Questions for candidates: as spokesperson of Debian Project

[Kenshi Muto]

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Hi,

As far as I read threads, they are mainly focused Project inside.
Yes, they are important issue, but I think one of DPL's work is
a representation to the world as spokesperson.
"Debian Project Leader said ..." will be respected than any DD's talk
by media.

Whichever we want to become or not, many people think Debian Project is
great advocator (and obstinacy) of 'free' and 'opensource'.
Now, we're facing many political/legal troubles such as software patent.

Questions:
* Do you think DPL has spokesperson's job?
* What do you think about Debian Project acts for political/legal
  theme with other projects such as FSF, EFF and so on? (Although
  we've already done sometimes.)
* If foreign people asks you speech or discussion, can you make a time
  to trip even if the place is too far from your home?

Thanks,
- -- 
Kenshi Muto
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Re: Clarification about krooger's platform

[Hamish Moffatt]

On Sat, Mar 05, 2005 at 12:34:25PM -0800, Anthony Towns wrote:
> Marcelo E. Magallon wrote:
> >On Wed, Mar 02, 2005 at 10:10:45PM -0500, Erinn Clark wrote:
> > > None of the individuals [...]
> > Can we _please_ stop refering to people by their nicknames, IRC handles
> > or whatever it is that you are using?  It's bad enough to try and
> > remember a couple hundred names, don't make it worse by adding a few
> > hundred handles to that.
> 
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ finger krooger | head -1
> Login: krooger  Name: Jonathan Walther
> 
> http://www.debian.org/vote/2005/platforms/krooger

Solved that one problem, but not the general problem.
I second Marcelo's request.


Hamish
-- 
Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>


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Re: Clarification about krooger's platform

[Jonathan Walther]

On Sun, Mar 06, 2005 at 08:30:54PM +1100, Hamish Moffatt wrote:
On Sat, Mar 05, 2005 at 12:34:25PM -0800, Anthony Towns wrote:
> Can we _please_ stop refering to people by their nicknames, IRC handles
> or whatever it is that you are using?  It's bad enough to try and
> remember a couple hundred names, don't make it worse by adding a few
> hundred handles to that.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ finger krooger | head -1
Login: krooger  Name: Jonathan Walther
http://www.debian.org/vote/2005/platforms/krooger
Solved that one problem, but not the general problem.
I second Marcelo's request.
Thirded.  I prefer to be called by my real name.  krooger isn't even an
IRC handle.
Jonathan
--
 It's not true unless it makes you laugh,   
but you don't understand it until it makes you weep.

Eukleia: Jonathan Walther
Address: 12706 99 Ave, Surrey, BC V3V2P8 (Canada)
Contact: 604-684-1319 (daytime)
Contact: 604-582-9308 (morning and evening)
Website: http://reactor-core.org/
Puritan: Purity of faith, Purity of doctrine
Puritan: Sola Scriptura, Tota Scriptura


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Re: Questions for candidates: as spokesperson of Debian Project

[Jonathan Walther]

On Sun, Mar 06, 2005 at 05:48:20PM +0900, Kenshi Muto wrote:
Questions:
* Do you think DPL has spokesperson's job?
Absolutely! Every Debian Developer acts as a representative of Debian,
but the DPL is first among equals, so to speak.  My skills at writing,
public speaking, and listening to others are big asset in being a
spokesperson.
* What do you think about Debian Project acts for political/legal theme
with other projects such as FSF, EFF and so on? (Although we've already
done sometimes.)
Debian has its own goals.  Often we cooperate with the FSF and EFF
because we have many shared interests.  But at the end of the day, we
are making a distribution.  Many of our members help out other
organizations, like the FSF, and EFF, on their own.  Debian doesn't have
the resources to focus on anything other than making the best GNU/Linux
distribution on the planet.
* If foreign people asks you speech or discussion, can you make a time
to trip even if the place is too far from your home?
Sure, as long as I had help with travel expenses.
Those were good questions; thanks for asking them.  Hope to hear more
from you in the future.
Jonathan
--
 It's not true unless it makes you laugh,   
but you don't understand it until it makes you weep.

Eukleia: Jonathan Walther
Address: 12706 99 Ave, Surrey, BC V3V2P8 (Canada)
Contact: 604-684-1319 (daytime)
Contact: 604-582-9308 (morning and evening)
Website: http://reactor-core.org/
Puritan: Purity of faith, Purity of doctrine
Puritan: Sola Scriptura, Tota Scriptura


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Re: Questions for candidates: as spokesperson of Debian Project

[Thomas Bushnell BSG]

Jonathan Walther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> On Sun, Mar 06, 2005 at 05:48:20PM +0900, Kenshi Muto wrote:
> >Questions:
> >* Do you think DPL has spokesperson's job?
> 
> Absolutely! Every Debian Developer acts as a representative of Debian,
> but the DPL is first among equals, so to speak.  My skills at writing,
> public speaking, and listening to others are big asset in being a
> spokesperson.

Many people were upset when you had a domain registered using your
debian.org address which contained content that some felt was
questionable and did not want associated with Debian.  At the time, I
believe you felt that they massively misunderstood the nature of your
site and your intentions, but you did not at once agree to change the
domain registration, though you later did.

As Project Leader, the possibility for such misunderstandings becomes
all the more important, and all the more likely.  It is very important
that people hostile to the project not acquire ammunition by casting
aspersions at the Project Leader's other activities.  This means that
despite an individual's insistence that *this* is Debian, and *that*
is unrelated, people can and will link the two, especially if it gives
them ammunition against the Project.  There are hostile and malicious
people out there.

Do you believe that the Project Leader has an obligation to avoid
extremely controversial and potentially inflammatory outside
activities which might bring disrepute on the Project?  If so, would
you distance yourself more clearly from the content on your web site?

Thomas


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Re: Questions for candidates: as spokesperson of Debian Project

[Kenshi Muto]

I forgot a bit.
I've already subscribed debian-vote ML. Please don't add my address to
To:/Cc: line :-)

Thanks,
-- 
Kenshi Muto
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Re: ftpmasters' job and the DPL

[Eduard Bloch]

#include 
* Sven Luther [Sat, Mar 05 2005, 08:32:57PM]:

> > I think we could do a better job of documenting the best ways of 
> > packaging things. I don't think anything beyond ignorance of what the 
> > best way actually is is stopping anyone from implementing really new 
> > things though.
> 
> I believe that fear of being stuck in NEW for an indetermined amount of time
> certainly stops from trying out new ways of packaging.

Exactly. That was one of the things that has thrown Mono packaging
development weeks/months back (guessing, no numbers).

But, you know, everything that is not exactly what ftp-masters like is
"hostile" :(

Regards,
Eduard.
-- 
 gibt schlimmeres
 z.B. schlafmangel
 gottseidank kann man da dagegen was tun
 kaffee?
 schlafen


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Re: Questions for candidates: as spokesperson of Debian Project

[Sanghyeon Seo]

On Sun, 6 Mar 2005 02:05:16 -0800, Jonathan Walther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> (snip) Debian doesn't have
> the resources to focus on anything other than making the best GNU/Linux
> distribution on the planet.

Therefore, Hurd and/or BSD porters should be damned?
Sorry, couldn't resist.


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Re: Questions to candidates: what is source?

[Andrew Suffield]

On Sun, Mar 06, 2005 at 12:44:44AM +0100, Joachim Breitner wrote:
> Am Samstag, den 05.03.2005, 23:11 + schrieb Andrew Suffield:
> > On Sat, Mar 05, 2005 at 03:30:14PM +, Henning Makholm wrote:
> > > Indeed, I would be reluctant to vote for any candiate who would commit
> > > to twenty-four definite answers as part of his campaign, no matter
> > > what the answers were.
> > 
> > Or, for that matter, one who couldn't spot the fairly big hole in the
> > questions and just blindly answered them.
> 
> Would you be so kind to fill this hole with the appropriate question, so
> that the candidates can answer it? I'm curious.

There isn't really a good way to answer your question here, and anyway
I'm more curious to see how the candidates respond *without* my
spelling it out for them.

-- 
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 : :' :  http://www.debian.org/ |
 `. `'  |
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Re: Question for candidate Towns [Was, Re: DPL election IRC Debate - Call for questions]

[Matthew Garrett]

Anthony Towns  wrote:
> Matthew Garrett wrote:

>> Complaints about NEW can roughly be split into three catagories:
>> 1) It takes too long
>> 2) It isn't happening
> 
> These are the same issue: it's a queue, packages uploaded now will be 
> processed when NEW starts getting processed regularly again.

One is a special case of the other. Even while NEW is being processed,
there are occasional complaints that it takes too long.
 
>> This is (at least partly) a communication problem. When NEW processing
>> appeared to stall recently, most of the complaints I heard weren't that
>> it had stopped, but that nobody knew /why/ it had stopped.
> 
> I think the "communication issues" are just a stand in for complaints of 
> the underlying cause. If they weren't, I think the new.html page should 
> be more of a solution -- to the point where people would be bringing it 
> up and saying "Hey, there's this new page that gives you some idea of 
> where you are in the queue! How cool!!!". There are two other bits of 
> information people could ask for: "Why aren't individual ftpmasters 
> spending time on Debian?", which I don't really think is anyone's 
> business, and far more reasonably "Well, when will they be processed?". 
> But the latter doesn't even have a known answer; and somehow I expect 
> the response to "We don't know." would be "Well, you should! This is 
> utterly unacceptable" not "Thankyou for communicating with us."

But currently people have no idea what the underlying cause /is/, which
is certainly a communications issue. I think this brings up another
question - to what extent should teams be expected to deal with problems
internally, and at what point should the project start thinking about
overriding them if they aren't seen to be working adequately? We have a
procedure for dealing with maintainers who don't look after their
packages, but nothing similar for people with other responsibilities.

(I'm not suggesting that the ftp-masters are doing their job
inadequately here, just that at the moment it's hard to make that
judgement - NEW may be slow because of real concerns, or because
everyone capable of processing it is currently engaged in a drug-fuelled
orgy of depravity. I know enough of you well enough that I assume the
first, but without more communication it's not surprising that people
will occasionally think that the second may be closer to the truth)

>> 3) My package has been sitting in the queue for ages and other packages
>> have been processed
>> This is a communication problem. 
> 
> No, this is a policy problem. Communication is easy: hit "M" for manual 
> reject, write a note, and it's all done. Or hit "P" for prod to write a 
> note to the maintainer with the possibility of accepting the package 
> anyway, or leaving it in the queue for later reconsideration. The issue 
> for packages like mplayer and hot-babe is that it's not clear that they 
> can be accepted, but it's also not clear that they should be rejected. 
> And until one or the other becomes clear, they're left in the queue.

Sure. These are difficult cases, but even flagging them as "These
packages will not be accepted until there is clear consensus that they
should be" would be an improvement over them appearing ignored.

> I actually think that's a good result: far better to keep track of the 
> problematic packages, than to just REJECT them with a reason like 
> "doesn't seem like a good idea" and have them randomly reuploaded later. 
>   It also seems like a better idea to let packages that don't seem like 
> a good idea sit in the queue, rather than get uploaded and distributed 
> around the world.

I'm certainly not suggesting that they be rejected out of hand, and
accepting them isn't the correct decision either. Currently, though,
it's impossible to tell the difference between "This package is awkward"
and "This package is being ignored". Making the distinction explicit
causes little harm.

-- 
Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED]


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Re: debian-women obscurity, was: Clarification about krooger's platform

[MJ Ray]

Steve McIntyre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> MJ Ray wrote:
> >Erinn Clark <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >> Because you refuse to subscribe to our list or read DWN for ideological
> >> reasons.
> >I think you'll find many DDs aren't subscribed to your list or reading DWN.
> *yawn* And they're also not the ones complaining about lack of
> communications. Are you being *deliberately* obtuse?

This thread *started* with debian-women contributors complaining about
lack of communication. Are you being deliberately forgetful? See
http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2005/03/msg00014.html

I heard a rumour that krooger did not consult because he is
banned from their IRC and mailing list. I checked the IRC because
I know how to do that and the banlist shows
*** #debian-women [EMAIL PROTECTED] sagan.freenode.net 1109973537
which is a host that krooger recently posted from. I can't find the
host sagan.freenode.net to get the real setter and timestamp. I think
he should have tried harder, but debian-women might have deliberately
cut communications with krooger (for good reasons) which makes
the "clarification" even more OTT.

How long do debian bans last? I checked the Developers
Reference and list code of conduct and the only sanction I
noticed is for advertising. Is there general advice about this?

One thing that worries me is that this is almost an incentive
for sock puppets, to leave the baggage of past mistakes behind
and present oneself as shiny new each time. If krooger was more
devious, we would never have known who he was. At least we have
some idea what he stands for beyond his platform.

-- 
MJR/slef


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Re: Questions to candidates: what is source?

[Matthew Garrett]

Seo Sanghyeon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> 1. How do you define "source code" yourself?

I believe that source code is anything that allows us to learn how the
software works and modify it to function in different ways. In almost
all cases, the GPL's "preferred form for modification" will be source
code - I think there are cases where something other than the preferred
form for modification can also be considered source.

> 2. I think that people have different ideas of what "source code" means.
>Do you agree? Are there significant disagreements regarding this
>issue within the Debian Project?

There are plainly people who disagree over this issue. I don't know
whether this disagreement is significant.

> 3. (If you answered "yes" to 2) Is that a problem?

It's not a problem in itself that people hold different opinions, but it
sometimes makes it harder for us to work with the rest of the free
software community and it certainly wastes time in argument that could
be better spent.

> 4. (If you answered "yes" to 3) Is it necessary to amend DFSG?

That depends on how much disagreement there is. At the moment, I have no
good feeling for how strongly people feel about the definition of source
code.

> 5. (If you answered "yes" to 4) How it should be amended?

I'm not quite sure what you mean here, but the constitution only allows
one mechanism for changing the DFSG. If you're talking about "What
changes should be made", then I don't know - that depends on what the
majority of people believe.

> 6. Which of the following satisfies DFSG #2? What is the general
>principle? Or should it be case-by-case?

I'm not going to get into a case-by-case discussion, because I don't
believe it to be interesting or relevant. The DPL's opinion in this
matter should carry no more weight than any other developer's. The DPL's
involvement should be to note that there is a lack of consensus over the
issue and work to rectify that, not to argue a specific side of the
debate.

-- 
Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED]


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Re: OT: Re: debian-women obscurity, was: Clarification about krooger's platform

[MJ Ray]

Thomas Bushnell BSG <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> No.  Some restrictions on topic are reasonable, some are not.
[...]
> Maybe you should ask for debian-misogynists or something.

I am not a misogynist. I believe sexism cannot cure sexism and I
consider the current setup of debian-women sexist beyond that which
is reasonable for debian to support. You are free to disagree, but
your attempts to misrepresent my beliefs will be refuted.

-- 
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
Subscribed to this list. No need to Cc, thanks.


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Questions for all candidates re: interpersonal behavior

[Clint Adams]

Assume the demarcated hypothetical scenario to be true for the questions
which follow.

===BEGIN ALLEGORY===
I spend the next several hours sending Andrew Suffield chain letters
that say "if you don't fix tla by Thursday, your liver will transform
into mascarpone."  I send these emails without making use of Debian
infrastructure, so as to not violate the DMUP.  Andrew buries his face
in a pillow and cries until Saturday, at which point he realizes that
his liver is normal.  Fuming with rage, he then declares to his
favorite stuffed animal that, henceforth, he will ignore any bug I file.
Furthermore, he will ignore any bug that anyone else files on tla, and
will refuse to do any work on tla.  He does not announce this publicly,
but his stuffed animal leaks this information to a select few other
developers, and the rumor makes its way to the DPL.  When others offer
to NMU tla, he informs them that it is his package and they must keep
their grubby little paws away from it.
===END ALLEGORY===

Is any of this Debian's business?  If so, which parts?  What is the role
of the DPL in such a situation?

How would the answers to the previous three questions be different if
either Andrew or I were a DPL delegate or an NM applicant?

Should there be rules codified to address any of the actions in the
aforementioned scenario?  Should there be rules codified to address any
interpersonal behavior not mentioned in said scenario?


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Re: Red-tops, was: Clarification about krooger's platform

[Marcelo E. Magallon]

Hi,

 reading some of the replies MJ[0]'s post has received, I feel it's
 necessary to express my opinion on some of the points.  I wasn't going
 to at first in order to keep the noise down, but IMO some views and
 opinions expressed by DPL candidates have turned noise into signal.

On Fri, Mar 04, 2005 at 01:26:20AM +, MJ Ray wrote:

 > * Neither feels that the groups it reports on are their main
 >   audience.

 This might be a style issue or a perception issue, but I concur,
 nowadays I don't get the feeling that DWN is written _for_ developers
 even if most of topics deal with them.

 This has certainly changed over time and I don't recall it being always
 like this.  *My* recollection is that DWN started as a sort of "digest"
 which would allow concerned parties to notice a discussion that could
 otherwise have gone unnoticed.

 It's certainly entertaining reading sometimes.

 > * Any item included in either has to be sexy enough to match
 >   the red top and that means accuracy sometimes gets left out.
 > 
 > * They are not afraid to pull cunning stunts like reporting
 >   statements single-sourced from fairly new contributors as if
 >   it's a consensus view of a group, or "inflating" articles with
 >   inaccurate or irrelevant spin.

 This is my major gripe with DWN nowadays: it's not uncommon that it
 manages to find consensus where there's none!  "Uh?  We agreed on
 _that_?  Really?"

 Sometimes after having read a discussion through the week and then
 reading the digest that shows up in DWN I get the feeling that I was
 reading a different discussion.  It's the editor's prerogative, yes,
 but this feeling is much stronger with DWN than with, say, Kernel
 Traffic, perhaps only due to the fact that KT provides much more
 detailed views on a topic.

 > * They have friends who get puffed regularly, but "good news"
 >   stories about groups on the blacklist can get ignored and/or
 >   stuffed at the bottom of the issue.

 I wouldn't go as far as suspecting malice -- particularly after reading
 Martin's summary on how DWN gets out the door, but yes, it does
 sometimes read like that, too.

 > * The editors take the traditional approach of completely ignoring
 >   most criticism and either accusing the complainer or trying to
 >   game them in the broken system. There is no recommended route
 >   to seek clarification or retraction and those misrepresented
 >   or injured just have to punt.

 I *suspect* that whatever gets perceived as "flamebait" won't get
 airtime (which is in general a good thing).  Problem is that is seems
 as if the epidermic tissue has gotten thinner over the years and
 therefore the level for something to be perceived as flamebait
 (opposed to genuine, and probably valid, criticism) has dropped.

 But yes, I do get the feeling of some amount bias being present.  It is
 _my_ feeling so don't bother asking me to cross-reference it for you.

 Marcelo

 [0] Yes, I'm using MJ instead of something else, contrary to what I
 asked for on this very list recently.  That _is_ his nom the plum
 and MJ uses it consistently to the point of being known as MJ in
 this community.


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Re: Questions for candidates: as spokesperson of Debian Project

[Anthony Towns]

Kenshi Muto wrote:
Questions:
* What do you think about Debian Project acts for political/legal
  theme with other projects such as FSF, EFF and so on? (Although
  we've already done sometimes.)
> * Do you think DPL has spokesperson's job?
Ideally, I think the people explaining what's going on should be the 
one's doing the work, rather than having some specific spokesperson. 
Further, the primary audience for Debian is, in my opinion, our users 
whom we can reach directly via debian-announce, debian-devel-announce, 
debian-user and our website. I think that's a more important focus than 
talking to the press; though I'd expect to have to work on improving my 
handling of both those things if elected.

As far as political/legal statements go, I like the current process of 
having interested developers prepare statements and have the DPL sign 
off on them when they're done and there's a consensus they make sense. I 
don't think there's any need for the DPL to do a lot of work here, 
beyond providing some basic coordination and motivation.

* If foreign people asks you speech or discussion, can you make a time
  to trip even if the place is too far from your home?
Yes.
Cheers,
aj
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Re: Question for candidate Towns [Was, Re: DPL election IRC Debate - Call for questions]

[Anthony Towns]

Matthew Garrett wrote:
Anthony Towns  wrote:
I think the "communication issues" are just a stand in for complaints of 
the underlying cause. If they weren't, I think the new.html page should 
be more of a solution -- 
But currently people have no idea what the underlying cause /is/, which
is certainly a communications issue.
The underlying cause for the complaints is that NEW isn't being processed.
The complaints are both that NEW isn't being processed and that there's 
no communication.

There's no particular reason NEW isn't being processed -- people are 
just busy doing other things; some of which are outside Debian, others 
of which are related to getting the release out, or whatever else. 
That's not, in my opinion, something Debian developers have any right to 
ask for -- my day planner's my business, not yours.

I think this brings up another
question - to what extent should teams be expected to deal with problems
internally, and at what point should the project start thinking about
overriding them if they aren't seen to be working adequately? We have a
procedure for dealing with maintainers who don't look after their
packages, but nothing similar for people with other responsibilities.
(I'm not suggesting that the ftp-masters are doing their job
inadequately here,
See, that's the thing, you _are_. You can tell, because you had to 
explicitly refute the idea; it's the same as being able to tell you're 
being offensive when you feel the need to say "no offense intended". And 
sometime's that's necessary; but it's happening _continually_, which is 
just tiresome and demotivating.

And remember, demotivation leads to indifference, indifference leads to 
inactivity, inactivity leads bugs, and bugs lead to suff-er-ing.

just that at the moment it's hard to make that
judgement - NEW may be slow because of real concerns, or because
everyone capable of processing it is currently engaged in a drug-fuelled
orgy of depravity.
The sentence "I'm not suggesting that the ftp-masters are engaged in a 
drug-fuelled orgy of depravity" seems conspicuous in its absence...

(Although, given James T. was out partying all last night with Steve L., 
maybe that's not so unreasonable...)

I know enough of you well enough that I assume the
first, but without more communication it's not surprising that people
will occasionally think that the second may be closer to the truth)
TTBOMK, there are no greater concerns with the packages in NEW now than 
there were, say, four months ago. Each of the ftpmasters have just had 
higher priorities, within or outside of Debian, than processing the queue.

3) My package has been sitting in the queue for ages and other packages
have been processed
This is a communication problem. 
No, this is a policy problem. Communication is easy: hit "M" for manual 
reject, write a note, and it's all done. Or hit "P" for prod to write a 
note to the maintainer with the possibility of accepting the package 
anyway, or leaving it in the queue for later reconsideration. The issue 
for packages like mplayer and hot-babe is that it's not clear that they 
can be accepted, but it's also not clear that they should be rejected. 
And until one or the other becomes clear, they're left in the queue.
Sure. These are difficult cases, but even flagging them as "These
packages will not be accepted until there is clear consensus that they
should be" would be an improvement over them appearing ignored.
Not really -- the question then becomes "How do you get that 
consensus?", and that's hard -- if it weren't we'd have already replied 
"REJECT: Your package has these problems, please fix them." The 
question's then immediately, "How do we deal with the followup 
question?" and there's no real answer to that.

There was a similar issue with the crypto-in-main question -- when the 
crypto regs changed, we spent ages wanting to integrate crypto into our 
OS, but not quite knowing how. Eventually, we got a group together to 
look seriously at the issues, and work out what really was feasible, and 
did it -- but that involved finding a specialist lawyer we respected, 
having a few iterations working out all the potential problems and how 
we'd address them, and a lot of time and effort, particularly on behalf 
of ftpmaster. And that's *with* a specific "crypto-in-main" team made up 
of non-ftpmasters.

That's time and effort that's not available now even for *standard* NEW 
processing.

It'd be possible to prioritise increased communication, but that's YA 
thing to do, leaving less time for even the things that're currently 
being done.

I'm certainly not suggesting that they be rejected out of hand, and
accepting them isn't the correct decision either. Currently, though,
it's impossible to tell the difference between "This package is awkward"
and "This package is being ignored". Making the distinction explicit
causes little harm.
There are various scales of "awkward", ranging from "we might get sued 
if we accept this, and we'v

Re: Questions to candidates: what is source?

[Joachim Breitner]

Hi,

Am Sonntag, den 06.03.2005, 15:10 + schrieb Matthew Garrett:
> > 6. Which of the following satisfies DFSG #2? What is the general
> >principle? Or should it be case-by-case?
> 
> I'm not going to get into a case-by-case discussion, because I don't
> believe it to be interesting or relevant. The DPL's opinion in this
> matter should carry no more weight than any other developer's. The
> DPL's
> involvement should be to note that there is a lack of consensus over
> the
> issue and work to rectify that, not to argue a specific side of the
> debate.

True, but isn't the point of the DPL election debate to get to know the
candidates and their opinion and then elect those whose opinion one
wants to see at the DPL position?

But then, if you think that not answering the questions is the clears
way of stating your opinion (your opinion as the DPL maybe), that is an
answer, too.

Thanks,

Joachim
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Re: Questions for all candidates re: interpersonal behavior

[Andreas Schuldei]

On Sun, Mar 06, 2005 at 01:10:27PM -0500, Clint Adams wrote:
> Assume the demarcated hypothetical scenario to be true for the questions
> which follow.
> 
> ===BEGIN ALLEGORY===
> [...]
> ===END ALLEGORY===

The answer to this problem is to achive reconciliation between
Andrew and you. That should be yours and Andrew's goal, but
everyone aware of the situation should try to help.

People close to either one of you are in an especially good
position to mediate. If we had the small teams and the loving
relationships (as advertised in my platform) the members of those
teams would be able to help best.


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Re: Questions for candidates: as spokesperson of Debian Project

[Andreas Schuldei]

On Sun, Mar 06, 2005 at 05:48:20PM +0900, Kenshi Muto wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> As far as I read threads, they are mainly focused Project inside.
> Yes, they are important issue, but I think one of DPL's work is
> a representation to the world as spokesperson.

This is true and it is an other great application for the DPL
team: Bdale has a unique position to communicate with buissness
people, Enrico can talk to NP people better then most others,
Branden speaks fluent english legalese, if necessary. I myself
would be able to connect well to a broad variety of differnt
people, too.

> Questions:
> * Do you think DPL has spokesperson's job?

Yes, but primary he is the Debian Project Leader, not the Debian
Press Contact.

> * What do you think about Debian Project acts for political/legal
>   theme with other projects such as FSF, EFF and so on? (Although
>   we've already done sometimes.)

I can not parse this. could you rephrase this?

> * If foreign people asks you speech or discussion, can you make a time
>   to trip even if the place is too far from your home?

Even without beeing DPL i traveled ten(?) times (partly to other
continents) during the last year on debian buissness to
conferences and gatherings. I gave talks on a variety of subjects
and before different audiences and am good at it.


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Re: debian-women obscurity, was: Clarification about krooger's platform

[Thomas Bushnell BSG]

MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> I heard a rumour that krooger did not consult because he is
> banned from their IRC and mailing list. 

All he had to do was mail them directly.  


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Re: OT: Re: debian-women obscurity, was: Clarification about krooger's platform

[Thomas Bushnell BSG]

MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Thomas Bushnell BSG <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > No.  Some restrictions on topic are reasonable, some are not.
> [...]
> > Maybe you should ask for debian-misogynists or something.
> 
> I am not a misogynist. I believe sexism cannot cure sexism and I
> consider the current setup of debian-women sexist beyond that which
> is reasonable for debian to support. You are free to disagree, but
> your attempts to misrepresent my beliefs will be refuted.

You haven't said anything sexist about it, except that it has a clear
purpose.  You sound like a good-old misogynistic curmudgeon.  You have
certainly never given any indication that you are actually trying to
improve the position of women in Debian; all you have done is snipe at
those who have identified the problem and are trying to address it.

Jonathan Walter's platform is a symptom of the problem: rather than
ask women what might address the problems that women confront, he has
announced who he would appoint, even assuming that Gloria Steinem
cares beans about Debian, without actually talking to the people
concerned.  This is not the inclusion of women; it is the presumption
to attempt to speak for them.  It shows to me that he has no intention
of taking women seriously, because even in platform which announced
that pretended intention, he demostrated that he is not willing to
treat them as equals and consult with them.

Thomas
 


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Re: Questions to candidates: what is source?

[Andreas Schuldei]

On Sat, Mar 05, 2005 at 10:49:26PM +0900, Seo Sanghyeon wrote:
> The Debian Free Software Guidelines states that "The program must
> include source code".

[...]

Your questions point out an interesting legal area which is still
under discussion in large parts of the FOSS world. An common
agreement has not been found and no judicial decree has been
reached in court yet (as far as I know).

Even within Debian there are different camps arguing passional
about it. My job as Debian Project Leader would not be to answer
those questions "ex cathedra" but to get the camps to engage in a
constructive debate where the goal would be to find common ground
and consensus instead of winning an argument. This might best be
started in real life, at e.g. DebConf5. Even without being DPL I
plan to organize a public debate involving interested and
competent people and would like to invite especially Matthew
Garrett and Branden Robinson to participate. (This has has
already been mentioned on IRC some time ago.)


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Re: Questions to candidates: what is source?

[Jonathan Walther]

On Sat, Mar 05, 2005 at 10:49:26PM +0900, Seo Sanghyeon wrote:
1. How do you define "source code" yourself?
Like pornography, I know "source code" when I see it.  There may be some
edge cases where not everyone agrees what constitutes source code, but
porn is like that too.  Where do you draw the line between a tasteful
nude and exploitive smut?
2. I think that people have different ideas of what "source code"
means.  Do you agree? Are there significant disagreements regarding
this issue within the Debian Project?
I haven't seen any major disagreements.
6. Which of the following satisfies DFSG #2? What is the general
  principle? Or should it be case-by-case?
You've opened a can of worms with your extremely thorough and excellent
list. :-)  I think it is better left for the community to decide.  I've
noticed the tendency over time is toward greater freedom and openness,
and I think that is a good thing.
* ELF binary without C source
* Java class file without Java source
  (This is reasonably decompilable: cf. jad package)
* Python bytecode without Python source
  (This is easily decompilable: cf. decompyle package)
* Binary firmware data
* configure script without configure.in
* C source generated by Bison without .y source
* In general, automatically generated source without good way to
  regenerate
  (But generated file may include every line of original source,
   perhaps as comments "This is generated from original line blah
   blah")
* Prebuilt HTML file without LaTeX source
  (cf. python-doc)
* Prebuilt CHM (Compiled HTML) file without source HTML
  (This can be extracted: cf. chmlib, but perhaps not indexing
   information)
* True type font made with autotracing without original bitmaps
  (cf. autotrace, potrace)
* Opening book for board games without editing tools
  (gnuchess-book and gnugo package have opening books, but these
   are in well-known PGN and SGF format, so this is a hypothetical
   question)
* Binary encoded data without source or encoding tools
  (Wordlist, thesarus, etc. cf. bug #241279)
* Automatically generated character set encoding table without
  tools originally used for generation.
  (This rarely changes, so it's possible even the upstream doesn't
   have tools anymore)
* Dump of neural network data without training data or without
  exact method to duplicate the network
* In general, statistical data gathered from large amount of samples
  (I am not sure, but I think Mozilla's "Universal Charset Detection"
   uses character distribution table of East Asian languages gathered
   from large samples)
* JPEG image without higher quality image from which it was compressed
  (JPEG is lossy)
* Bitmap image merged from many layers without layer information
  (e.g. GIMP's XCF format)
* Bitmap image without corresponding vector format
  (e.g. SVG)
* MP3 compressed sound without original sound source
  (MP3 encoders patent-encumbered? Also MP3 is lossy)
* Ogg Vorbis compressed sound without original sound source
  (Ogg is lossy)
* FLAC compressed sound without original sound source
  (FLAC is not lossy)
* Offline version of documentations in Wiki or FAQ CGI script, etc.
  downloaded by, say, wget, without original Wikitext or FAQ database
  dump
* Binary image of programming environment used for bootstrapping
  purpose, but not exactly correspond to environment to be bootstrapped
  (Think Lisp, Smalltalk, etc.)
* What else?
--
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but you don't understand it until it makes you weep.

Eukleia: Jonathan Walther
Address: 12706 99 Ave, Surrey, BC V3V2P8 (Canada)
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Contact: 604-582-9308 (morning and evening)
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Re: Questions for candidates: as spokesperson of Debian Project

[Jonathan Walther]

On Sun, Mar 06, 2005 at 02:12:33AM -0800, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote:
Jonathan Walther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
On Sun, Mar 06, 2005 at 05:48:20PM +0900, Kenshi Muto wrote:
>Questions:
>* Do you think DPL has spokesperson's job?
Absolutely! Every Debian Developer acts as a representative of Debian,
but the DPL is first among equals, so to speak.  My skills at writing,
public speaking, and listening to others are big asset in being a
spokesperson.
It is very important that people hostile to the project not acquire
ammunition by casting aspersions at the Project Leader's other
activities.
Have the activities of Bomis.com harmed the growth and reputation of the
Wikipedia project?  Yet I do nothing even half as controversial.  I
merely host interesting articles on religion, science, law, history, and
health.
This means that despite an individual's insistence that *this* is
Debian, and *that* is unrelated, people can and will link the two,
especially if it gives them ammunition against the Project.  There are
hostile and malicious people out there.
People can and will link anything they want.  It is better to live a
single glorious day in the light of sol invictus dei, than a lifetime
shivering in damp caverns.  I'm not afraid to live.  Are you?
Do you believe that the Project Leader has an obligation to avoid
extremely controversial and potentially inflammatory outside activities
which might bring disrepute on the Project?
Anything can be turned into a controversy.  The real question is whether
the DPL is going about things in a manner that harms the project.  Noone
will refuse to use Debian just because some political activists try to
censor articles describing other political ideologies from their own.
Debian is about making the best distribution in the world.  Debian has
not shrunk in the past from accepting sizable donations from pornography
companies.  That is Debian's history.  Do you feel Debian's attitude of
political and moral liberty should be abandoned for a more Marxist type
of noosphere?
If so, would you distance yourself more clearly from the content on
your web site?
I see nothing to distance myself from.  I am a real person with real
beliefs.  When I say something, you can be sure that I mean what I say.
I am not involved in pornography, gambling, or anything else that is
illegal.
You don't have to worry that I am a slippery politician making promises
one day and going back on them tomorrow.  I am real.  I am here.  And I
am ready to talk to you about what you need, and how I can help you
achieve the goals you desire.
Thanks for expressing your concerns.  Feel free to email me anytime.
Jonathan
--
 It's not true unless it makes you laugh,   
but you don't understand it until it makes you weep.

Eukleia: Jonathan Walther
Address: 12706 99 Ave, Surrey, BC V3V2P8 (Canada)
Contact: 604-684-1319 (daytime)
Contact: 604-582-9308 (morning and evening)
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Re: Questions for all candidates re: interpersonal behavior

[Anthony Towns]

Clint Adams wrote:
Assume the demarcated hypothetical scenario to be true for the questions
which follow.
===BEGIN ALLEGORY===
I spend the next several hours sending Andrew Suffield chain letters
that say "if you don't fix tla by Thursday, your liver will transform
into mascarpone."  I send these emails without making use of Debian
infrastructure, so as to not violate the DMUP.
At this point, hypothetical you should grow up, and the DAMs should 
perhaps reconsider whether you can work with the rest of the project.

Andrew buries his face
in a pillow and cries until Saturday, at which point he realizes that
his liver is normal.
And hypothetical Andrew should be less crazy.
Fuming with rage, he then declares to his
favorite stuffed animal that, henceforth, he will ignore any bug I file.
Furthermore, he will ignore any bug that anyone else files on tla, and
will refuse to do any work on tla.
At some point after this, the QA/MIA team should notice and take an 
interest.

He does not announce this publicly,
but his stuffed animal leaks this information to a select few other
developers, and the rumor makes its way to the DPL.
At this point you should see a psychiatrist and get some help about your 
concerns that stuffed animals might leak your secrets.

When others offer
to NMU tla, he informs them that it is his package and they must keep
their grubby little paws away from it.
As long as you don't screw the package up or make gratuitious changes or 
otherwise do stupid things that violate the NMU policy, it doesn't much 
matter what the maintainer says, NMU's are okay.

Is any of this Debian's business?  If so, which parts?  What is the role
of the DPL in such a situation?
If hypothetical you and hypothetical Andrew can't work together, you 
need to be separated; if hypothetical you or hypothetical someone else 
is abusing a maintainer for their work on their package, that's 
inappropriate, and should be recognised as such by everyone. In most 
cases, I think people like hypothetical Andrew can deal with idiotic 
flames such as hypothetical you hypothetically will have made, given 
public support. Ideally, I think your whole scenario should stop at that 
point.

The real issue is finding a way of improving Debian that doesn't involve 
 suggesting that people are being incompetent, immoral or lazy, and 
removing the incentive for hypothetical you to have started this whole 
hypothetical thing.

Hypothetically yours,
aj

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Re: Questions to candidates: what is source?

[Anthony Towns]

Seo Sanghyeon wrote:
The Debian Free Software Guidelines states that "The program must
include source code".
1. How do you define "source code" yourself?
It means different things in different contexts; for Debian's purposes 
it means the stuff you need to modify then compile to produce the stuff 
you actually want to use.

The most significant drawback of any disagreement over what's source 
code is people spending more time arguing over what source code is, 
rather than creating more of it. My understanding is that most of the 
project is able to tell when the source code available is sufficient, 
and I'm confident in the appropriate delegates' (ftpmaster for 
acceptance into the archive and RM for what's release critical and not) 
judgement on this issue. It'd be pretty weird if I wasn't, I guess. :)

Cheers,
aj
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Re: OT: Re: debian-women obscurity, was: Clarification about krooger's platform

[MJ Ray]

Thomas Bushnell BSG <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> You haven't said anything sexist about it, except that it has a clear
> purpose.

I have, IMO. I consider discrimination on the basis of sex to be sexism.
I've also described an incident of unchallenged racism on the
debian-women list. While I believe the particular incident to have
been dealt with, I don't think the setup has been changed to avoid
future problems yet.

> You sound like a good-old misogynistic curmudgeon.

You sound like a habitual contradictor. Aren't we good together?

> You have
> certainly never given any indication that you are actually trying to
> improve the position of women in Debian; all you have done is snipe at
> those who have identified the problem and are trying to address it.
[...]

I have obvious problems doing that independently and I'm unwilling
to join an group which discriminates against my heritage. I have
suggested some improvements before, but I feel some are willing to
paint any critics as like dangerous counter-revolutionaries,
no matter what their view.  Ulimately, I rank other barriers
ahead of debian-women in urgency given my capabilties.

I don't disagree much with your description of Jonathan Walther's
actions, except that I see the task group report as a way of
asking about the problems. He should have tried harder to ask
the appointees, of course.

-- 
MJR/slef


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Re: Questions for all candidates re: interpersonal behavior

[Matthew Garrett]

Clint Adams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Assume the demarcated hypothetical scenario to be true for the questions
> which follow.

I've pretty much ignored your scenario, and given some general answers
instead - I think the problem is general enough that a specific example
isn't really needed.

> Is any of this Debian's business?  If so, which parts?  What is the role
> of the DPL in such a situation?

If it's the case that a maintainer is unwilling to fix bugs and also
unwilling to accept NMUs, then it's Debian's business. The constitution
allows the technical committee to overrule developers for this sort of
reason, though it's obviously less than desirable to have to resort to
that. If all other mediation attempts have failed, then it seems
reasonable to ask the DPL (or a delegate thereof) to discuss the matter
with everyone involved.

It's not Debian's business whether two people like each other or not, up
until the point where that relationship results in a decrease in the
quality of the distribution.

> How would the answers to the previous three questions be different if
> either Andrew or I were a DPL delegate or an NM applicant?

They wouldn't be.

> Should there be rules codified to address any of the actions in the
> aforementioned scenario?  Should there be rules codified to address any
> interpersonal behavior not mentioned in said scenario?

I think we have all the necessary codification to be able to deal with
the situation as is. The reasons we don't see it happen often are mostly
social - people don't really want to take each other to the technical
committee, and it's sometimes viewed as acceptable to refuse NMUs even
if you're failing to look after a package. I think the social change is
more important, and I think that's something that can happen without
needing to produce new rules.

-- 
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Re: OT: Re: debian-women obscurity, was: Clarification about krooger's platform

[Ben Burton]

> > You haven't said anything sexist about it, except that it has a clear
> > purpose.
> 
> I have, IMO. I consider discrimination on the basis of sex to be sexism.

i.e., you favour the law of the jungle.  Which, may I say, has a fine
history of maintaining artificial imbalances caused by past injustices.

b.


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Re: Questions for candidates: as spokesperson of Debian Project

[Kenshi Muto]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Hi Andreas,

At Sun, 6 Mar 2005 22:11:19 +0100,
Andreas Schuldei wrote:
> > * What do you think about Debian Project acts for political/legal
> >   theme with other projects such as FSF, EFF and so on? (Although
> >   we've already done sometimes.)
> 
> I can not parse this. could you rephrase this?

Oops, sorry.
Answers from Jonathan and Anthony are just I expected (thanks, aj and
krooger).

I intended to know
* Should we act against political/legal problems as Project?
* Will we collaborate with other groups for political/legal issue?
* Should DPL lead us on political/legal action? (announce, speech,
  demonstration march, post article, and so on)

Thanks,
- -- 
Kenshi Muto
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.5.8 

iEYEARECAAYFAkIrnsUACgkQQKW+7XLQPLEpOACg1771NO++36ynAL5FFFpd5kb+
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Re: OT: Re: debian-women obscurity, was: Clarification about krooger's platform

[MJ Ray]

Ben Burton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > I have, IMO. I consider discrimination on the basis of sex to be sexism.
> i.e., you favour the law of the jungle.  Which, may I say, has a fine
> history of maintaining artificial imbalances caused by past injustices.

No, I favour stopping discrimination and acting to correct its
effect (without further discrimination). Your long jump from that
to "you favour the law of the jungle" is as logical as claiming
I like pasta because the sky is blue. Do not invent my views.

Arguing in favour of so-called "positive discrimination" is just
another case of ignoring present crimes by past-persecuted people.
We have to learn from the past and overcome mistakes, not relive it
with everyone swapping places each iteration in a vicious circle.


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Re: OT: Re: debian-women obscurity, was: Clarification about krooger's platform

[Matthew Palmer]

On Mon, Mar 07, 2005 at 02:09:26AM +, MJ Ray wrote:
> Ben Burton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > I have, IMO. I consider discrimination on the basis of sex to be sexism.
> > i.e., you favour the law of the jungle.  Which, may I say, has a fine
> > history of maintaining artificial imbalances caused by past injustices.
> 
> No, I favour stopping discrimination and acting to correct its
> effect (without further discrimination). Your long jump from that
> to "you favour the law of the jungle" is as logical as claiming
> I like pasta because the sky is blue. Do not invent my views.
> 
> Arguing in favour of so-called "positive discrimination" is just
> another case of ignoring present crimes by past-persecuted people.
> We have to learn from the past and overcome mistakes, not relive it
> with everyone swapping places each iteration in a vicious circle.

An overly damped system is just as useless as an underdamped one.

- Matt


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Re: OT: Re: debian-women obscurity, was: Clarification about krooger's platform

[MJ Ray]

Matthew Palmer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 07, 2005 at 02:09:26AM +, MJ Ray wrote:
> > Arguing in favour of so-called "positive discrimination" is just
> > another case of ignoring present crimes by past-persecuted people.
> > We have to learn from the past and overcome mistakes, not relive it
> > with everyone swapping places each iteration in a vicious circle.
> An overly damped system is just as useless as an underdamped one.

This might be a good analogy. We're trying to reach a known
equilibrium, but we don't know how much damping is required. If
I remember my physics, it can be fiddly to get exactly right
damping and our measuring sucks on this anyway. I don't think we
can measure damping well enough to aim for critical damping.

If we apply too little, then we never reach balance, but
the sum over all time can be zero repeatedly, yet only for
an instant each time.  If we apply too much, then we tend to
balance/zero more quickly but the sum is non-zero.  Which side
you err depends whether you prioritise balancing in the future
or cancelling out the past. I favour balance.


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Re: Question for candidate Lees

[Angus Lees]

At Fri, 4 Mar 2005 01:44:32 -0800, Steve Langasek wrote:
> First, I know that you didn't get a platform to Manoj before his deadline,
> and that he has not been in a position to post web updates since then.  Do
> you have a platform that you could post to the list to tell us about
> yourself as a candidate?

Yes, that deadline arrived a little too quickly for me unfortunately.
I'm putting together a platform document that I hope to get to Manoj
(and post here) in the next few days.

> Second, in talking with your fellow local developers, it seems that they
> think very highly of you.  Unfortunately -- and quite surprisingly to me in
> someone standing for the position of DPL -- you don't seem to be very well
> known by the rest of the project.  You seem to be an infrequent poster to
> Debian lists, and do not hold any delegate positions according to
> .
> 
> I imagine you've already considered that not being well known may hurt your
> chances in an election; but I wanted to ask you why you think that
> developers *should* vote for a DPL candidate who doesn't appear to have
> distinguished himself in the project.  Why should we want you to lead us,
> rather than wanting you to just continue to maintain your packages (which
> you seem to do a very good job of)?

This is absolutely the primary hurdle to my being elected.

I address this in some length in my (in progress) platform, but it
basically boils down to: I believe I am the most suitable person for
the job, in some part *because* of my independence from any previous
issues.  I have the skills actually required for being DPL, I just
lack familiarity.

To expand a little, I see the relevant qualities being public speaking
ability, experience being a Debian Developer and the right personality
for dealing with people inside and outside the project.

-- 
 - Gus


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Re: control systems theory and sociology [was: debian-women obscurity]

[Matthew Palmer]

[Just when you think all hope in a thread is lost, along comes a post with
Clue]

On Mon, Mar 07, 2005 at 03:10:37AM +, MJ Ray wrote:
> Matthew Palmer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > On Mon, Mar 07, 2005 at 02:09:26AM +, MJ Ray wrote:
> > > Arguing in favour of so-called "positive discrimination" is just
> > > another case of ignoring present crimes by past-persecuted people.
> > > We have to learn from the past and overcome mistakes, not relive it
> > > with everyone swapping places each iteration in a vicious circle.
> > An overly damped system is just as useless as an underdamped one.
> 
> This might be a good analogy.

I thought so too.

> We're trying to reach a known equilibrium, but we don't know how much
> damping is required. If I remember my physics, it can be fiddly to get
> exactly right damping and our measuring sucks on this anyway. I don't
> think we can measure damping well enough to aim for critical damping.

Knowing all of the parameters of the system and the desired system
characteristics, you can apply an appropriate amount of feedback (whoops, my
EE background just slipped out) to produce the correct damping ratio.  The
correct feedback to apply depends on what you want to achieve -- quickest to
reach zero, no overshoot, etc.

> If we apply too little, then we never reach balance, but
> the sum over all time can be zero repeatedly, yet only for
> an instant each time.  If we apply too much, then we tend to
> balance/zero more quickly but the sum is non-zero.

Too much damping means that you won't overshoot, but you'll take longer to
reach the zero point, which isn't so good for the people depending on
reaching equality.

> Which side you err depends whether you prioritise balancing in the future
> or cancelling out the past. I favour balance.

Understandable, since you (and I, for that matter) have a lot to lose should
there be overshoot.

- Matt


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Re: Question for candidate Towns

[Henning Makholm]

Scripsit Anthony Towns 
> Matthew Garrett wrote:

>> (I'm not suggesting that the ftp-masters are doing their job
>> inadequately here,

> See, that's the thing, you _are_. You can tell, because you had to
> explicitly refute the idea; it's the same as being able to tell you're
> being offensive when you feel the need to say "no offense
> intended".

No. He had to explicitly refute the idea because you're famous for
consistently interpreting *any* suggestion that something in our
organisation might not work optimally and needs improvement as if it
was a personal attack on whomever is currently responsible for that
particular something.

> And sometime's that's necessary; but it's happening
> _continually_, which is just tiresome and demotivating.

What's extremely demotivating is your continued insistence that
everybody who want to improve something is attacking the people who
are involved in the something that could be improved.

As in: The first step in improving something is to find out more about
what the problem is. The way to learn about what the problem is is to
ask on an appropriate mailing list. Whenever one asks what the problem
is, Anthony Towns will immediately reinterpret the question as "being
offense" and an accusation that the problem is that the current
delegates are not doing their job properly. This instantly turns the
initial problem-solving attempt into an unproductive flamewar.

This is probably going to happen no matter who we elect for DPL, but I
cannot begin to imagine the chilling effect it would have if Anthony
Towns were also the DPL, who in his campaign have asserted that "being
offensive" should lead the one asking the question to be "suspended,
banned, or removed from the project entirely".
[http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2005/03/msg00075.html]

-- 
Henning Makholm  "I Guds Faders namn, och Sonens, och den Helige
   Andes! Bevara oss från djävulens verk och från Muhammeds,
den förbannades, illfundigheter! Med dig är det värre än med
någon annan, ty att lyssna till Muhammed är det värsta av allt."