Re: To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven - questions to DPL candidates
* Steve McIntyre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2006-03-06 01:39:52]: > On Sun, Mar 05, 2006 at 11:30:26PM +, Sune Vuorela wrote: > >Hi! > > Hi Sune! > > >Just a small question: > > > >Do all of you have many spare hours in your current schedules? Or what > >part of your debian work would get lower priorities if you get elected? > > > >Or are you planning to toss out your TV, dump your girlfriend or hire a > >garden keeper ? > > I delayed announcing my intention to stand for DPL so that I could > negotiate an agreement with my current employer to free up more time > if needed. Both my alloted vacation days and unpaid leave are an > option as/when I might need to devote large chunks of time to DPL > work. After having been part of last year's team i would say that you would rather need 100 instead of 10 vacation days to cope properly. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: DPL reports [was: Re: Reflections about the questions for the candidates]
On Sun, Mar 05, 2006 at 07:59:34PM +0100, Enrico Zini wrote: > On Sun, Mar 05, 2006 at 11:05:04AM -0500, Kevin B. McCarty wrote: > > Hi Kevin. > > > I'm not sure that I understand the reasons why the efforts couldn't be > > reported, at least to debian-private. Are they one or more of the > > following, and if so, which? > > Among your categories, the ones that most apply are: > > - Not wanting to offend or cause problems for specific Debian developers > - Not wanting to discuss efforts before they were likely to come to fruition > > in some cases, however, it went as far as "we had a hard time not to > start yelling out insults ourselves, go figure if this hits -private". > > One of the big roles of the DPL seem to be to address that sort of > communication that people for some reason aren't carrying out on their > own, and that can't take place on a public (or semipublic) list because > lots of people are frustrated about the issues involved and would make a > somewhat hostile discussion environment. The non disclousure of the things happening behind the scene probably increases the frustration and sometimes leads to an even more hostile disucssion environment. I would hope that disclosing at least some parts of what the team is doing to solve "hot topics" (at least on -private) would decrease frustration and prevent some flamewars on -devel. At least saying something like "We are negotating on problem X with person A and B" should be possible. You don't have to tell everybody what the stance of the involved parties exacatly is if this would hinder further negotiations. But like this "normal" developers at least know that something is going on and that the problem will hopefully get solved sometime sooner or later. Gaudenz -- Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. ~ Samuel Beckett ~ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven - questions to DPL candidates
On Mon, Mar 06, 2006 at 09:48:55AM +0100, Andreas Schuldei wrote: >* Steve McIntyre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2006-03-06 01:39:52]: > >> On Sun, Mar 05, 2006 at 11:30:26PM +, Sune Vuorela wrote: >> >Hi! >> >> Hi Sune! >> >> >Just a small question: >> > >> >Do all of you have many spare hours in your current schedules? Or what >> >part of your debian work would get lower priorities if you get elected? >> > >> >Or are you planning to toss out your TV, dump your girlfriend or hire a >> >garden keeper ? >> >> I delayed announcing my intention to stand for DPL so that I could >> negotiate an agreement with my current employer to free up more time >> if needed. Both my alloted vacation days and unpaid leave are an >> option as/when I might need to devote large chunks of time to DPL >> work. > >After having been part of last year's team i would say that you >would rather need 100 instead of 10 vacation days to cope >properly. I have ~20 days of vacation available, and potentially many more extra days of unpaid leave; that's what has been allowed for on top of my "spare" time. -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.[EMAIL PROTECTED] "Because heaters aren't purple!" -- Catherine Pitt signature.asc Description: Digital signature
For Andreas: how can you work full-time for DPL
Hello, those questions are for Andreas only: twice in your platform you say "I can work full-time as DPL". Why can you make that claim ? If you any have any special arrangements to have free time for Debian, is that conditioned to your election or will you benefit from those even if you're not elected ? 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: Code of conduct, question to all candidates
On Fri, Mar 03, 2006 at 10:20:59PM +0200, Lars Wirzenius wrote: > >What do you think of a code of conduct? What in your opinion would be a >lower limit on acceptable behavior? Do you think that strict rules would >be better than general guidelines? Who should be the judge if a >particular case follows the code of conduct or not? Would the code be a >good thing, or would it necessarily be a threat to freedom of speech, >and stifle innovation? Should any kind of behavior be allowed on Debian >mailing lists? As I state in my platform, I believe a code of conduct to be a good idea; too much of our effort is being wasted in unproductive flamewars scattered across our mailing lists at the moment. At the moment, I just have some rough ideas of how I'd like to see such a code of conduct operate. I'd hope that general guidelines would be enough in most cases, but maybe some strict rules will be needed as a fall-back in case of major disagreement. To be honest, at this point I'm really more interested in starting debate on a code than pushing my own ideas. We have had some useful startup work done by Enrico (see http://people.debian.org/~enrico/dcg/) that I'd like more comments on. I don't think that a code of conduct should be seen as a measure to limit freedom of speech. We're not proposing silencing people altogether, but instead encouraging them to be more reasonable when communicating with each other. I'm a great fan of hard technical debate, and I know I'm not alone in that. What we need to lose is some of the personal attacks into which our discussions devolve on an increasingly frequent basis. Those attacks are not helping us to work together, and neither do they help us to innovate and improve the world's best operating system. I don't believe that our mailing lists should be seen as a forum where _any_ kind of behaviour is acceptable - that way madness lies. -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.[EMAIL PROTECTED] "You can't barbecue lettuce!" -- Ellie Crane signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Question for Andreas Schuldei: Debconf vs DPL
* Margarita Manterola <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2006-03-03 10:05:31]: > It is well known that you are the Debconf magician, and that without > your work, Debconfs would either not happen or be a complete fiasco > compared to the Debconfs we are used to by now. gee, thanks. (c: > So, if you are elected as DPL, will you stop doing that work? No, i dont plan to. > If you > don't, then how will you manage to organize Debconf, be the DPL and > still survive? I organized, DPLed and survived last year, to some extent. During the time directly before Debconf5 my DPL-Team work was suffering time wise but it was still doing ok. This year we have a very strong organizing team. I am have been looking for (and found!) able people whom I share my knowledge of how a debconf comes together, how to deal with sponsors and what I think the underlying guidelines should be etc and try to train them to do that very job. I try to give up power myself and let others take greater responsibility. However, being DPL would make me look more important to sponsors I talk to when raising money and would help debconf :) To me, this delegation and investment on redundancy of people is both what a leader should do and what must happen in Debian more on many levels and in other teams. Miraculously this strategy also helps me to not burn out and survive, even if I still am involved in Debconf and might be elected DPL at the same time. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Reflections about the questions for the candidates
On Sun, 2006-03-05 at 01:16 -0800, Steve Langasek wrote: > Uh, for one thing, "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" != "DPL Team". Maybe it would have been a good idea then to publicize a point of contact for your team. You did not, therefore I think Enrico is wrongly annoyed by the lack of input to the team. I definately believe that the DPL-team is a good initiative and should be continued; at the same time I also believe that the past year should have taught some lessons on what can be improved. Communication is an important one. Make sure people can actually contact you, and make it clear that you sollicit input. And when you get it, actually respond to it, even if it's just a short note, which is a world of difference with no response at all. bye, Thijs signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Reflections about the questions for the candidates
* Thijs Kinkhorst ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [060306 14:58]: > On Sun, 2006-03-05 at 01:16 -0800, Steve Langasek wrote: > > Uh, for one thing, "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" != "DPL Team". > > Maybe it would have been a good idea then to publicize a point of > contact for your team. You did not, therefore I think Enrico is wrongly > annoyed by the lack of input to the team. > > I definately believe that the DPL-team is a good initiative and should > be continued; at the same time I also believe that the past year should > have taught some lessons on what can be improved. Communication is an > important one. Make sure people can actually contact you, and make it > clear that you sollicit input. And when you get it, actually respond to > it, even if it's just a short note, which is a world of difference with > no response at all. For this reason, Andreas now wants to give everyone in the Team access to [EMAIL PROTECTED] - so the team can be contacted. Cheers, Andi -- http://home.arcor.de/andreas-barth/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Question to all candidates about the NM process
On Sat, Mar 04, 2006 at 01:06:37PM +0100, Marc 'HE' Brockschmidt wrote: > Heya, > > Though there are often threads about problems with it on our mailing > lists, the NM process hasn't changed much in the last three or four > years. What do you think about the most common problems (takes too > long, is asking for too broad knowledge)? > > Do you think that we need to change the NM checks? The main issue is that we are unable to integrate new contributors fast enough. Woody was released in 2002, there were 939 Debian developers, and around 934 unique maintainers names. Now we have 972 Debian developers and around 1567 unique maintainers names. So the number of people contributing officially to Debian has increased by 50%, but the number of new Debian developers is a little above the number which retired from Debian. So we should try to do better, but processing more applicants mean more work for the NM team hence we need more Debian developers willing to be involved in the NM process. My own opinion is that if an applicant is doing a sizable job in Debian already, they should be exempted of much of T&S. They have shown the skill to do the work they are more likely to do anyway, and they will have time to learn new skills as they need them. That might speed up the process a bit. Cheers, -- Bill. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Imagine a large red swirl here. pgpTle0vq756G.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Question for Bill Allombert: independence
On Wed, Mar 01, 2006 at 11:45:35PM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote: > Hi Bill, > > You write in your platform that > > -- I am independent, so I will be able to represent all the developers. > > What is it that you're independent from that other candidates aren't, and > how exactly does independence help you "represent" developers? There are about one thousand Debian developers and we are a very diverse community. If your work in Debian is too focused on one aspect you will not be able to see the point of view of the others developers. It is important the DPL has a large view to balance the interest of every one. Cheers, -- Bill. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Imagine a large red swirl here. pgpnTRhomTCLV.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: What if you are not elected as DPL?
On Sat, Mar 04, 2006 at 10:08:22AM +0100, Luk Claes wrote: > Hi DPL candidates > > Would you also try to reach the goals mentioned in your platform if you > wouldn't be elected DPL? Yes. I'll possibly offer my services to the elected DPL to help achieving the goals the elected DPL and myself share. Parts of my goals I'll persue regardless of whether I'm elected, though most of the things I mentioned in my platform, are most effectively persued with the support of the project. Also, if elected, I will have reserved a minimum amount of time each week for doing DPL-type stuff, and when not elected, I'll still consider them important, but they'll have a harder time to battle for my Debian time, and might instead work on other areas -- after all, there must've been a reason I wasn't elected, so perhaps people were not as enthousiastic as I thought about seeing my goals reached, or seeing them worked on 'my way'. > Please be specific if you think one of your goals can't be reached or > helped with without being a DPL or a member of the DPL team. As I mentioned in my platform, I'm already doing a number of things to achieve my goals already now. A code of conduct itself is however I think best persued by a DPL or people more directly related to the lists. I don't think I'll be going to put much time aside for getting something like insider reports off the ground if not elected, that's something for the elected DPL to pick up. Working on user accessiblity will remain one of the areas I'm keeping working on, I will keep forums.debian.net running etc. For the rest, mediating is something I'll always want to help in, but probably won't be asked to if not in a position to. Actively and passively communicating with the media is also kind of a different thing if you can say "I'm the Debian project leader" compared to "I'm one of 900 or so Developers". So, in summary, I'll be able to do a lot less from my platform if I'm not elected. Which is quite logical, because I've only put things I want to persue *as DPL* in my platform. I'm not running for DPL to have a vote on my other Debian work, I'll keep doing that regardless -- things like QA, ftp-master team tasks, and of course packaging, and a load of other misc things. I don't believe those are relevant for a DPL election. --Jeroen -- Jeroen van Wolffelaar [EMAIL PROTECTED] (also for Jabber & MSN; ICQ: 33944357) http://Jeroen.A-Eskwadraat.nl -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven - questions to DPL candidates
> > On Sun, Mar 05, 2006 at 11:30:26PM +, Sune Vuorela wrote: > > >Just a small question: > > >Do all of you have many spare hours in your current schedules? Or what > > >part of your debian work would get lower priorities if you get elected? > > >Or are you planning to toss out your TV, dump your girlfriend or hire a > > >garden keeper ? > * Steve McIntyre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2006-03-06 01:39:52]: > > [...] Both my alloted vacation days and unpaid leave are an > > option as/when I might need to devote large chunks of time to DPL > > work. On Mon, Mar 06, 2006 at 09:48:55AM +0100, Andreas Schuldei wrote: > After having been part of last year's team i would say that you > would rather need 100 instead of 10 vacation days to cope > properly. I have to admit, I don't find that really sensible -- devoting a third of a year's full time work to a job that plenty of people don't see as actually achieving all that much doesn't sound like an effective use of time at all to me. There are a handful of things the DPL is needed for, namely varying discussion times on votes, appointing people to the technical committee, and making certain decisions abount money. Everything else, including delegations, supporting fellow developers, making urgent decisions, leading discussions, promoting the project, talking to the press or speaking at conferences can be and is done by other members of the project, generally just by acting reasonably and thoughtfully and earning the project's respect -- and in most cases, that's how things /should/ be done: we're a distributed, community project; centralising power or decision making isn't the way we do things. So, basically, if elected, I don't plan on doing too much that I wouldn't be aiming to do otherwise. I think it'd be easier to do some of those things as DPL, which is why I'm running; and while I'm sure there'll be some extra drag that comes with the position, mostly I expect that to be in regard to things that aren't too important, or that other people can assist with. Cheers, aj signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Democracy in Debian
On Sun, Mar 05, 2006 at 04:09:04PM -0800, Don Armstrong wrote: > > I guess the decryption key for encrypted ballots would be of some > > issue, but that's about it. > Presumably the decryption key could be unlocked after the election and > placed alongside the balots; since it should expire and be revoked > after the completion of the vote, this shouldn't pose much of a > problem. You'd want to avoid having that let people fake signed ACKs though, which would allow a hypothetical malicious developer to bring the mailbox presented into doubt. But I guess you could probably reveal the decyrption key without revealing the signing key, or just use subkeys for that purpose anyway. Cheers, aj signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Question to all candidates about stable point releases
On Sat, Mar 04, 2006 at 01:02:20PM +0100, Marc 'HE' Brockschmidt wrote: > Though Martin 'Joey' Schulze as stable release manager presents lists of > packages that are accepted into the next stable point release on a > regular basis, they normally are not released "roughly two months after > the last update" (which is the official plan). > > Do you know why this doesn't work as planned? What would you do to > make regular point releases possible? The biggest part of the reason here that actually doing the releases take a fair bit of work to implement with the current infrastructure. Changes are currently being implemented to improve the handling of proposed-updates, in order to have those point releases happing more easily. It'll still require an ftp-master to find the time to do it, and there can be any number of reasons why nobody finds the time to do it -- Debian being volunteer-driven as it is. I personally don't think it's a huge issue if those point releases are not 100% regular, because for the majority it's security updates, but it's still good to have them not too far apart, esp. for those updates that are not also already distributed via security.debian.org. With significantly less effort required each time from the side of ftp-master, I think stable point releases can happen more regularly. There can be other ways to improve too, but not by direct intervention from the DPL role -- a DPL should not want to micro-manage. It's not something I see as a priority to improve though, I don't think the current situation is unaccepteable or so. Our real releases are much more important. As DPL, I want to focus most of my energy on a limited amount of areas, better do a few things good, than a lot of them only a bit. --Jeroen -- Jeroen van Wolffelaar [EMAIL PROTECTED] (also for Jabber & MSN; ICQ: 33944357) http://Jeroen.A-Eskwadraat.nl -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Code of conduct, question to all candidates
On Fri, Mar 03, 2006 at 10:20:59PM +0200, Lars Wirzenius wrote: > Many people consider the aggressive, often unconstructive atmosphere on > major Debian mailing lists to be a problem. You only need to make a > little spark and suddenly you have ignited a huge thread, up to several > hundred mails per day, a number of which are personal attacks. Even if > they aren't, people insisting in mail after mail that their point of > view is only correct one can be considered quite aggressive. And even if > you disregard that, the mere volume of discussion is more than > overwhelming, it can be outright scary. > > A code of conduct has often been mentioned as a possible solution to > various communication problems we have. The code would have to specify, > either explicitly or implicitly, some rules for acceptable behavior. > > What do you think of a code of conduct? What in your opinion would be a > lower limit on acceptable behavior? Do you think that strict rules would > be better than general guidelines? Who should be the judge if a > particular case follows the code of conduct or not? Would the code be a > good thing, or would it necessarily be a threat to freedom of speech, > and stifle innovation? Should any kind of behavior be allowed on Debian > mailing lists? Please see my response to the 3rd question asked by Josselin Mouette: http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2006/03/msg00092.html To address questions not in that earlier response: Rules need to be clear, but applied with consideration, on a case-by-case basis. There should be a small and respecteable group judging and governing the application of the code of conduct, with a clear procedure for appeal -- in any case, any corrective action should be in proportion, losing ones temper just once should't result in a permanent ban, for example. I don't believe a code would be a threat to freedom of speech, or stifle innovation, on the contrary. Maintaining an open discussion forum where people can freely exchange idea's and arguments *without* being met with unrespectful non-technical jabs would increase innovation. Compare this with walking around on the streets: if I feel like, I can go outside now and take a walk, and nobody will stop me, including the police. However, I'd rather not go take a walk if I know chances are high that outside there'd be people who would yell at me for walking so slowly. If feel unsafe or threatened, I'd stay inside. A lot of people do so in unfriendly neighbourhoods, they prefer to simply avoid problems, but deprive themselves from following what's happening outside, and prefer to gather with small groups of friends at say a fitness centre. The problem is that this a downgoing trend, more 'unfriendly' people will join the persons sitting outside yelling at whoever dares to come along. At some point, action should be taken, and someone calls in the police so that they patrol more often. Yelling is warned against, repeated offenders get a temporary ban. Everybody dares take a walk again at night. The annoying people in part will hopefull move on to some different place where they can bully people, or get a live or so [hopefully not get a computer with internet connection and join a Debian list]. Is this limiting freedom of speech? No, I don't think so. Does this help against a very limited amount of people frustrating productive discussions? Certainly it does. Debian lists are special purpose lists: they each have specific intentions. They are not places for unhelpful clutter. --Jeroen -- Jeroen van Wolffelaar [EMAIL PROTECTED] (also for Jabber & MSN; ICQ: 33944357) http://Jeroen.A-Eskwadraat.nl -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Democracy in Debian
On Tue, 07 Mar 2006, Anthony Towns wrote: > On Sun, Mar 05, 2006 at 04:09:04PM -0800, Don Armstrong wrote: > > Presumably the decryption key could be unlocked after the election > > and placed alongside the balots; since it should expire and be > > revoked after the completion of the vote, this shouldn't pose much > > of a problem. > > You'd want to avoid having that let people fake signed ACKs though, > which would allow a hypothetical malicious developer to bring the > mailbox presented into doubt. But I guess you could probably reveal > the decyrption key without revealing the signing key, or just use > subkeys for that purpose anyway. Yeah, I was assuming that the signing ack key would be different from the key used to encrypt messages to the mailbox (either via subkeys or entirely different keys.) I don't really know if that's the case though.[1] (I think we'd agree that the project would have far more serious problems than an election in doubt if we ended up with this happening. ;-)) Don Armstrong 1: I guess I don't really see the point to encrypt messages sent to the voting software anyway for non-dpl elections... if you're going to be in a position to use that data to vote stratigically, you're pretty much sitting on the same machine that devotee is running on anyway. -- The beauty of the DRUNKENNESS subprogram was that you could move your intoxication level up and down at will, instead of being caught on a relentless down escalator to bargain basement philosophy and the parking garage. -- Rudy von Bitter _Software_ p124 http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Question to all candidates about the NM process
On Sat, Mar 04, 2006 at 01:06:37PM +0100, Marc 'HE' Brockschmidt wrote: > Though there are often threads about problems with it on our mailing > lists, the NM process hasn't changed much in the last three or four > years. What do you think about the most common problems (takes too > long, is asking for too broad knowledge)? The NM process is often viewed as daunting, and percieved as something taking ages. I think it may be too discouraging in that it'll make some people not even try who would be good contributers otherwise. I don't think it's really that problematic that it takes a bit of time and commitment before one can call him/herself a DD, with all associated trust. However, NM doesn't need to be (it isn't, but at some times, it seems as if it tries to be) a fully-fledged education to becoming an allround DD. Learning new things should be something happening continuously, whether you're already a DD or not, depending on the areas you're going to work on. Knowledge is most effectively picked up when one needs to apply it soonishly afterwards, and it's also more rewarding to learn it at that time. > Do you think that we need to change the NM checks? I think it's the most important to test for the right mindset: is someone a precise worker, with attention to detail? Is someone going to read a lot about area $foo if one is going to do stuff around $foo? Is someone capable of finding the right information about $foo, and able to properly apply it, and knowing where to ask for assistance? Does someone cooperate well with peers? With users? With upstreams and the like? These are skills that will always come in handy. They are even required skills in my opinion. As an example where I think the current situation is suboptimal, the current template's library questions are too complicated if you're not going to work with C libraries, or especially if you're not going to work with C programs at all, but they are inadequate if you're actually going to maintain a C library. However, how to exactly change the templates then, I'm not sure about. These are just some thoughts, I've never really involved myself in NM except that I spent most of 2004 being in it as an applicant. I'm willing to brainstorm with the people involved, and discuss about the issues they (you) see, but I do not intend to really push in a certain direction, as I don't know what direction that exactly would be. I'd like to have someone in my DPL team who's being able to constructively work together with the NM team on improvements in the process (if anyone feels compelled for that position, please send my a private mail). Anyway, I trust that you, the NM team, can work constructively on possible changes, with whoever is interested in it. I'll assist where requested, but not going to personally initiate much in this area as DPL or as individual. --Jeroen -- Jeroen van Wolffelaar [EMAIL PROTECTED] (also for Jabber & MSN; ICQ: 33944357) http://Jeroen.A-Eskwadraat.nl -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Question for all candidates: what mistake will you _not_ make?
On Sat, Mar 04, 2006 at 02:13:42PM +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote: > During DPL campaigning, it seems "in" for candidates to propose all > sorts of Great Things they will try to do once elected. While this is > obviously all interesting information, it leaves out something that, I > think, is also fairly important: the things you think previous DPLs have > done wrongly, and that you intend to do differently. I'm going to really focus on what I want to achieve. I haven't promised that much, and certainly not things I think I cannot achieve -- although it'd be silly to presume I can achieve everything in my platform. Also, other than just limiting myself to certain areas, I'm also setting targets for myself that have real-world effect, and should mostly be of tangible benefit, rather than merely procedural. I have concrete ideas how I want to achieve my goals. As you can see from my answers to other questions, there are whole areas (such as NM) that I do think are important, but I won't make a priority of working on. Also, as I wrote in my platform, and elaborated on the lists later: http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2006/02/msg00703.html, I've learned a lot from being in the DPL team of the past year, seeing some real DPL action from close by, working on some tough issues, and team dynamics in the context of Debian. To hilight some lessons: involving whole team (and making them feel responsible too, and in a much better position to assist on own initiative) by having leader@ go to the whole team; but at the same time, not rely on the success of the team (it should in all cases be a net-win in terms of what I/we will achieve); maintain a strict and focussed agenda; having a modest amount of serious reviews of DPL status. I do not believe in spending full-time time in the DPL position, that would IMHO be a sign that you're either not focussed enough, failing at management, or simply doing too much as DPL -- as stated in my platform, Debian works best and should work as a collection of individuals and teams on putting together our beloved OS, and the DPL (team) should work on improvements where needed. None of those improvements should ever be of immediate urgency. Whenever in Debian something needs to happen urgently, it'll be as part of some infrastructure team or so, or in any case, somewhere where the real work gets done. Not in the position that IMHO should merely ensure the real work can be done in the best possible circumstances. --Jeroen -- Jeroen van Wolffelaar [EMAIL PROTECTED] (also for Jabber & MSN; ICQ: 33944357) http://Jeroen.A-Eskwadraat.nl -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Reflections about the questions for the candidates
On Sun, Mar 05, 2006 at 09:49:29AM +0100, Thijs Kinkhorst wrote: > Hello Enrico, > > > But there's more than that. In the last year as part of the DPL Team, > > people have been criticising the last year for the lack of reports. But > > I don't remember a single one sending in a mail like "Dear DPL[-Team], > > what happened last week?". > > > > It would have been a pleasure to answer such a question with something > > like "Hi, thanks for asking. It was mainly reasoning about the Security > > Team, plus approving expenditure of $300 for flying person X to > > conference Y". > > If that would have been a pleasure, I'm wondering why your team did not do > that. > > I've sent just a couple of mails to leader in the past term, less than a > handfull. Of those, I have received exactly zero replies from the DPL, you > or the rest of the team. > > Here are some suggestions for possible answers: > - Thanks for your mail, we're already doing this-and-that to address the > problem; > - Thanks for the input, but I disagree for this reason; > - Good to hear from you, but unfortunately this is currently not a priority; > - I'll consider that the next time such an issue comes along. Yes, one of those (or another) answer should've been returned, I'm sorry for that. > I find it very strange that the DPL(team) explicitly calls for all input, > then ignores that input, and then complains on -vote that they did not get > enough opportunity to tell what they were doing. Well, I for myself can say that this input was not ignored. I re-read your mail (I can only find one in my mailbox), and the issues you raised were a real concern for us. Your mail helped in getting clearer ideas how the current situation was, and as such influenced the direction a bit. I do note that your mail was raising an issue, and calling for some action, rather than asking a question. Which still means it should've gotten an answer, instead of silence -- although I did talk with you privately multiple times about the issue since. Anyway, unless you want to followup relevant for -vote, I suggest we'll continue this discussion privately over a beer or something. --Jeroen -- Jeroen van Wolffelaar [EMAIL PROTECTED] (also for Jabber & MSN; ICQ: 33944357) http://Jeroen.A-Eskwadraat.nl -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Reflections about the questions for the candidates
On Sun, Mar 05, 2006 at 11:16:48AM +0100, Kurt Roeckx wrote: > There was no contact address for the DPL-team, or atleast none > that I know off, so it's rather hard to ask them. The only > available address that I know of is [EMAIL PROTECTED] And as > far as I know, there wasn't even an official list of who was in > the team. Well, there were meeting minutes published, and the platforms listed the initial team contents (which would've missed the later and only addition Mako). We have a Debian LDAP service at db.debian.org which happily would provide you with contact details for any subset of DD's, including for like the DPL team. People did manage to mail the team, and I'd think that the lack of a convenient alias shouldn't be too prohibitive for a technical audience like Debian people are. Anyway, yes, it'd have been better if there were a publicly available contact address. As I understand it, both Andreas and myself are promising to have simply leader@ pointed to the whole team. --Jeroen -- Jeroen van Wolffelaar [EMAIL PROTECTED] (also for Jabber & MSN; ICQ: 33944357) http://Jeroen.A-Eskwadraat.nl -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Questions for all canidates
On Sun, Mar 05, 2006 at 03:27:03PM -0500, Benjamin Seidenberg wrote: > If you were not running for DPL, which of the other candiates would you > most likely vote for (or since you are running, rank as '2' on your > ballot)? Why? I'm not going to say that, my ballot remains private (except for the number one and number last, which will be easy for anyone to guess). However, if you read my rebuttals[1] carefully (the rebuttals as far as they are available, are up now, see bottom of each platform), you'll have some generic idea -- something that I think is also just more useful, but because such a ranking isn't black/white, but a tradeoff of several factors. > Which of the other canidate's platform statements do you agree with, and > which do you not? If you are elected as DPL, do you think that you will > try to implement any goals of the other candiates that weren't in your > own platform? See rebuttals, mostly. In general I'll always have a listening ear for anyone, DPL candidate or not, or even DD or not, who wants to work on some improvements in Debian. The things that will have my priority, though, are listed in my own platform. --Jeroen [1] http://www.debian.org/vote/2006/platforms/jeroen -- Jeroen van Wolffelaar [EMAIL PROTECTED] (also for Jabber & MSN; ICQ: 33944357) http://Jeroen.A-Eskwadraat.nl -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven - questions to DPL candidates
On Sun, Mar 05, 2006 at 11:30:26PM +, Sune Vuorela wrote: > Do all of you have many spare hours in your current schedules? Or what > part of your debian work would get lower priorities if you get elected? As a student, I'm reasonable flexible in hours to spend on whatever I like. But well, if elected, I feel obligied to spend a certain amount of time on DPL-related issues, and this will mean less time for other areas. I've got hardly any position/task/whatever that I hold alone, I'm always working together with others. So I don't forsee real problems. There are only two packages of mine that have no co-maintainers, and they are really minor. > Or are you planning to toss out your TV, dump your girlfriend or hire a > garden keeper ? I hardly watch TV, have no girlfriend, nor a garden, so nothing to win here :). > If other of your debian work get a lower priority, how would you make > sure that those tasks get properly done ? Enable others to help/take over. If that doesn't work, and nobody is apparantly interested in a certain task, well, then it won't get done. So is open source life, though, and this is something unavoidable in volunteer projects like Debian. People scratch their itches, and if some itch isn't bothering anyone enough to be scratched, it'll remain. --Jeroen -- Jeroen van Wolffelaar [EMAIL PROTECTED] (also for Jabber & MSN; ICQ: 33944357) http://Jeroen.A-Eskwadraat.nl -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Questions to candidate Anthony Towns
On Sun, Mar 05, 2006 at 03:01:41PM -0500, Joey Hess wrote: > (Please treat this question as if it were asked on debian-devel not > here.) (Not really sure what difference that makes) > Anthony Towns wrote: > > I do think it would be interesting for the project to embrace the d-i beta > > releases and the testing-security support and turn those into regular > > "mini-releases", without many of the standards we expect of stable, > > but in a form that's still useful. > That's been a goal of mine for several years. What more do you feel we > should do on those beta releases to reach that? I suspect the only thing that's /necessary/ would be to announce them as a release rather than a beta -- I'm inclined towards "snapshot release", but maybe "preview release", or "March 2006 release" or similar would work too. That is, admit they're not necessarily 100% great, but encourage users to use them. Other things that would add to that, imo, would be: (a) branching the archive or doing other necessary changes to ensure netinst CDs etc work reliably (b) security.d.o support against the last preview release, so that users can upgrade from CD/DVD and only have minimal daily downloads (c) having it be an equally important part of the project to stable point releases, including a mail to -announce and similar I'm not sure if branching the archive's feasible, but it at least becomes plausible when the mirror split's done shortly; likewise I don't know how plausible meaningful security.d.o support is, but I think it's worth a shot. I suspect there are other things people could think up too, but those are my ideas. > Another thing we don't do right now is keep the DVDs and larger CDs > static as released, they continue being updated each week. I presume that means that they were broken a week or two ago when stuff was switching over to the current d-i? > So is it just a matter of terminology, perception, and polish; or do you > see other major areas where we should improve? I don't think it's a matter of polish at all (well, with the exception of things eventually breaking as development continues), mostly one of changing the perception to be from a "beta" to a "release", and doing the work necessary to make that perception valid. Cheers, aj signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Questions for all candidates: the DPL as a creator of public opinion
On Sun, Mar 05, 2006 at 10:45:47PM +0200, Fabian Fagerholm wrote: > The DPL is described as a representative of Debian to the general > public, and as a vision-definer inside the Debian Project. I wouldn't say "vision-definer" -- the DPL lead's discussion, and may summarise it afterwards, but actually reaching a conclusion and defining a vision (or visions) is the job of the project at large. > Currently, the FOSS world is facing major challenges that concern most > aspects of this community: core questions of value are in discussion > [1], the viability and sustainability of volunteer work is questioned > [2], and various attempts at making commercial profit and business > models are affecting the community [3] -- for better or for worse. All of these issues have been questioned as long as I've been involved in open source (indeed, before the term "open source" was coined). I hope that's something that will continue long afterwards too -- if you stop questioning the fundamentals, you lose the opportunity to find major new improvements in your understanding. > Against this background, what is your opinion on the following: > 1. Is Debian affected by what happens in the FOSS world in general? > How? Please give examples if you can. I can't imagine a way in which it's not. Even the use of free software on proprietary operating systems can affect Debian -- such as the dpkg and apt ports to Mac OS X used by the Fink Project. > 2. Has the definition (written or implied) of freedom in Debian > changed over the years? How? We never used to have a definition at all... > 3. Is the understanding of freedom in Debian up to date with regard > to the current state of the world? How does this show? Debian has its own standard of freedom; the rest of the world includes many different ones, both for software and for other things like the press, or doing business, or movement of people, or association. I don't think there's anything much to be said overall about this -- just whether the standards being used are good for what they're being used for. I think Debian's are good for building an operating system from many disparate components. > 4. Does Debian have a good relationship with well-known > organisations such as FSF, Creative Commons or example(s) here>? Why/why not? It depends what standard you set for "good" -- if you mean working together on common projects, then generally yes; if you mean marching together to the beat of the same drum, generally not. I think most of our disagreements are honest and principled on both sides though, and that's what counts. > 5. As DPL, what would you rather work on in your vision-defining > capacity: defining a special Debian-freedom, or encouraging > Debian to embrace other definitions? Why and how? Like I said originally, I don't think the DPL should be "defining a vision". Personally, I think we should be doing both -- ensuring we have the freedoms we need to do a good job for our main distribution, and embracing other perspectives in areas where that's appropriate, notably non-free. > Finally, please tell us as much as you want about what has led you > towards Debian and free software instead of non-free alternatives. Why > have you taken this path in life? Why is it important to you personally? I think free is the best way of doing software, and Debian's the easiest way of being involved in the distro side of free software, and one of the best at it. Cheers, aj signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Question to all candidates about stable point releases
Jeroen van Wolffelaar wrote: > On Sat, Mar 04, 2006 at 01:02:20PM +0100, Marc 'HE' Brockschmidt wrote: > > Though Martin 'Joey' Schulze as stable release manager presents lists of > > packages that are accepted into the next stable point release on a > > regular basis, they normally are not released "roughly two months after > > the last update" (which is the official plan). > > > > Do you know why this doesn't work as planned? What would you do to > > make regular point releases possible? > > The biggest part of the reason here that actually doing the releases > take a fair bit of work to implement with the current infrastructure. ?!? > Changes are currently being implemented to improve the handling of > proposed-updates, in order to have those point releases happing more Could you explain how the changes could help providing a stable update mor often, when... > easily. It'll still require an ftp-master to find the time to do it, and > there can be any number of reasons why nobody finds the time to do it -- ...there's still an ftp-master needed and ftp-master is not devoting time to this task? > Debian being volunteer-driven as it is. I personally don't think it's a > huge issue if those point releases are not 100% regular, because for the > majority it's security updates, but it's still good to have them not too > far apart, esp. for those updates that are not also already distributed > via security.debian.org. With significantly less effort required each > time from the side of ftp-master, I think stable point releases can > happen more regularly. There can be other ways to improve too, but not > by direct intervention from the DPL role -- a DPL should not want to > micro-manage. That's a great answer. For the record: Feb 6th: SRM sends mail to ftp-master trying to negotiate a timeline Mar 5th: SRM sends another mail since nobody replied to the old one Mar 5th: aj complains that nobody answered his mail from Feb 22 about modificating proposed-updates Still no word from ftp-master if or when the next stable update can be implemented. As usual, the SRM is left in vain and pain. Regards, Joey -- Given enough thrust pigs will fly, but it's not necessarily a good idea. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Question for Bill Allombert: independence
On Tue, Mar 07, 2006 at 01:01:36AM +0100, Bill Allombert wrote: > On Wed, Mar 01, 2006 at 11:45:35PM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote: > > Hi Bill, > > You write in your platform that > > -- I am independent, so I will be able to represent all the developers. > > What is it that you're independent from that other candidates aren't, and > > how exactly does independence help you "represent" developers? > There are about one thousand Debian developers and we are a very diverse > community. If your work in Debian is too focused on one aspect you will > not be able to see the point of view of the others developers. It is > important the DPL has a large view to balance the interest of every one. I'm sorry, I don't feel that you've answered my question. In your platform, you've specifically claimed that your "independence" is a reason developers should vote for *you*, i.e., instead of the other candidates. I want to know what you think makes the other candidates less "independent" than you are -- are they accountable to someone other than the Debian Project? The only reading of this comment that makes sense to me is that you're saying the other candidates are going to be biased because of allegiances they've developed through working on Debian. I guess that's possible, but I don't think the absence of such allegiances is /independence/, I think it's /uninvolvement/, so I'd like to understand what you think these biases are that the other candidates will be unable to overcome, and why you think you'll be more free of such biases than they will. FWIW, I do appreciate your holistic approach to upgrade testing, and think it contributed positively to the quality of the sarge release. Perhaps this is part of what you mean by independence, i.e., taking a big-picture approach as opposed to being focused on one's own personal packages? But again, I see many of the other candidates as also having worked on big-picture stuff in Debian, and think they're capable of doing so as DPL as well. Thanks, -- 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/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Second call for votes for the GFDL position statement
-=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 25a628e9-d88e-40b7-8e1c-888cff421ea5 [ 4 ] Choice 1: GFDL-licensed works are unsuitable for main in all cases [ 1 ] Choice 2: GFDL-licensed works without unmodifiable sections are free [ 3 ] Choice 3: GFDL-licensed works are compatible with the DFSG [needs 3:1] [ 2 ] Choice 4: Further discussion -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- pgpAyuNC9qnTC.pgp Description: PGP signature
