the attacks on people because there are no good answers to the concerns of Martin Schulze and others? Can Dunc-Tank advocates answer these essential questions? | Why is devel 1 paid but not devel 2? Is devel 2 not doing good work? | Will it work for devel 1 if they work more on Debian so get paid as | well? Why does devel 1 have to work on a day-job to get something to | eat but not devel 2? Why is the project involved in selecting people | worth for funding? Why can't all developers who work hard on getting | Debian better be funded similarily? For example, why join the Debian project in the first place? Because it's more efficient than the alternatives for many tasks. Seriously, if money is someone's nly or primary motivation, they should go work for Red Hat, Novell or Canonical. However, some developers won't make the ethical compromises necessary to do so. What if money is one of your motivations, not only or primary? Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On 10/8/06, Raphael Hertzog [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is not related: - known developers are not necessarily bad developers - technically good developers are not necessarily unknown These are extremely bold assumptions, stated as if they were facts. Cunning. And here comes the well known even if... rhetoric. Ugly: And even if technicall bad but known developers are paid to do some work, nothing prevents technically good developers to make sure the project is sane from the beginning by reviewing the project proposals on the infrastructure. And nothing prevents further improvements later in the process. Being paid doesn't mean that we stop doing free software. Avec des 'si' on mettrait Paris en bouteille (with 'ifs', Paris could be fit in a bottle). It's always amusing to see how the supporters of this scheme are prone to believe that technically good developers not being paid to do work will be willing to fix up shite dumped by technically bad developers paid to do work; and that money will be in no way an impediment to the equality between developers, and that we'll still all be friends in the better world. If money doesn't affect ones attitude, why using it? (yes, that's rhetoric). It's obvious giving money will affect someone's behaviour (allowing him/her to work full time on a project, for instance). And as action induces reaction, the moment there's someone which is given money, there will be two class of peoples: the ones who are given money, and those who aren't. How would those who aren't be unaffected by the fact that some are?? Ever heard of jealousy for one thing? In my view, if I were involved in a given project, giving it a good part of my free (unpaid) time, and I were to see some other guy working on this very same project doing the same work I'm doing, I guess I wouldn't feel terribly well. Now if that guy were to do deep shit and if I had to walk behind him to collect his crap in order to keep the project in shape, I guess I would be extremely upset. I believe this is common sense, something people seems to be lacking a lot lately... And not even looking at the implications of dunc-tank etc, the very fact that all this mess happened, the time wasted, the GRs, the flames etc, all of this is already making Debian less and less *fun*. As such, it's /already/ having a vastly negative impact. But then again, maybe nobody cares... Quite frankly, I care less and less, but for other reasons. T-Bone -- Thibaut VARENE http://www.parisc-linux.org/~varenet/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Tue, Oct 10, 2006 at 09:40:40AM +0200, Thibaut VARENE wrote: On 10/8/06, Raphael Hertzog [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is not related: - known developers are not necessarily bad developers - technically good developers are not necessarily unknown These are extremely bold assumptions, stated as if they were facts. Cunning. I don't see anything bold in these statements. Your claim that these statements are extremely bold is, on the other hand. What Raphael is saying in the first statement is that there could exist at least one known developer that is a good developer. (Hell, he's not even saying that it *has* to be so). For this statement to be false, you'd need to prove that there is no way what-so-ever that a known developer could be a good developer. By proving this you would prove that it's impossible to become known for being a good developer - only bad developers become known. Now *that's* what I'd call a bold statement. The second statement says that there could exist at least one technically good developer that isn't unknown. (Again not a statement that claims this to be true, just the possibility). For the second statement to be false, you'd need to prove that all technically good developers are unknown; by proving that there are no known developers that are technically good. On the other hand, just showing that one single technically good developer is also known, would prove these statements. Let me drop some random name just to satisfy you: Joey Schulze. Known developer, technically good. There you have it. Both assumptions proven. Of course, you could start to argue about the definitions of good or known at this point, but that would just be childish. Except for possibly in an alternate reality both of these are true, if not *necessarily* in theory, then at least in practise. [snip] Regards: David Weinehall -- /) David Weinehall [EMAIL PROTECTED] /) Rime on my window (\ // ~ // Diamond-white roses of fire // \) http://www.acc.umu.se/~tao/(/ Beautiful hoar-frost (/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
Le lundi 09 octobre 2006 18:54, Martin Schulze a écrit : hard on getting Debian better be funded similarily? I know that several people have lost their motivation to work on Debian as before (yes, others will hate me for writing this again) because of this. Some developers ask themselves already why they should work on some tasks, when others are to be paid for their Debian work, and they have other obligations as well. You never loose your motivation because some developers get paid to work on Debian tasks, unless you're jealous. I personaly have no real idea whether Dunc Tank is a good thing or a bad one, but seeing that a group of people is trying to improve Debian in some respect increases my motivation. I see no evil in giving people financial compensations for working full time on some key Debian tasks. If such people give the project their best with faith and dedication and enjoy it, I am very very happy for both them and the project. -- Jérôme Marant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Tue, Oct 10, 2006 at 12:00:12AM +0200, Jérôme Marant wrote: Le lundi 09 octobre 2006 18:54, Martin Schulze a écrit : hard on getting Debian better be funded similarily? I know that several people have lost their motivation to work on Debian as before (yes, others will hate me for writing this again) because of this. Some developers ask themselves already why they should work on some tasks, when others are to be paid for their Debian work, and they have other obligations as well. You never loose your motivation because some developers get paid to work on Debian tasks, unless you're jealous. I personaly have no real idea whether Dunc Tank is a good thing or a bad one, but seeing that a group of people is trying to improve Debian in some respect increases my motivation. Agreed. Also, the fact that some people are apparently taking the tack that improving Debian is only OK if it happens a certain way really makes me doubt whether this is something of which I want to be a part. Note, I am not going to withdraw my NM application or anything like that, it just gives me pause. I see no evil in giving people financial compensations for working full time on some key Debian tasks. If such people give the project their best with faith and dedication and enjoy it, I am very very happy for both them and the project. Same here. -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Tue, Oct 10, 2006 at 08:37:32AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote: Roberto C. Sanchez [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] I would submit that people who consider quitting or actually quit over something like that probably have other issues to deal with. Can we leave the sanity attacks out of it, please? It's unhelpful to suggest that all the people with concerns about this experiment have personality problems. There is no sanity attack. In fact, what I was implying is that there is an apparent lack of maturity on the part of those who are irrationally against something which is supposed to help improve the project. Are the attacks on people because there are no good answers to the concerns of Martin Schulze and others? I am not attacking anyone. Can Dunc-Tank advocates answer these essential questions? | Why is devel 1 paid but not devel 2? 1) Because there are limited funds. Is devel 2 not doing good work? 2) No. Devel 1's work was deemed more important/critical/visible/etc. | Will it work for devel 1 if they work more on Debian so get paid as | well? 3) Why does it matter? Why does devel 1 have to work on a day-job to get something to | eat but not devel 2? 4) Because the project cannot afford to pay someone completely full-time. Or perhaps, the resources need to be spread out over more tasks. Or perhaps, the task does not require as much time. Or perhaps, devel 2 is a student and is able to his/her work in conjunction with a school project or something. Why is the project involved in selecting people | worth for funding? 5) Because the project is in the best position to prioritize tasks that are important to the project. Why can't all developers who work hard on getting | Debian better be funded similarily? 6) Because the resources are not unlimited. For example, why join the Debian project in the first place? Because it's more efficient than the alternatives for many tasks. Then that is fine. It is why we have a choice to use Debian or to use something else. It is why we have a choice to contribute to Debian or to contribute to something else. Seriously, if money is someone's nly or primary motivation, they should go work for Red Hat, Novell or Canonical. However, some developers won't make the ethical compromises necessary to do so. What if money is one of your motivations, not only or primary? Life is riddled with decisions. Most people must either make ethical compromises or financial compromises. Choose your poison. Would be great if such choices were not necessary? Yes. Though unfortunately, such denies reality. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Tue, Oct 10, 2006 at 09:40:40AM +0200, Thibaut VARENE wrote: In my view, if I were involved in a given project, giving it a good part of my free (unpaid) time, and I were to see some other guy working on this very same project doing the same work I'm doing, I guess I wouldn't feel terribly well. Now if that guy were to do deep shit and if I had to walk behind him to collect his crap in order to keep the project in shape, I guess I would be extremely upset. I would be upset as well, as I'm sure many would be. Now, I think the idea of funding some development has merit. However, there needs to be a standard set for quality and a review process in place. Make successful and satisfactory completion predicates for payment. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
MJ Ray schrieb: Can we leave the sanity attacks out of it, please? It's unhelpful to suggest that all the people with concerns about this experiment have personality problems. Are the attacks on people because there are no good answers to the concerns of Martin Schulze and others? From my (external) POV it is quite easy to understand those concerns, but at the same time very difficult to find the right words to explain them. I have the impression that the people who expressed their concerns or feeling of demotivation were also not very succesful in explaining them to others. For this reason I'd like to share with you, my dear DDs, what I recently found on another mailinglist: a dissertation on the subject Fun and Software Development: About the Motivation of Open Source Developers[1] (in german only, abstract[2] is also available in english). I'm hoping that there is something in this document that the concerned people like joey might find useful to better express their feelings. It does probably not contain the ultimate word of wisdom on this subject, but it seems relevant to me and at least it's a somewhat structured approach. Hope this helps, Guido [1] http://www.dissertationen.unizh.ch/2006/luthigerstoll/diss.pdf [2] http://www.dissertationen.unizh.ch/2006/luthigerstoll/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 09:22:04PM -0400, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: [...] The strange thing is that while I see lots of discussion about why people should or should not be allowed to fund particular developers to do particular things, I don't see any similar discussion about why people should or should not be allowed to spend their time working on the parts of Debian that interest them most. Program runs successfully here after dropping the 'assert (tine == money);' statement. Denis -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Mon, Oct 09, 2006 at 01:14:05PM -0400, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: [...] Would I love to get paid to my work on Debian? Sure, who wouldn't? But, is it going to make me quit if someone else working on something for Debian gets paid to do it? Nope. I would submit that people who consider quitting or actually quit over something like that probably have other issues to deal with. For example, why join the Debian project in the first place? In the introduction of our Constitution: The Debian Project is an association of individuals who have made common cause to create a free operating system[*]. I first did not notice the footnote [*] ... and find a job in the IT industry. My paid job is neither related to Debian nor to my activities within Debian, so I must admit that I have been a fool to give time to Debian without return, and I will now look for some medical help to diagnose and cure this distortion of reality perception. Denis -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Tue, Oct 10, 2006 at 08:50:39PM +0200, Denis Barbier wrote: On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 09:22:04PM -0400, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: [...] The strange thing is that while I see lots of discussion about why people should or should not be allowed to fund particular developers to do particular things, I don't see any similar discussion about why people should or should not be allowed to spend their time working on the parts of Debian that interest them most. Program runs successfully here after dropping the 'assert (tine == money);' statement. Huh? I hate to be the one to break it to you, but many things life boil down to a question of time or money. * Do I mow my lawn (time) or hire someone to do it (money)? * Do I was my car (time) or hire someone to do it (money)? * Do I program my own OS (time) or hire someone to do it (money)? Seriously, I do not understand all the fuss. Are people just afraid of not being the one to get paid? Really, that is just absurd. Install the bible-kjv package and read the output of `bible matt20:1-16`. I'll give you the cliff-notes version: Different people made a deal to work for the owner of a vineyard. Some people agreed to work more hours for the same pay than others who worked fewer hours. When the owner pays the workmen at the end of the day, those who worked all day got mad for receiving the same pay (to which they initially agreed) as those who only worked the last hour. The owner rebukes the comlaining workers and tells them that it is his money to do with as he pleases. The moral of the story is that everyone here comes in to the situation of giving their time to Debian to improve it. Now, someone comes along and wants to be generous and help further improve it by donating financial resources. Person A gets mad becuase he is afraid that person B will will get pay for something that both had originally agreed to do for free. Well, tough. It is the donor's resource. It is utterly insane for a resource limited organization to refuse additional resources, especially when there are not any additional restrictions imposed. Please, people get over it. So what if someone else gets paid and you don't? If you came into it with the notion that you were going to do it for free, then that is a decision you made for yourself. Now, go read the parable one more time to make sure you understand it. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Tue, Oct 10, 2006 at 03:53:34PM -0400, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: On Tue, Oct 10, 2006 at 08:50:39PM +0200, Denis Barbier wrote: On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 09:22:04PM -0400, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: [...] The strange thing is that while I see lots of discussion about why people should or should not be allowed to fund particular developers to do particular things, I don't see any similar discussion about why people should or should not be allowed to spend their time working on the parts of Debian that interest them most. Program runs successfully here after dropping the 'assert (tine == money);' statement. Huh? I hate to be the one to break it to you, but many things life boil down to a question of time or money. Re-read my mail, I wrote that if you do not assert that time and money are equivalent resources, then your question has a trivial answer. If you want to keep this assertion as valid, you have to find another answer. Denis -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Tue, Oct 10, 2006 at 10:14:16PM +0200, Denis Barbier wrote: Program runs successfully here after dropping the 'assert (tine == money);' statement. Huh? I hate to be the one to break it to you, but many things life boil down to a question of time or money. Re-read my mail, I wrote that if you do not assert that time and money are equivalent resources, then your question has a trivial answer. If you want to keep this assertion as valid, you have to find another answer. I'm sorry. I don't understand your meaning. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
Denis Barbier [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: In the introduction of our Constitution: The Debian Project is an association of individuals who have made common cause to create a free operating system[*]. I first did not notice the footnote [*] ... and find a job in the IT industry. My paid job is neither related to Debian nor to my activities within Debian, so I must admit that I have been a fool to give time to Debian without return, and I will now look for some medical help to diagnose and cure this distortion of reality perception. My paid job is related to Debian. I would continue to work on Debian even if my paid job weren't related to Debian. Because my paid job is related, I am able to get more done on Debian than I could otherwise since I can do some things for Debian during normal working hours. If I had some other unrelated job, I would only be able to work on Debian in my own time. The things I particularly want to get done may get done at the same rate either way, since my paid job may not care about them, but my paid job gives me the opportunity to fix other things that improve Debian even if they may not be my personal top priorities. I really don't understand why this is a problem or why this should upset anyone. I understand that people are upset, but in the absence of logic to that upsetness that I understand and given that I don't see any way any large organization could avoid the issues that they're upset about entirely, I don't really see a reasonable way of addressing their concerns. But I still don't see a significant difference between dunc-tank paying people and HP, or Canonical, or Stanford paying people. -- Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Tue, 10 Oct 2006, Thibaut VARENE wrote: It's obvious giving money will affect someone's behaviour (allowing him/her to work full time on a project, for instance). And as action induces reaction, the moment there's someone which is given money, there will be two class of peoples: the ones who are given money, and those who aren't. How would those who aren't be unaffected by the fact that some are?? Ever heard of jealousy for one thing? Yes I have. But if the structure is open to everyone, then everybody has a chance to request funding. Not everybody will have the requested funding of course, but that depends on many factors: how many other DD appreciate your work, how many donators like your project, the expected impact of the project, etc. Jealousy is already present: some people are already working on Debian during work hours. I'm merely trying to not make it worse by externalizing/impersonalizing as much as possible of the decision making in the infrastructure that I described. In my view, if I were involved in a given project, giving it a good part of my free (unpaid) time, and I were to see some other guy working on this very same project doing the same work I'm doing, I guess I wouldn't feel terribly well. Now if that guy were to do deep shit and if I had to walk behind him to collect his crap in order to keep the project in shape, I guess I would be extremely upset. So would I and so would anyone I bet. But that's why there are some dynamics involved: a bad developer that has been paid will get a bad review of his work. This review will discourage donators to fund further projects of him. And so this would happen hopefully only once for a given bad developer. Cheers, -- Raphaël Hertzog Premier livre français sur Debian GNU/Linux : http://www.ouaza.com/livre/admin-debian/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
This one time, at band camp, Denis Barbier said: On Tue, Oct 10, 2006 at 03:53:34PM -0400, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: On Tue, Oct 10, 2006 at 08:50:39PM +0200, Denis Barbier wrote: On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 09:22:04PM -0400, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: [...] The strange thing is that while I see lots of discussion about why people should or should not be allowed to fund particular developers to do particular things, I don't see any similar discussion about why people should or should not be allowed to spend their time working on the parts of Debian that interest them most. Program runs successfully here after dropping the 'assert (tine == money);' statement. Huh? I hate to be the one to break it to you, but many things life boil down to a question of time or money. Re-read my mail, I wrote that if you do not assert that time and money are equivalent resources, then your question has a trivial answer. If you want to keep this assertion as valid, you have to find another answer. In my world, I have to work full time in order to pay the bills, and this reduces the amount of time I have for things that are fun. Do things work differently in your world? If so, what are the emigration rules like? You don't even have to resort to the bible for time == money proofs - realtively modern philosophers like Marx say that money is frozen labor (i.e., worker's time). Or are you trying to say something I'm not seeing here? -- - | ,''`.Stephen Gran | | : :' :[EMAIL PROTECTED] | | `. `'Debian user, admin, and developer | |`- http://www.debian.org | - signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
This one time, at band camp, Thibaut VARENE said: It's obvious giving money will affect someone's behaviour (allowing him/her to work full time on a project, for instance). And as action induces reaction, the moment there's someone which is given money, there will be two class of peoples: the ones who are given money, and those who aren't. How would those who aren't be unaffected by the fact that some are?? Ever heard of jealousy for one thing? I would argue that people feeling jealous need to get over themselves and grow up, but maybe that's just me. In my view, if I were involved in a given project, giving it a good part of my free (unpaid) time, and I were to see some other guy working on this very same project doing the same work I'm doing, I guess I wouldn't feel terribly well. Now if that guy were to do deep shit and if I had to walk behind him to collect his crap in order to keep the project in shape, I guess I would be extremely upset. Why on earth would Debian take crap work from someone just because they're paid for it? I would expect that we continue to accept people's contributions in the same way we do now. If the quality of it sucks too bad to keep around, we ditch it. Granted, the weeding out process could be better and faster, but it seems to me we usually find the really horrible stuff in fairly short order. Secondly, why would you clean up after someone just because they're paid? Stop working on that piece of the project, or deny them access to that piece of the project. This has happened before without money being involved, and I don't see why it shouldn't continue to be the case. You're making it sound like the introduction of a few paid workers turns Debian into a corporation where we have to take the output of paid projects. We really don't. If they turn out good work, then yay, Debian gets some good work out of it. If they churn out crap, then we ditch it and take away their svn access. So what? -- - | ,''`.Stephen Gran | | : :' :[EMAIL PROTECTED] | | `. `'Debian user, admin, and developer | |`- http://www.debian.org | - signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
Raphael Hertzog wrote: [ Continuing publicly a discussion started in -private, with the agreement of Pierre ] The discussion concerns the use of money as a resource within Debian. Dunc-Tank's principle is to use the money to pay for real work and not only for travel expenses and reimbursments. This principle is too new to get it to work within Debian now, people need to familiarize with the advantages and the drawbacks and we need to find a sustainable model for us. When money is involved the project changes. Developers will have to ask why devel 1 is paid but not devel 2? Is devel 2 not doing good work? Will it work for devel 1 if they work more on Debian so get paid as well? Why does devel 1 have to work on a day-job to get something to eat but not devel 2? Why is the project involved in selecting people worth for funding? Why can't all developers who work hard on getting Debian better be funded similarily? I know that several people have lost their motivation to work on Debian as before (yes, others will hate me for writing this again) because of this. Some developers ask themselves already why they should work on some tasks, when others are to be paid for their Debian work, and they have other obligations as well. Even if aj named this as experiment not all possible experiments have to be tried out. Somebody mentioned an unknown chemical that you probably don't experiment with by simply drinking it and watching the outcome. Though, for Debian and Dunc Tank this is exactly what is done. Paying developers of a project directly or indirectly by the project is not healthy when the project consists of more than the paid developers. Joey -- WARNING: Do not execute! This call violates patent DE10108564. http://www.elug.de/projekte/patent-party/patente/DE10108564 wget -O patinfo-`date +%Y%m%d`.html http://patinfo.ffii.org/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Mon, Oct 09, 2006 at 06:54:09PM +0200, Martin Schulze wrote: When money is involved the project changes. Developers will have to ask why devel 1 is paid but not devel 2? Is devel 2 not doing good work? Will it work for devel 1 if they work more on Debian so get paid as well? Why does devel 1 have to work on a day-job to get something to eat but not devel 2? Why is the project involved in selecting people worth for funding? Why can't all developers who work hard on getting Debian better be funded similarily? I know that several people have lost their motivation to work on Debian as before (yes, others will hate me for writing this again) because of this. Some developers ask themselves already why they should work on some tasks, when others are to be paid for their Debian work, and they have other obligations as well. Even if aj named this as experiment not all possible experiments have to be tried out. Somebody mentioned an unknown chemical that you probably don't experiment with by simply drinking it and watching the outcome. Though, for Debian and Dunc Tank this is exactly what is done. Paying developers of a project directly or indirectly by the project is not healthy when the project consists of more than the paid developers. Let's say that there are two packages, foo and bar. The maintainer of foo would like to have more time or more help with the package, as would the maintainer of bar. Now, if someone joins the maintainer of foo as co-maintainer to help out, the package gets better and the maintainer of foo gets to spend more time on other things, perhaps working to feed his family. Would the maintainer of package bar get upset? Probably not, he would be happy to see Debian improve. OTOH, what if this individual has no technical ability to help with package foo, but has financial resources. Perhaps he says to the maintainer of foo, I'd like to hire you to spend 10 hours a week for the next 4 weeks on this package to improve it. Now he perhaps doesn't need to work as many hours at his day job and his family still gets fed. Debian is still improved. Would the maintainer of package bar get upset? Based on what you have said, possibly. But why? The maintainer of package bar did not get upset when someone with technical ability volunteered to co-maintain package foo. How is it any different if a third-party directly hires a developer to do some work than if the third-party gives the money to the Debian project as a whole and says decide best how to spend it? Seriously, what is the difference, other than that in the latter case, some people are going to get all offended because they weren't picked? Would I love to get paid to my work on Debian? Sure, who wouldn't? But, is it going to make me quit if someone else working on something for Debian gets paid to do it? Nope. I would submit that people who consider quitting or actually quit over something like that probably have other issues to deal with. For example, why join the Debian project in the first place? Seriously, if money is someone's nly or primary motivation, they should go work for Red Hat, Novell or Canonical. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
Le dim 8 octobre 2006 12:34, Raphael Hertzog a écrit : In the worst scenario, the sponsor will be disappointed and will not give money any more. But if the rules are clear from the beginning, it's only fair. it's not true. If the sponsoree well-beeing (because he tries to live from that) depends upon that, he may take bad decisions to have the money after all. Moreover, I don't want to see the money flow be influenced by DDs: that's unethical, and deviant. You don't want donors to decide directly what to fund and you don't want us to tell them what to fund? did i said that ? you misread me. I want the donor to decide what they want to fund, and choose who they will fund directly, because asking Debian would either be done: (1) through GRs (hahahahahaha) (2) through a small comitee that would be biased, or that would suffer from *BIG* conflicts of interests. It looks like you're against using money to let us do real work. :-) it looks like you don't know how to read ? I'm against money beeing able to influence the choices people take in Debian. full stop. I'm also not OK with money (or lack of it) blocking Debian because some DD decided he needed fund to do do something he has to do. I'm (almost) fine with a Bounty structure, but the sponsors and sponsoree should define the terms of the bounty directly, with or without contract, that's their call. But I DON'T WANT to see a DD structure in the middle, *ESPECIALLY* for counselling purposes: that would only benefit to the known developers, not the technically good ones. So you would be okay with the structure that I described, provided that there's no voting mechanism and that donors are left to themselves to select the projects to fund? I'm not sure to fully understand /what/ you proposed, so I reserve my judgement for now, until I see a proper, clean, detailed, open proposal. Good technical solutions are still what Debian is about right ? This is not related: - known developers are not necessarily bad developers - technically good developers are not necessarily unknown so that would only benefit the good *and* known one ? what's the fairness in that ? And even if technicall bad but known developers are paid to do some work, nothing prevents technically good developers to make sure the project is sane from the beginning by reviewing the project proposals on the infrastructure. And nothing prevents further improvements later in the process. Being paid doesn't mean that we stop doing free software. did I said so ? are you trying to divert my thoughts into some lame FUD ? or did you truly not understood me to that level ? -- ·O· Pierre Habouzit ··O[EMAIL PROTECTED] OOOhttp://www.madism.org pgpEyzJu0iw7I.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Sun, 08 Oct 2006, Pierre Habouzit wrote: Le dim 8 octobre 2006 12:34, Raphael Hertzog a écrit : In the worst scenario, the sponsor will be disappointed and will not give money any more. But if the rules are clear from the beginning, it's only fair. it's not true. If the sponsoree well-beeing (because he tries to live from that) depends upon that, he may take bad decisions to have the money after all. It's difficult to speak in general here. A solution to a customer can always be delivered because the developer can provide modified versions of the package even if they are not integrated into Debian. So I don't think that being paid can justify integration of bad work within Debian. But really, the spirit of those project proposals is that they are meant to be enhancements to Debian in general that would benefit the donor. And they are not meant to be a solution for a given customer... And if the comments associated to the project proposal indicate that there's some controversy in the idea behind the project, then the donor would be aware that there's a risk that the stuff doesn't get integrated into Debian proper. Moreover, I don't want to see the money flow be influenced by DDs: that's unethical, and deviant. You don't want donors to decide directly what to fund and you don't want us to tell them what to fund? did i said that ? you misread me. I want the donor to decide what they want to fund, and choose who they will fund directly, because asking Debian would either be done: (1) through GRs (hahahahahaha) (2) through a small comitee that would be biased, or that would suffer from *BIG* conflicts of interests. You don't list the solution that I explained: with an always-running vote among developers. The DD who have been mentors for Google's summer of code have used a web application to evaluate the proposals of students. While it was far from perfect, it worked quite well to identify the projects which were the most desired/popular. I'm (almost) fine with a Bounty structure, but the sponsors and sponsoree should define the terms of the bounty directly, with or without contract, that's their call. But I DON'T WANT to see a DD structure in the middle, *ESPECIALLY* for counselling purposes: that would only benefit to the known developers, not the technically good ones. So you would be okay with the structure that I described, provided that there's no voting mechanism and that donors are left to themselves to select the projects to fund? I'm not sure to fully understand /what/ you proposed, so I reserve my judgement for now, until I see a proper, clean, detailed, open proposal. Giving some hints now, while I'm trying to design that proposal would be helpful... I discussed my proposal with you at several occasions on IRC, it was also relatively detailed in my french blog post on the subject. Good technical solutions are still what Debian is about right ? This is not related: - known developers are not necessarily bad developers - technically good developers are not necessarily unknown so that would only benefit the good *and* known one ? what's the fairness in that ? No, fairness in selection of projects depends on the donors, and we can't control the donors. We can simply have an open infrastructure giving a chance to everybody. I believe we agree on that. But I was going further by saying that we should give as many informations as possible to the donors so that they can select the projects to fund based on concrete information. But you seem to think that letting all DD vote on the proposals is not fair because it would only benefit to the known developers. I respond to that: I hope DD are able to vote on technical merits of individual proposals instead of relying only on who proposed it. And I want to point out that being known in the free software community is not something undoable. It's usually a matter of doing good work and having other appreciate your work. It takes time but that's not a problem in itself: we tend to reward contributors who have been involved for a long time, even the NM process selects on that criteria. And even if technicall bad but known developers are paid to do some work, nothing prevents technically good developers to make sure the project is sane from the beginning by reviewing the project proposals on the infrastructure. And nothing prevents further improvements later in the process. Being paid doesn't mean that we stop doing free software. did I said so ? are you trying to divert my thoughts into some lame FUD ? or did you truly not understood me to that level ? I only explained why paying known developers doesn't result in technically bad decisions for Debian... Wasn't that the point of your rethoric question (Good technical solutions are still what Debian is about right ?) ? Cheers, -- Raphaël Hertzog Premier livre français sur Debian
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
Le dim 8 octobre 2006 14:18, Raphael Hertzog a écrit : And if the comments associated to the project proposal indicate that there's some controversy in the idea behind the project, then the donor would be aware that there's a risk that the stuff doesn't get integrated into Debian proper. hahah, and you expect to find donors with that ? Moreover, I don't want to see the money flow be influenced by DDs: that's unethical, and deviant. You don't want donors to decide directly what to fund and you don't want us to tell them what to fund? did i said that ? you misread me. I want the donor to decide what they want to fund, and choose who they will fund directly, because asking Debian would either be done: (1) through GRs (hahahahahaha) (2) through a small comitee that would be biased, or that would suffer from *BIG* conflicts of interests. You don't list the solution that I explained: with an always-running vote among developers. The DD who have been mentors for Google's summer of code have used a web application to evaluate the proposals of students. While it was far from perfect, it worked quite well to identify the projects which were the most desired/popular. I don't like any form of censorship/moderation/vote/whatever. full stop. because that gives to much power to the censor/moderator/voters/... or is completely unrealistic (because needs a full GR or such heavy procedure). Giving some hints now, while I'm trying to design that proposal would be helpful... I discussed my proposal with you at several occasions on IRC, it was also relatively detailed in my french blog post on the subject. you discussed many subparts of it, I've seen no aggregated document of a full proposal yet, and I'm not sure to remember all the parts, nor if you accepted to remove some bits I didn't like or not, etc… you're asking for an answer I won't give without concrete material. And even if technicall bad but known developers are paid to do some work, nothing prevents technically good developers to make sure the project is sane from the beginning by reviewing the project proposals on the infrastructure. And nothing prevents further improvements later in the process. Being paid doesn't mean that we stop doing free software. did I said so ? are you trying to divert my thoughts into some lame FUD ? or did you truly not understood me to that level ? I only explained why paying known developers doesn't result in technically bad decisions for Debian... My concern is about money driving how decisions are taken or not. It always ends in bad technical solutions, so my fear is legitimate. My other concern is about how people that do the bounties are chosen, I say that chosing the known ones is unfair, and should not be done. don't mix the two in an incoherent tossed salad. Wasn't that the point of your rethoric question (Good technical solutions are still what Debian is about right ?) ? that question was just a mild provocation, aka a rhetorical effect. please don't offend me in trying to answer to that. -- ·O· Pierre Habouzit ··O[EMAIL PROTECTED] OOOhttp://www.madism.org pgpZasYYmfv5T.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
This one time, at band camp, Pierre Habouzit said: Le dim 8 octobre 2006 14:18, Raphael Hertzog a écrit : And if the comments associated to the project proposal indicate that there's some controversy in the idea behind the project, then the donor would be aware that there's a risk that the stuff doesn't get integrated into Debian proper. hahah, and you expect to find donors with that ? Actually, I would expect that this is quite possible. I wouldn't expect them to find enough donor's to provide full time work for several people on an ongoing basis, but that's not what this is about, AIUI. My concern is about money driving how decisions are taken or not. It always ends in bad technical solutions, so my fear is legitimate. Sorry, assertion failure detected. I think it's entirely likely that enough small scale donations could be gathered to allow some projects to be minimally funded for short periods without any of the sort of corporate silliness you describe entering in to the equation. If you're talking about orders of magnitude more money, then you're probably right, but I don't think anyone's talking about getting rich here. -- - | ,''`.Stephen Gran | | : :' :[EMAIL PROTECTED] | | `. `'Debian user, admin, and developer | |`- http://www.debian.org | - signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
Le dim 8 octobre 2006 15:36, Stephen Gran a écrit : This one time, at band camp, Pierre Habouzit said: Le dim 8 octobre 2006 14:18, Raphael Hertzog a écrit : And if the comments associated to the project proposal indicate that there's some controversy in the idea behind the project, then the donor would be aware that there's a risk that the stuff doesn't get integrated into Debian proper. hahah, and you expect to find donors with that ? Actually, I would expect that this is quite possible. I wouldn't expect them to find enough donor's to provide full time work for several people on an ongoing basis, but that's not what this is about, AIUI. well, I've read raphael saying many times on IRC that he'd be glad to see such a thing happen. So maybe it's not it *yet* but at least he is thinking about it, and he is (and I'll let him correct that statement if not 100% correct) preparing the road to a way for DDs to live from beeing a DD. That cannot be made with only small or fairly small donations (by small I think donations under a few k€/kUSD). So yes, I'm worrying about the future. My concern is about money driving how decisions are taken or not. It always ends in bad technical solutions, so my fear is legitimate. Sorry, assertion failure detected. I think it's entirely likely that enough small scale donations could be gathered to allow some projects to be minimally funded for short periods without any of the sort of corporate silliness you describe entering in to the equation. If you're talking about orders of magnitude more money, then you're probably right, but I don't think anyone's talking about getting rich here. I agree with you about small scale donations. they go in the cat (1) of the donations from my mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]. Though please re-think that keeping in mind that the current discussion goes beyond that. -- ·O· Pierre Habouzit ··O[EMAIL PROTECTED] OOOhttp://www.madism.org pgpcwpdgozdht.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
[mostly reposting what I sent to debian-private] On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 12:34:01PM +0200, Raphael Hertzog wrote: I also explained that Dunc-Tank's initial experiment of funding release manager is not a long term model for us. And as a board member, I said that I don't intend to fund other projects with Dunc-Tank until we have switched to another model that suits us better in general. Key principles in my current view of the other model are: - each DD can register projects for which they'd like to be funded - all DD can publicly comment the project proposals of everybody (and hopefully improve the proposals at the same time) - all donors can donate to any project, but those who have no specific interest in any of the project would hopefully donate to the most popular ones (projects could be rated by all the DD) - and of course, everybody is free to complete one of the registered projects for free. The fact that project proposals are documented make that even easier. But that not compatible with how Debian actually works. Debian works by DD commiting themself to a task (maintaining a package, processing the NEW queue, taking care of orphaned packages, maintaining the Debian machines, maintaining the archive etc.) and then doing it, and the other DD expecting the task to be fullfilled, but the commited DD are conferred authority over the way the task is handled and so it is harder for other DDs to interfere. If you commit yourself to do something and then ask for founding for performing it you are betraying the trust of the other DDs, and the authority you were granted to do it must be immediatly taken back. I have other objections, but that will be for another day. Maybe you should give a practical example, though. Cheers, -- Bill. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Imagine a large red swirl here. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 12:34:01PM +0200, Raphael Hertzog wrote: The set of projects that can be funded are projects proposed by Debian developers. I expect Debian developers to propose only projects that are improving Debian. If some of those projects also serve the private interest of someone external to Debian, then it's a net win for us to have someone ready to fund the associated work. The sponsor has not gained any decision power, he has only been accelerating something that a Debian developer already wanted to do. This means that someone with a lot of money will be able to decide which projects will be completed just be funding them. Other projects will not be completed because people will lack time and incentive even if these projects would improve Debian more. Developers will tend to propose task that are likely to be funded. The sponsors will have a large decision power of what is done and rightly since they funding the development. Cheers, -- Bill. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Imagine a large red swirl here. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 11:54:46PM +, Bill Allombert wrote: This means that someone with a lot of money will be able to decide which projects will be completed just be funding them. Other projects will not be completed because people will lack time and incentive even if these projects would improve Debian more. Developers will tend to propose task that are likely to be funded. The sponsors will have a large decision power of what is done and rightly since they funding the development. I don't see how those are entirely bad things. Some people have technical ability but no money and so they volunteer their time. Others, have little technical ability but lots of money and so would rather donate money. Saying, that is bad because the sponsors will have a large influence ignores the fact that this is exactly the situation in which we are now. The only difference is that rather than money, it is time which is used to influence. Either way, the more popular parts of the project will get more attention. Does this mean that some parts which need attention get neglected? Yes. However, the popular parts, which generally affect the most users, will get more attention whether it is people giving their time or their money. For example, there are some changes I would really like to see to svn-buildpackage. However, I know nothing about Perl, except for how to spell it. If I had the money for it (which sadly I do not), I would seriously consider hiring someone to fix that for me. Do you say that such a thing is bad? Becuase I have decided how to dedicate my money? What if I was a Perl hacker extraordinaire and decided to fix it myself? Is that bad because I have decided how to dedicate my time? The point is, time and money are both resources. If someone tried to pressure me into putting my time into something which did not interest me, I would likely refuse. If someone likewise tried to pressure me into donating my money to something which does not interest me, I would likely refuse as well. The strange thing is that while I see lots of discussion about why people should or should not be allowed to fund particular developers to do particular things, I don't see any similar discussion about why people should or should not be allowed to spend their time working on the parts of Debian that interest them most. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
Bill Allombert [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: This means that someone with a lot of money will be able to decide which projects will be completed just be funding them. Other projects will not be completed because people will lack time and incentive even if these projects would improve Debian more. Developers will tend to propose task that are likely to be funded. The sponsors will have a large decision power of what is done and rightly since they funding the development. I'm missing how this is in any way different than the way Debian has worked for years, or for that matter how most open source projects of any size work. The largest focused leaps in development often come about when, for one reason or another, someone can work full-time on solving a particular problem, which generally means that someone with money is willing to spend that money to solve that problem. Things that don't attract that sort of attention still get done, but not as quickly. The only way that the world couldn't work this way is if we banned people from working on Debian for pay, and I've already posted at length my opinions on that. One of the nice things about dunc-tank as it's proposed is that it has the potential of improveing this situation by providing a pool where people can invest money in things that may not attract normal commercial sponsorship, whereas right now the paid work that's done on Debian depends largely on the employers of Debian developers and quite frequently is on things of specific interest only to that employer or smaller portions of the user community. -- Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 11:54:46PM +, Bill Allombert wrote: This means that someone with a lot of money will be able to decide which projects will be completed just be funding them. Other projects will not be completed because people will lack time and incentive even if these projects would improve Debian more. Developers will tend to propose task that are likely to be funded. The sponsors will have a large decision power of what is done and rightly since they funding the development. In my opinion, this is exactly the same as: This means that someone with a lot of time will be able to decide which projects will be completed just by doing them. Other projects will not be completed because people will lack time and incentive even if these projects would improve Debian more. Which is already both a typical strength and weakness of many free software projects: domination by people with time to have the last patch. -- Daniel Jacobowitz CodeSourcery -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Sunday 08 October 2006 19:56, Daniel Jacobowitz wrote: On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 11:54:46PM +, Bill Allombert wrote: This means that someone with a lot of money will be able to decide which projects will be completed just be funding them. Other projects will not be completed because people will lack time and incentive even if these projects would improve Debian more. Developers will tend to propose task that are likely to be funded. The sponsors will have a large decision power of what is done and rightly since they funding the development. In my opinion, this is exactly the same as: This means that someone with a lot of time will be able to decide which projects will be completed just by doing them. Other projects will not be completed because people will lack time and incentive even if these projects would improve Debian more. Which is already both a typical strength and weakness of many free software projects: domination by people with time to have the last patch. Daniel, Does your employer know that money - or lack of money - doesn't influence your decisions as to what you will work on or how hard you will work? --Mike Bird -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Using money to fund real Debian work
On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 08:45:22PM -0700, Mike Bird wrote: On Sunday 08 October 2006 19:56, Daniel Jacobowitz wrote: In my opinion, this is exactly the same as: This means that someone with a lot of time will be able to decide which projects will be completed just by doing them. Other projects will not be completed because people will lack time and incentive even if these projects would improve Debian more. Which is already both a typical strength and weakness of many free software projects: domination by people with time to have the last patch. Daniel, Does your employer know that money - or lack of money - doesn't influence your decisions as to what you will work on or how hard you will work? Thank you for adding an ad hominem element so quickly. Please read that again with an open mind; your interpretation has nothing at all to do with what I said. Free software projects are driven by the goals of the people who contribute to them. They can contribute their own time, or they can contribute money to encourage someone else to contribute time, or they can pay someone outright. But in the end, the result is the same: the project follows the contributions it gets. In many cases I've observed this working very well. Sometimes it is frustrating for contributors with less available time. -- Daniel Jacobowitz CodeSourcery -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
