Re: Question for all candidates: Release process
Hello Bernhard and everybody, I think that the ‘RPM hell’ that you used to comment my propositions is more related to a situation when independant distributions are using the same package format, than when a distribution offers multiple repositories that obey to a policy that keeps the whole system functional. We actually enter in the era of the ‘DEB hell’ since the success of Ubuntu, with users asking support for cross-distribution package installation. In the end, it is more a communication problem than a technical problem. We should make it clearer that it is not because the packages do not carry the distribution name that they are not specific to a distribution. Perhaps a page about ‘our packaging system’ for end-users on our website? Regarding my proposal, that is internal to Debian, I do not think that it is impossible. What I propose is a way for package maintainers to signal that their package is peripheral in the Debian system, in an opt-in manner. Debian is running out of manpower, and I think that it will be useful to let know that a given package can be given a low priority for tasks. In my experience, trivial RC bugs on not-so important packages attract volunteers because it is very rewarding to close RC bugs. Also, I learnt a lot by participating to the ‘bug sprint’ organised by Josselin for Lenny, that we should not be discouraged to challenge a bug that is far beyond our technical capacities, because help like triaging and pinging the reporters is very useful and frees skilled hands that are much more useful at other tasks. So in my opinion, not all RC bugs are equal, and a better priority system would be useful to help volunteers to chose their focus. Our current priority system does not fit that task. Because of the rules about conflicts, important packages like postfix are of priority extra. By refactoring our priority system, we could make a much better usage of a priority level that really means ‘extra’ in the sense of ‘do not bother if you have more important things to do’. With a priority system improved along this direction, I think it opens the possibility to let some architectures release without the least important packages. Once I reported upstream that his scientific software was not working on Sparc. ‘I know‘, was the answer. This software, I want to bring it to the scientific communauty, and like the upstream author, I know that no researcher is seriously considering running it on Sparc for work. Why not distributing it only on amd64 until a user requests it on another architecture? Even on the other platforms where it builds, I have no clue if it works. And in my experience, the more regression tests I enable in my packages, the more I realise that they do not work on the platforms that neither upstream nor the users are using. I am very tempted to go even further and would like to distribute some packages for the stable distribution only through official backports for instance. Also, in my field, while people usually want to have the latest version to start with, they also do not want to change in the course of their analysis. I hope that the future package snapshot system will help us to satisfy this need. In conjunction with system image builders, Debian pure blends and ‘cloud computing’, it will be very powerful. Will it make the release easier? I think so, even if it is definitely not a magical wand. It transfers some responsabilities, and the work load that comes with, from the release team and the porters to the maintainers of leaf packages of low priority. I would like the Debian project to trust more its maintainers, and allow this transfer. Have a nice week-end, -- Charles -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100327061703.ga28...@kunpuu.plessy.org
Re: Question for all candidates: Release process
On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 2:17 PM, Charles Plessy ple...@debian.org wrote: Regarding my proposal, that is internal to Debian, I do not think that it is impossible. What I propose is a way for package maintainers to signal that their package is peripheral in the Debian system, in an opt-in manner. Debian is running out of manpower, and I think that it will be useful to let know that a given package can be given a low priority for tasks. In my experience, trivial RC bugs on not-so important packages attract volunteers because it is very rewarding to close RC bugs. Also, I learnt a lot by participating to the ‘bug sprint’ organised by Josselin for Lenny, that we should not be discouraged to challenge a bug that is far beyond our technical capacities, because help like triaging and pinging the reporters is very useful and frees skilled hands that are much more useful at other tasks. So in my opinion, not all RC bugs are equal, and a better priority system would be useful to help volunteers to chose their focus. Does popcon not already provide a way to order packages based on importance? rc-alert has both options for sorting bugs by both local global popcon score. If not, what criteria would you suggest we use to prioritise RC bugs? Should we change bts.turmzimmer.net to use that for ordering? -- bye, pabs http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e13a36b31003270113p5ec3a20ew8570cbb19e23d...@mail.gmail.com
Re: Q for the Candidates: How many users?
On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 05:46:49PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
I suppose I shouldn't really be discussing this too much since it's a
question for the DPL candidates rather than a general discussion topic,
I believe this kind of interaction is perfectly fine, as it is showing
various hidden facets of previously raised questions, giving to
candidates the possibility to voice their opinions on them.
I want Debian to continue to be an excellent server operating system that
I can use for Stanford University's internal IT infrastructure. If it
changed in a way that made it a bad server operating system but made it
much more popular in the broad sense, that to me would be a bug, not a
feature.
Obviously insofar as we can, we all want Debian to be all things to all
people, and I think we all owe each other an obligation to try to find
good solutions for everything that people want to use Debian for, among
those people who are working on it.
Absolutely. As a minor point on this: exactly _because_ Debian can't be
all things to all people out of the box, we are quite fond of
configurability in what we offer. The resulting flexibility is what, I
believe, makes Debian the server operating system you can use at
Stanford, among other uses. I don't think that changing a specific
default can make Debian no longer suitable for your, or any other, use,
as long as we are as flexible as we are now.
But, even acknowledging good questions about how to attract new
contributors, I don't think pure popularity should be a driving goal
for the project, and certainly shouldn't override other goals such as
sound technical judgement.
AJ's question, and particularly his other longer response to the question
about disappearing DPLs, really highlight what I think are some
disagreements between he and I about how we see Debian. I fundamentally
do not believe in the grow or die model or think that projects need to
constantly move on to the next shiny thing.
I agree that our technical values are more important than the grow or
die model, but that kind of reasoning should not led us thinking that
growing is not important at all. While growing in number of users is not
a goal per se, the number of users has a high correlation with the
number of *contributors* (in fact, every user that even only submit a
bug report is already a useful contributor). That kind of flow from user
to developer is, shamelessly re-using your nice words, part of the
grand open source tradition too.
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
z...@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Dietro un grande uomo c'è ..| . |. Et ne m'en veux pas si je te tutoie
sempre uno zaino ...| ..: | Je dis tu à tous ceux que j'aime
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Re: Q for the Candidates: How many users?
On Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 04:52:19AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
So at the start of the week, I asked:
Eh, kudos for this experiment, even if people on IRC commented that
there might have been a second reason for your question :-P, I didn't
see this coming. I feel like replying to a couple of your comments,
though.
There's a bunch of people who use Ubuntu as their main systems these
days who've said things like yeah, I know, I'll install Debian on it
some time, but this was just easy for now. For me, I tend to consider
them to already be using Debian systems -- I mean, they're already
using all the Debian-specific programs I've written or worked on for
Debian, so what difference does it /really/ make if it's all coloured
brown or purple instead of swirly and red? I don't see a difference,
so I count them as Debian users personally. YMMV (if it does, I'd be
interested to hear what important differences you see)
It is the same or it is different according to which angle of the
user-distro relationship you consider.
In the above, you seem to consider only the angle of the pride of
having someone benefiting of our work, which is a well-known motive to
sponsor volunteer work in FLOSS. I'm truly happy to know that many of my
changelog lines (and the work they entail) are part of the Ubuntu
installation of millions of user. According to this angle, Ubuntu users
are Debian users.
However, a user in FLOSS is generally someone that contribute back, in
various ways: from bug reporting, to patch contribution, and possibly
even co-maintenance. According to this angle, Ubuntu users are not
Debian users, in the sense that they contribute their feedback and
patches not directly to us, but to a different intermediate entity (and
yes, Ubuntu is not special in this analysis, any or our derivative
distros is in the same ballpark).
Now, in a perfectly working FLOSS ecosystem, this happens at all levels
(e.g. are Debian/GNOME users direct GNOME users?) and it makes no
difference if you are a direct or indirect user of something, because
contributions flow seamlessly in all directions: a patch contributed via
Ubuntu lands in Debian, a patch contributed to Debian lands upstream,
etc.
As we know, this is not always the case: contributions can get stuck at
some point of the contribution pipeline. That is why the distinction
among direct and indirect users---and its n-level
generalization---matters and, ultimately, this is why there is some sort
of competition among the amount of users of tightly related projects.
As I've written in my platform (search for derivatives) we should do
as much as we can to not be an element of the contribution pipeline
where contributions get stuck. Nevertheless, as long as such pipeline do
not work perfectly---and that does not depend only on us, but also on
the behavior of our downstreams---it is just natural to make some kind
of distinctions about our direct and indirect users.
[ minor quote re-ordering ]
And presumably being able to say we've got $BIGNUM of users is
useful for promotion, and we've got $PRECISE users might be useful
for capacity planning to some extent. I think those probably should be
things prospective DPLs should think about, at least briefly.
I concur with this ...
The other aspect is, how can you say we're listening to our users?
if we don't even have any idea how many of them there are?
... but not with this. To say that you're listening to our users you
need to show that you react to their contributions (assuming naively
that the main kind of talk we receive from users are contributions,
from bug reporting up), no matter how many they are. It might be a cheap
argument from logics, but the goal is that FORALL contribution you
receive, you react to them: to prove that you really don't need to know
how many users you have.
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
z...@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Dietro un grande uomo c'è ..| . |. Et ne m'en veux pas si je te tutoie
sempre uno zaino ...| ..: | Je dis tu à tous ceux que j'aime
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Re: Question for all candidates: Release process
On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 03:17:03PM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote:
In my experience, trivial RC bugs on not-so important packages attract
volunteers because it is very rewarding to close RC bugs.
snip
So in my opinion, not all RC bugs are equal, and a better priority
system would be useful to help volunteers to chose their focus.
Absolutely: not all RC bugs are equal, there are easy and hard ones.
Letting aside truisms like they should all be fixed anyhow, the
problem is that how much they are difficult to fix depends on who
approaches them (which might well be another truism), so you can't
really prioritize bugs, for release purposes, according to how difficult
they are.
Also, in my field, while people usually want to have the latest
version to start with, they also do not want to change in the course
of their analysis. I hope that the future package snapshot system will
help us to satisfy this need. In conjunction with system image
builders, Debian pure blends and ‘cloud computing’, it will be very
powerful.
I don't understand what cloud computing has to do with your idea of
using package priorities to release differently different sub-systems
within Debian. I'm well aware that we are currently lagging behind in
the race for OS for the cloud (and we should really catch up, at least
in terms of visibility), but what it has to do with your idea?
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
z...@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Dietro un grande uomo c'è ..| . |. Et ne m'en veux pas si je te tutoie
sempre uno zaino ...| ..: | Je dis tu à tous ceux que j'aime
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planet.debian.org is RC buggy (?)
Dear candidates, [I don't intend to start a flame war, but I do have venom for planets] planet.d.o has became one of the most visible media for Debian, if not the most visible one. Do you think it is a good thing? DFSG / rc-buggy ¨¨¨ I consider blogs as non-free, proprietary material (a very few have a proper license, the distribution media s*cks anyway). Breaks DFSG #1: A document (HowTo...) published on planet can't be distributed in Debian main. Is this a problem? Breaks DFSG #3: Derived work aren't allowed. In the few case where it is legally possible, it is difficult to merge and publish the updated version. Is this a problem? Breaks DFSG #2: No source for stuffs like charts and graphs (HTML is a valid source here). Is this a problem? Opacity ¨¨¨ Replying to a blog entry is very difficult. The replies and the original posted aren't available side-by-side. The comments aren't available on Debian planet (a kind of censorship). Actually, some blog even forbid comments! Is this a problem? The content isn't archived. Is this a problem? a feature? Community ¨ Do you think Debian Planet reflects the fact that Debian is a community where people collaborate? Do you think planet encourage collaboration? Do you think Debian Planet reflects the fact that Debian encourages to constitute teams? Do you think planet encourage that? Fame Do you see a shift in recognizing people for their communication skill (and/or committed time to communicate), rather that their actual work? What would you suggest and/or do? Sorry for that pretty long mail I wanted to make myself clear. Do not feel like you have to reply each and every question ;) Franklin P.S. Kudos for people behind Debian News (Ana Guerrero). -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1269693546.3962.1109.ca...@solid.paris.klabs.be
Re: Question to the candidates
[ oops, looks like this one has slipped through the cracks of my mutt ]
On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 11:49:53PM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote:
As a developer, how do you embody the spirit and culture that has made
Debian a great operating system?
I surely don't claim to embody all of the spirit and culture of Debian:
I believe it is a kind of collective spirit/culture, a share of which
I'm proud to hold.
For once, I see as some of the Debian founding values: freedom,
collaboration, and volunteer service to others. These are some of the
defining values in my life, not only as a geek. I think this is why I'm
that enthusiastic about Debian, and why it is unsurprising for me to end
up talking about Debian when I'm asked what I do in life by a stranger:
it is one of the few things that I'll surely mention.
More specifically, what I think is most characteristic of my Debian life
is that I'm a good team player. I'm way more productive, and excited
about what I do, when I work with others rather than alone.
I think to have other traits that are useful in community-building
(e.g. I'm thoughtful, listen to others, ready to change my mind when
presented with good arguments, and generally calm), but I won't say that
those are somehow specific to Debian spirit/culture, they are more
general in any kind of community.
If elected DPL, how will you inspire the same in others?
By example, being ready to admit when I myself have set a bad standard.
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
z...@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Dietro un grande uomo c'è ..| . |. Et ne m'en veux pas si je te tutoie
sempre uno zaino ...| ..: | Je dis tu à tous ceux que j'aime
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Re: planet.debian.org is RC buggy (?)
Hey, * Frank Lin PIAT fp...@klabs.be [2010-03-27 13:44]: [I don't intend to start a flame war, but I do have venom for planets] planet.d.o has became one of the most visible media for Debian, if not the most visible one. Do you think it is a good thing? [...] On what are you basing this assumption? While I agree that Debian isn't especially visible in any way media wise I don't see the relevance of planet when it comes to our users. I have no numbers to prove that but I doubt that a lot of users are reading planet (why should they..). As for the rest of your text I have to say (and I also do not intend to start a flame): aren't there more important problems in Debian than our planet?! Cheers Nico -- Nico Golde - http://www.ngolde.de - n...@jabber.ccc.de - GPG: 0xA0A0 For security reasons, all text in this mail is double-rot13 encrypted. pgpYEeLf4vmyN.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: planet.debian.org is RC buggy (?)
Hi, Sorry if we are getting a little bit off-topic, feel free to follow up on debian-project (I would still be interested by the candidates PoV) On Sat, 2010-03-27 at 14:49 +0100, Nico Golde wrote: Hey, * Frank Lin PIAT fp...@klabs.be [2010-03-27 13:44]: [I don't intend to start a flame war, but I do have venom for planets] planet.d.o has became one of the most visible media for Debian, if not the most visible one. Do you think it is a good thing? [...] On what are you basing this assumption? This is essentially based on my perception (people say watch planet.d.o rather than watch debian-n...@lists.d.o). As far as the News and Announce are concerned, the subscription are stalling: http://lists.debian.org/stats/debian-news.png http://lists.debian.org/stats/debian-announce.png (Planet was introduced in 2004) I know Ubuntu was introduced in 2004 too, but it isn't the reason for debian-news decline because debian-user never stopped growing: http://lists.debian.org/stats/debian-user.png You may consider that this one prove me wrong: http://lists.debian.org/stats/debian-devel-announce.png While I agree that Debian isn't especially visible in any way media wise I don't see the relevance of planet when it comes to our users. I have no numbers to prove that but I doubt that a lot of users are reading planet (why should they..). IT specialist and corporate consumers want to know what is going on for the next release. As for the rest of your text I have to say (and I also do not intend to start a flame): aren't there more important problems in Debian than our planet?! I asked precisely because it is a sign. You have a team when people speak as a team, not as individuals, IMHO. Franklin P.S. No I don't actually want to shut-down planet ;) and Yes, I prefer a planet blog rather than nothing. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1269702186.3962.1916.ca...@solid.paris.klabs.be
Re: Question for all candidates: Release process
Le Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 04:13:11PM +0800, Paul Wise a écrit : Does popcon not already provide a way to order packages based on importance? rc-alert has both options for sorting bugs by both local global popcon score. Hi Paul, Popcon is definitely a potent indicator, but has its flaws as well. After all, the median popcon score of Debian's ports is quite low, and we give them a lot of importance. I think that adding priorities in the equations can be useful, but after reorganising them, because for the moment, a very large majority of RC-buggy packages are of priority ‘optional’, which does not tell much. Of course, I am not campagning on that detail (the priorities), but more on the fact that we can try other release strategies, and I think that refactoring the priorities would open more possibilities. That is the main motivation for me to give this example. Should we change bts.turmzimmer.net to use that for ordering? That is really up to the bts.turmzimmer.net users. When I use it, i just go in alphabetic order and evaluate priority myself… Bapase could a nice addition, for people like me who are more on the removal mood. Cheers, -- Charles -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100327153759.ga31...@kunpuu.plessy.org
Re: To all candidates: personal mentoring
Hi Serafeim, On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 12:15:45AM +0100, Serafeim Zanikolas wrote: Dear candidates, With respect to attracting new contributors, please ponder the idea of a formal one-on-one mentoring scheme (as opposed to one-off interactions via d-mentors). I tend to believe that what we have now, while not formally defined as 'one-on-one mentoring', in practice usually is that. As in: usually, people get sponsored by the same (small group of) developer(s); and usually, people in the NM queue get assigned an AM who then gets them through the whole process. Yes, there are exceptions; sometimes people run out of time, and cannot finish the NM process with a particular applicant, or cannot spend the time to check an upload before sponsoring it for an applicant. This is only normal; we're all people who, besides Debian, do a lot of other things (at least most of us do, *g*), and we cannot always finish what we started. But ignoring those exceptions, I think much of our mentoring is in fact already one-on-one. Having said that, Yes, usually it's a good idea if mentors and mentees are paired up in a semi-permanent fashion. There are several reasons for this: when you get to deal with the same person most of the time, that means this particular person will eventually know you and be able to mentor you more effectively; also, it means that you're building a relationship with that mentor, who may eventually feel comfortable advocating you for either the DM or NM process. But there's not much we can do beyond encouraging people to become AM (there are always AMs needed), and/or encouraging people to recurrently sponsor people whom they think are doing a good job, even if they're not ready to become Debian Developer yet. -- The biometric identification system at the gates of the CIA headquarters works because there's a guard with a large gun making sure no one is trying to fool the system. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/01/biometrics.html signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: planet.debian.org is RC buggy (?)
Le samedi 27 mars 2010 à 13:39 +0100, Frank Lin PIAT a écrit : DFSG / rc-buggy ¨¨¨ I consider blogs as non-free, proprietary material (a very few have a proper license, the distribution media s*cks anyway). Breaks DFSG #1: A document (HowTo...) published on planet can't be distributed in Debian main. Is this a problem? So are mailing list contents. Breaks DFSG #3: Derived work aren't allowed. In the few case where it is legally possible, it is difficult to merge and publish the updated version. Is this a problem? So are mailing list contents. Breaks DFSG #2: No source for stuffs like charts and graphs (HTML is a valid source here). Is this a problem? So are mailing list attachments. Do you want to close lists.debian.org too? Opacity ¨¨¨ Replying to a blog entry is very difficult. The replies and the original posted aren't available side-by-side. The comments aren't available on Debian planet (a kind of censorship). Actually, some blog even forbid comments! Is this a problem? You are making your point weaker by using words out of their meaning and context. Disallowing comments is not censorship. It has nothing to do with censorship. The content isn't archived. Is this a problem? a feature? That would indeed make a nice improvement to have such a feature, but it would require authorization from all copyright owners. An alternative solution would be to index the contents and make the history searchable. I don’t think this requires any authorization if we don’t store the archived posts themselves, only permanent links to them. Overall, I’m curious to why you are asking such questions as part of the DPL campaign. Do you feel the DPL should give have authority over what services *.debian.org provides? This would be way out of the Constitution. Cheers, -- .''`. Josselin Mouette : :' : `. `' “If you behave this way because you are blackmailed by someone, `-[…] I will see what I can do for you.” -- Jörg Schilling signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: planet.debian.org is RC buggy (?)
On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 01:39:06PM +0100, Frank Lin PIAT wrote: Dear candidates, [I don't intend to start a flame war, but I do have venom for planets] planet.d.o has became one of the most visible media for Debian, if not the most visible one. Do you think it is a good thing? Not necessarily, but I don't think it's a bad thing either. [on your questions: I think you're missing the ball. I'll give you a short answer to each of your questions, and then explain _why_ I think you're missing the ball] DFSG / rc-buggy ¨¨¨ I consider blogs as non-free, proprietary material (a very few have a proper license, the distribution media s*cks anyway). Breaks DFSG #1: A document (HowTo...) published on planet can't be distributed in Debian main. Is this a problem? No. Breaks DFSG #3: Derived work aren't allowed. In the few case where it is legally possible, it is difficult to merge and publish the updated version. Is this a problem? No. Breaks DFSG #2: No source for stuffs like charts and graphs (HTML is a valid source here). Is this a problem? No. Opacity ¨¨¨ Replying to a blog entry is very difficult. The replies and the original posted aren't available side-by-side. The comments aren't available on Debian planet (a kind of censorship). Actually, some blog even forbid comments! Is this a problem? No. The content isn't archived. Is this a problem? a feature? Neither. Community ¨ Do you think Debian Planet It's Planet Debian, not Debian Planet. The latter is/was a community site with a whole different purpose. reflects the fact that Debian is a community where people collaborate? Yes. Do you think planet encourage collaboration? In some cases, yes, but it depends. For instance, when Stefano Zacchiroli started posting his RCBW blog posts, many people joined suit. This is one form of collaboration that was encouraged by Planet Debian, but there are more examples. Do you think Debian Planet reflects the fact that Debian encourages to constitute teams? Do you think planet encourage that? Probably not, no. Fame Do you see a shift in recognizing people for their communication skill (and/or committed time to communicate), rather that their actual work? No. What would you suggest and/or do? Nothing. Let me start off by comparing Planet Debian to mailinglists: Breaks DFSG#1: a mailinglist post can't necessarily be distributed in Debian main, either. Breaks DFSG#3: Derived works aren't necessarily allowed. Doesn't often break DFSG#2, mainly because mailinglists usually are not a medium where MIME attachments are welcome. But people sometimes do post to online resources as part of a discussion, and such resources often tend to be without source, too. Some mailinglists are team mailinglists, where of course collaboration is the whole point of that mailinglist. But others are not; and these do not necessarily encourage collaboration. When I say I don't see a shift in recognizing people for their communication skill, rather than actual work, then that is because people who were very active on mailinglists /before/ Planet Debian existed were also easily recognized already, regardless of how much work they did. So yes, indeed, people who talk a lot are more easily recognized than people who just work on bugs all the time; but that is not something that was introduced by Planet Debian. I do share your belief that replying to a blog can be rather difficult, depending on the blog used, but I don't share your concern with that. It is important to remember that a blog and a mailinglist have completely different purposes. For instance, I would never rant on a mailinglist; but I do occasionally rant on my blog. Likewise, I would never try to hold a discussion on a technical matter through my blog; but this happens all the time, with or without me, on mailinglists. The point of having a blog is to have an outlet for one's personal opinions. Though sometimes interesting discussions happen on Planet Debian (more like point-counterpoint things), that is absolutely not its purpose. A blog aggregator therefore only aggregates the personal opinions of the people who are on the aggregator, and nothing more. Sometimes, indeed, announcements regarding technical matters in Debian occur on blogs. This is wrong; Planet Debian should not be used for that, rather, the debian-devel-announce and/or any other relevant mailinglist for the matter at hand should be. I do not believe that my mere agreement with the social contract and the DFSG for my computer-related work during off hours should also imply that my own personal opinions on various subjects -- not just Debian, but also things as varying as my highly non-free gaming console[1], tennis[2], and music[3] -- should be released under the DFSG. When I joined Debian, I did not join a cult; rather, I joined an organization of people with a common goal of making a Free Software-based operating system.
Re: planet.debian.org is RC buggy (?)
On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 01:39:06PM +0100, Frank Lin PIAT wrote:
planet.d.o has became one of the most visible media for Debian, if not
the most visible one. Do you think it is a good thing?
Our Planet, like any other Planet out there, is just what it is: an
aggregator of individual blogs. People which are familiar with that
should know that it is by no means representative of official position
of the project and that each blog post expresses the opinion of its
author, nothing more. People that don't know the planet communication
media, well, we shouldn't really do much about them, that's just life.
I've no idea how you can establish that it is one of our most visible
media (yes, I've read your other post with data, but they are not
terribly convincing for me), but _if_ this were true, the answer would
surely be communicate a bit more some of our updates on the official
announcement lists. In fact, of the data you've given, it is
interestingly to note that even if subscriptions have stalled for many
lists, the volume of mails (i.e. the use we make of the media) has gone
down.
It might be interesting to experiment with stuff like an official Debian
blog, but as a matter of fact initiatives like news.debian.net started
by Ana are already very good substitute for that.
DFSG / rc-buggy
¨¨¨
I consider blogs as non-free, proprietary material (a very few have a
proper license, the distribution media s*cks anyway).
Breaks DFSG #1: A document (HowTo...) published on planet can't be
distributed in Debian main. Is this a problem?
Breaks DFSG #3: Derived work aren't allowed. In the few case where it is
legally possible, it is difficult to merge and publish the updated
version. Is this a problem?
Breaks DFSG #2: No source for stuffs like charts and graphs (HTML is a
valid source here). Is this a problem?
Bah, these are not necessarily true: every blog post clearly reference
its origin via URL. Then a Planet might be considered just a collection
of material where each contained item is still under its original
license (licenses for collections and/or database can be significantly
different than the software licenses we're used to), which is the one
chosen by its author. All my posts for instance are CC-BY-SA 3.0.
But again, a planet is just what it is, it is kind of pointless to go
spotting these kinds of problems, which will still be there if the blogs
were individual and non-aggregated. I presume that if you have a problem
in distributing an HOWTO found on some blog due to licensing problem,
you will be seeking how to have it licensed differently the day you want
to include it in one of our packages. What difference does it make
having it on the Planet?
Opacity
¨¨¨
Replying to a blog entry is very difficult. The replies and the original
posted aren't available side-by-side. The comments aren't available on
Debian planet (a kind of censorship). Actually, some blog even forbid
comments! Is this a problem?
No, it is not a problem, because Planet is not one of our collaboration
media, we have mailing lists for that. (Of course it is a problem when
someone posts on planet _thinking_ that it is like posting on -devel,
but it seems to me that over years we've developed a healthy peer
pressure to avoid this.)
The content isn't archived. Is this a problem? a feature?
I wouldn't call this a problem, but I agree it would be nice to have
it archived. As we can't probably simply archive the content, we can
archive the links to all syndicated posts and create a master index of
them. It seems to be relatively easy and even quite independent from the
aggregation software, how about implementing that? :-)
Community
¨
Do you think Debian Planet reflects the fact that Debian is a community
where people collaborate? Do you think planet encourage collaboration?
Do you think Debian Planet reflects the fact that Debian encourages to
constitute teams? Do you think planet encourage that?
I don't think that any of the above are purposes of a Planet. The
purpose of a Planet is to show that a specific community of bloggers is
lively and thrilling on a specific topic. To that end our Planet works
quite well. For collaboration, we've different medias.
Fame
Do you see a shift in recognizing people for their communication skill
(and/or committed time to communicate), rather that their actual work?
That's life, it will happen in any media you offer to people to
communicate. This looks like a more sociological question than something
specific to planet.d.o (or to DPL campaigning, FWIW :-)).
Cheers.
P.S. Kudos for people behind Debian News (Ana Guerrero).
Kudos^2!
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
z...@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Dietro un grande uomo c'è ..| . |. Et ne m'en veux pas si je te tutoie
sempre uno zaino ...| ..: | Je dis tu à tous ceux que j'aime
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Re: Question to all candidates: How would you enforce Debian Community Guidelines?
Hi Hector, On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 05:55:35PM +0100, Hector Oron wrote: [...] Secondly, I was wondering how Debian could make it easier for people to contribute than other (derivatives and non-derivatives) distributions. I came up with a really nice draft howto[1] When you say I came up with, I presume you actually mean I found? I came up with means so much as saying I wrote, which would be wrong in this context (I believe enrico wrote it, not you). At any rate, I was aware of this document; and while I believe it to be somewhat verbose, I do agree with the general gist of it. That is, while there might be details that I have a different opinion on, I do think it's a good thing for people to read and to base their actions on. In your subject line you ask how I would 'enforce' the dcg. My answer on that one could be short; I would not, since it is not an official document that needs to be enforced. However, as one of my initial actions as DPL, I do intend to submit a post to debian-devel-announce with a set of guidelines for people to follow when flamewars happen (and when they don't, in order to avoid them). It would not be something that I intend to enforce in any way (I do not believe in punitive action except in the most exceptional of circumstances), but it would describe the way that I already try to behave, and the way that I would encourage others to behave as well. This would reproduce some of the (IMO) more useful suggestions from the dcg augmented with some of my own suggestions. -- The biometric identification system at the gates of the CIA headquarters works because there's a guard with a large gun making sure no one is trying to fool the system. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/01/biometrics.html signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: planet.debian.org is RC buggy (?)
On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 04:03:06PM +0100, Frank Lin PIAT wrote:
I doubt that a lot of users are reading planet (why should they..).
IT specialist and corporate consumers want to know what is going on for
the next release.
Well, if they use planet.d.o for that, is their problem. Actually, it
might even be what they are looking for: on Planets you get a feeling of
a developer community that you don't get on a development mailing list
and vice-versa. That's not a good reason for not having a Planet in the
first place. At best, it is a reason for the posters to think twice
before posting something, but that's like rule #0 for all bloggers.
You have a team when people speak as a team, not as individuals, IMHO.
snip
P.S. No I don't actually want to shut-down planet ;)
and Yes, I prefer a planet blog rather than nothing.
Still, you seem to be seeing having a planet as an *alternative* to have
some other kind of communication media. It is not alternative: it is a
different communication media with different goals. Let's just avoid
that things get posted only on planet when they are actual announcements
(ah, and BTW, when that happens by mistake, it is often more fruitful to
friendly nag the poster saying «hey, this is interesting stuff for all
of us, I believe it should go to d-d-a too», than by trying to ignite a
specific flame on the topic).
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
z...@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Dietro un grande uomo c'è ..| . |. Et ne m'en veux pas si je te tutoie
sempre uno zaino ...| ..: | Je dis tu à tous ceux que j'aime
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Re: planet.debian.org is RC buggy (?)
Nico Golde wrote: when it comes to our users. I have no numbers to prove that but I doubt that a lot of users are reading planet (why should they..). Because: j...@gnu:~/tmp/xscreensaver-5.10grep planet.debian.org -r . ./debian/patches/53_XScreenSaver.ad.in.patch:+*textURL: http://planet.debian.org/rss20.xml ./debian/changelog:+ Now use planet.debian.org instead of .net Which is run regularly by 10% of our users. (I do think this is better than the random selection of posts to livejournal.com that the patch disables.) -- see shy jo signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: planet.debian.org is RC buggy (?)
On Sat, 2010-03-27 at 17:56 +0100, Josselin Mouette wrote: Le samedi 27 mars 2010 à 13:39 +0100, Frank Lin PIAT a écrit : DFSG / rc-buggy ¨¨¨ I consider blogs as non-free, proprietary material (a very few have a proper license, the distribution media s*cks anyway). Breaks DFSG #1: A document (HowTo...) published on planet can't be distributed in Debian main. Is this a problem? The content isn't archived. Is this a problem? a feature? An alternative solution would be to index the contents and make the history searchable. I don’t think this requires any authorization if we don’t store the archived posts themselves, only permanent links to them. Some valuable content vanish from homepages (same for people.d.o). Overall, I’m curious to why you are asking such questions as part of the DPL campaign. Do you feel the DPL should give have authority over what services *.debian.org provides? This would be way out of the Constitution. I believe that DPLs should promote collaboration. I personally believe that planet has many undesirable side effects, especially on collaboration behavior. Franklin PS. No, I don't actually want to shut-down planet ;) No, I am not expecting people to put their opinions under DFSG or PD May be some content could be moved to collaborative media, bts, etc May be some I am doing something post could be turned into a news May be that allowing comments should be a best practice May be I am not keeping-up with my own standards, so should shut-up! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1269712661.3962.2680.ca...@solid.paris.klabs.be
Re: planet.debian.org is RC buggy (?)
Frank Lin PIAT wrote: I consider blogs as non-free, proprietary material (a very few have a proper license, the distribution media s*cks anyway). I didn't notice a license on your email either. But every time I recall licenses of email being discussed, the conclusion has been that it doesn't sufficiently matter, that the implied redistribution and quoting grant is good enough and being more picky about licensing would be counterproductive to good communication. If one cared about licenses of blog posts, one could configure planet.debian.org to use the license data from the feeds it aggregates, perhaps prominently displaying it at the bottom of a post. For an example of a planet that does this, see http://updo.debian.net/ (you'll find (non-free!) licenses on at least the posts from RMS ;) If this were done on planet.debian.org, I expect it might influence some posters to put a license on their blogs. It might be fairly easy to get things to the point that there is social pressure for bloggers on planet debian to do so. Breaks DFSG #1 Breaks DFSG #3 Given how often we need to contact upstreams to clarify/fix license issues, I imagine most of us would not be bothered to need to contact someone in the same project. Just as we would if they had posted it to a mailing list, or to wiki.debian.org. Breaks DFSG #2: No source for stuffs like charts and graphs (HTML is a valid source here). Is this a problem? If you're interested in making it easier to access the source to web sites in a automatable fashion, check out this proto-RFC: http://kitenet.net/~joey/rfc/rel-vcs/ Replying to a blog entry is very difficult. The replies and the original posted aren't available side-by-side. The comments aren't available on Debian planet (a kind of censorship). Actually, some blog even forbid comments! Is this a problem? It suggests to some of us that it only makes sense to use comments for essentially throwaway speech, that we don't mind being under the control of the blog owner; and that anything substantial should instead be posted to our own blogs. -- see shy jo signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: planet.debian.org is RC buggy (?)
Joey Hess wrote: Because: j...@gnu:~/tmp/xscreensaver-5.10grep planet.debian.org -r . ./debian/patches/53_XScreenSaver.ad.in.patch:+*textURL: http://planet.debian.org/rss20.xml ./debian/changelog:+ Now use planet.debian.org instead of .net Which is run regularly by 10% of our users. Which, BTW, suggests another interesting way to see how many unique IP addresses 10% of our users constitute.. -- see shy jo signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Question about membership.
On Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 10:02 PM, Charles Plessy ple...@debian.org wrote: * Do you need to come up with a GR to change membership procedures, or is there a different way? I will cast a GR if I think it is needed. If I am wrong, the result will be NOTA, and I will resign as DPL. You'd really resign as DPL if a certain GR that you wanted was not passed? I think, once again, that you are mistaking the role of the DPL. If you were to be elected, it'd mean that enough people had wanted you to lead them. What would be the sense in resigning just because a certain GR is not passed? Being a DPL means leading a community, it doesn't mean that whatever you think is what the community wants. I had said before that I'd vote for all the other candidates. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, because of the work you've done on DebianMed. However, you've proved more than once that your opinion on the role of the DPL is way to different than mine, so I have made up my mind and decided that I will not be voting for you. -- Besos, Marga -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e8bbf0361003271342y55e04bd0yae8949d259a18...@mail.gmail.com
Question to all candidates: DPL's role in important package maintenance
Dear Candidates, First of all, I wish you all the very best for the elections! At the outset, this question is not meant to be inflammatory or to express ire at a particular individual or set of individuals involved; I have great respect for the contributions of all involved in the community. One of the questions which I've not yet seen exactly in the discussions is on the transparency in the maintenance of non-core but important packages, such as python, wherein the maintenance of the package and policy (till a short while ago) has been, poor at best, and we've had near zero communication from the maintainer(s) for over a year. This has led some parts of the community (Debian Python, in this case) to knock the doors of the tech-ctte[1] (recommended reading, unless you have done so already). My question to you is, do you envision a role for the DPL in fixing such inadequate maintenance of important packages, or are you of the opinion that is it up to the affected Debian community to stop whining and step up with some action themselves? Thanks. Kumar [1]: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=573745 -- Machine Always Crashes, If Not, The Operating System Hangs (MACINTOSH) -- Topic on #Linux signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: planet.debian.org is RC buggy (?)
On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 06:57:41PM +0100, Frank Lin PIAT wrote: May be some content could be moved to collaborative media, bts, etc May be some I am doing something post could be turned into a news May be that allowing comments should be a best practice A corporate blog is just like a personal blog, except you don't get to use the word 'motherfucker' -- Mark Pilgrim Similarly, a project's planet is just an aggregation of personal blogs, so they might use 'motherfucker' sometimes. If you think some content should be moved, address the relevant people (as zack mentioned). Whether or not people should allow comments is out of scope for planet, as-in, it is the personal preference of the respective Debian contributor. The proper fix would be to make the other Debian announce channels more attractive to developers, so that they do not want or have to resort to their blogs for announcements. Or maybe just point them to them, if those channels have indeed improved and we just need to convince people that this is the case. Michael -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100328001723.gi5...@nighthawk.chemicalconnection.dyndns.org
Re: planet.debian.org is RC buggy (?)
Frank Lin PIAT fp...@klabs.be writes: May be that allowing comments should be a best practice http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/faqs/comments.html -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87mxxtguon@windlord.stanford.edu
Re: Question to all candidates: How would you enforce Debian Community Guidelines?
On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 06:47:13PM +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote: However, as one of my initial actions as DPL, I do intend to submit a post to debian-devel-announce with a set of guidelines for people to follow when flamewars happen (and when they don't, in order to avoid them). Why is sending such a mail conditional on you being elected DPL? How would the content of this mail differ from such a mail if you sent it as non-DPL, and why? -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developerhttp://www.debian.org/ slanga...@ubuntu.com vor...@debian.org signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Question to all candidates: How would you enforce Debian Community Guidelines?
On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 05:26:36PM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 06:47:13PM +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote: However, as one of my initial actions as DPL, I do intend to submit a post to debian-devel-announce with a set of guidelines for people to follow when flamewars happen (and when they don't, in order to avoid them). Why is sending such a mail conditional on you being elected DPL? How would the content of this mail differ from such a mail if you sent it as non-DPL, and why? Consider Hi, I'm J. Random Developer, and I encourage all of you to abide by these rules vs Hi, I'm the DPL, and I encourage all of you to abide by these rules I don't think the former would work very well; but I believe the latter could. -- The biometric identification system at the gates of the CIA headquarters works because there's a guard with a large gun making sure no one is trying to fool the system. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/01/biometrics.html signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Question about membership.
Le Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 05:42:24PM -0300, Margarita Manterola a écrit : On Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 10:02 PM, Charles Plessy ple...@debian.org wrote: * Do you need to come up with a GR to change membership procedures, or is there a different way? I will cast a GR if I think it is needed. If I am wrong, the result will be NOTA, and I will resign as DPL. You'd really resign as DPL if a certain GR that you wanted was not passed? Hi Margarita, let me clear your doubts. I think that one of the roles of the DPL is to lead debates to conclusion. I want a debate on membership, and if nobody steps up to lead it after my election (if it happens), I will lead it. If the result is a consensus, no GR will be needed. Is a result is camps so strongly opposed that chosing one option will demotivate many DDs, I will not cast a GR and prefer status quo. If the result it that the Project as a whole is hesitating between possibilities that are acceptable, I will cast a GR to make a choice and go ahead. This is what I mean by ‘if I think it is needed’. I never wrote anywhere that I will twist arms with GRs. Here is the extract of my platform about GRs: “GRs: Sometimes, lack of consensus and action does not reflect conflict or division, but simply that in a large project like Debian, which heavily relies on electronic communication, it can be difficult to get the feeling of approbation. In these cases, I think that a vote can be a very healthy process, and I will initiate GRs when the Project is blocked on choosing between directions that are all acceptable.” To answer your question about quitting, why would a DPL resign after casting a GR that results in NOTA? A GR draws energy from the project, and if badly managed, can create tensions and divisions. In particular on the membership issue, if as DPL I would cast a GR that leads to NOTA, it would mean that I failed to understand the situation, and possibly harmed the project. I think that such a failure would be so high that a demission is the correct reaction. I hope that I convinced you that it has nothing to do with which option I would vote for if such a GR would be proposed. Have a nice Sunday, -- Charles -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100328010142.ga...@kunpuu.plessy.org
Re: Question to all candidates: How would you enforce Debian Community Guidelines?
On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 01:40:44AM +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote: On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 05:26:36PM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 06:47:13PM +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote: However, as one of my initial actions as DPL, I do intend to submit a post to debian-devel-announce with a set of guidelines for people to follow when flamewars happen (and when they don't, in order to avoid them). Why is sending such a mail conditional on you being elected DPL? How would the content of this mail differ from such a mail if you sent it as non-DPL, and why? Hi, I'm J. Random Developer, and I encourage all of you to abide by these rules vs Hi, I'm the DPL, and I encourage all of you to abide by these rules I don't think the former would work very well; but I believe the latter could. I don't think either would work very well. I could be mistaken, but I think that would be unfortunate, because that would only reinforce the idea of doing what the DPL says because he's the DPL instead of because he's made a persuasive case. So the only change you would make to the content when sending such a message as DPL vs. a normal developer would be Hi, I'm the DPL? -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developerhttp://www.debian.org/ slanga...@ubuntu.com vor...@debian.org signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: planet.debian.org is RC buggy (?)
On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 8:39 PM, Frank Lin PIAT fp...@klabs.be wrote: The content isn't archived. Is this a problem? a feature? Actually the text at least is archived (but not exactly like a mailing list), an example: http://planet.debian.org/cgi-bin/search.cgi?terms=DPL -- bye, pabs http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e13a36b31003272107w4593db48nd36ac62e1a3c2...@mail.gmail.com
