discouraging discussion styles - any cure?
Dear DPL candidates, it happens every now and then, people assume bad faith in mails from others and call their action silly and active tries to sabotage, and there are also people who fight for their right to behave like assholes and belittle scathingly against people that wish for a better communication style. Besides that I would expect from a DPL candidate to lead by example (hope we can agree on that part), what else do you think you could do to discorage such behavior and encourage people, in cases of doubt, to rather simply ask how something might have been meant than assume bad faith in the others? Thanks, Rhonda -- Fühlst du dich mutlos, fass endlich Mut, los | Fühlst du dich hilflos, geh raus und hilf, los| Wir sind Helden Fühlst du dich machtlos, geh raus und mach, los | 23.55: Alles auf Anfang Fühlst du dich haltlos, such Halt und lass los| -- 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/20120313084035.ga20...@anguilla.debian.or.at
Re: Finding sponsors for Debian
Hi, On Montag, 12. März 2012, Arno Töll wrote: We sponsored both, Debian and DebConf in the past but my boss does not feel very comfortable to sponsor DebConfs because he's more interested to support actual Debian work as a distribution, as Debian is the system we rely upon for our business. I think that means we failed to communicate (well enough) that sponsoring DebConf, the conf, _means_ sponsoring Debian, the distribution. Arno, maybe you can show your boss the (pretty short and pretty pretty pretty) article Stefano wrote about this in the DebConf11 final report, right the first one here: http://media.debconf.org/dc11/report/DebConf11_FinalReport.pdf But I've learned that we need to communicate this a whole lot better. Ideas how? cheers, Holger -- 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/201203131013.39262.hol...@layer-acht.org
Re: Finding sponsors for Debian
On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 10:13:38AM +0100, Holger Levsen wrote: But I've learned that we need to communicate this a whole lot better. Ideas how ... would be best directed to debian-project :) Neil -- A. Because it breaks the logical sequence of discussion Q. Why is top posting bad? gpg key - http://www.halon.org.uk/pubkey.txt ; the.earth.li A40F862E -- 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/20120313091739.gk...@feta.halon.org.uk
Re: More votes in Debian? Any idea for improvement?
On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 04:19:44PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: To make this concrete, we had a spat of GRs to decide various technical and social issues in Debian some years back, and that practice has died out almost completely. I know I at least much prefer the current situation to when lots of contentious decisions involved GRs; [...] Personally, I would put this down to Debian simply not having any contentious decisions to make. I haven't been following Debian as closely as I once did, though, so perhaps I just haven't seen them. I wonder if anyone can name three big controversies over the past few years that have gotten resolved within Debian? To be more specific: something important where there's (at least) two different choices that groups of different developers want to make, and some resolution has been arrived at beyond ignore the whole issue or everyone who thinks X has given up/gone away, therefore Y or wait and see what other distros do? A resolution might be winner vs loser (we package stuff in deb, not rpm; we continue with the non-free section of the archive), but it doesn't have to be; sometimes everyone gets convinced that's there's a best way to do things; other times there are technical solution that makes both things possible (alternatives making vim and nvi both work as the default vi, Provides:/Conflicts: for MTAs, packaging both Gnome and KDE). The biggest controversies in free software that I've seen just aren't happening within Debian from what I've seen: Unity vs Gnome3 is an Ubuntu/Gnome thing; upstart vs systemd is an Ubuntu/Fedora thing; funding open source development is a Red Hat/Google/Intel/IBM/HP/Oracle/buxy thing... The biggest controversies I've seen in Debian have been things like when should dpkg multiarch get uploaded to experimental/unstable (resolved by a vote though not a GR...), or what does Constantly Usable Testing actually mean (afaict resolved by effectively leaving that project on hold so it doesn't have to be answered). But maybe I've just missed a bunch of interesting contentious issues Debian's resolved without a vote over the past few years? Cheers, aj -- 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/20120313095108.ga27...@master.debian.org
Re: Gergely Nagy: enough packaging manpower?
Ansgar Burchardt ans...@43-1.org writes: while reading algernon's platform I stumbled over the two sentences More packages, more packagers? A solved problem and Not raw, packaging manpower - with hundreds of people, we have that covered. How do you think about the current state of reviewing uploads for maintainers without upload privileges (for both new packages and updates to existing packages)? In short: it's poor. While there have been many improvements in that area (the sponsorship-requests pseudo-package, continuing work on mentors.d.n, and so on), the manpower there IS lacking. Finding a sponsor is hard, and often time consuming. Package reviews are a bit better, as many are more willing to review than to sponsor (especially since non-uploading members of the -mentors@ list can review too, there have been and continue to be examples of that, and that's great). This is one of the areas where we need to find motivated people to help with reviews and sponsoring, on a regular basis, because right now, unless the sponsoree can find a team to work with, the whole process becomes very frustrating, very quickly. There are many things we can do to improve the situation, ranging from encouraging more prospective packagers to approach a team first, to things like improvements[1] to DebExpo that would make it easier for both teams and sponsorees to achieve the same thing. I would also love to see a Review Mentor team, something that could work along and with the NM process, whose task would be to do just what the name suggests: reivew packages, help find a sponsor (or act as sponsor, as appropriate) and keep in touch with both sides. It's going to be a challenge to make this happen, but it's definitely something I wish to work on. Nevertheless, I still believe we have a lot of packaging manpower, we just need to organise and use that manpower better, and turn it from raw packaging manpower into collaborative packaging manpower. [1]: http://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2012/Projects#Semantic_Package_Review_Interface_for_mentors.debian.net -- |8] -- 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/87sjhchkiq.fsf@algernon.balabit
Re: More votes in Debian? Any idea for improvement?
Hi! Thomas Goirand z...@debian.org writes: If you see projects like Openstack or oVirt (sorry for the examples taken from my area of expertise...), they have elections every 6 months for project leaders in this or that area of the project. In Debian, we just elect a DPL, and then we hope that he appoints people who then can make decisions on the behalf of Debian. My opinion on this is very similar to Zack's and Wouters: technical decisions should be made by the appropriate teams, not by voting, unless absolutely neccessary. There are multiple reasons for that, including, but not limited to: * The teams having more insight into their job than the project as a whole allows them to make better informed decisions more quickly. * We should not bring politics into technical decisions, that's never good. Appointing delegates is often a technical decision, and even if it has other components, the tech part of it is still significant. * Debian is a do-ocracy in many areas, recognising that with delegation is, in my opinion, the right way to do it. Turn it into a vote, and then it will quickly become a talk-ocracy. * Generally, we should trust our teams to do their jobs well. In case of problems, we have ways to fix it (revoking delegations, etc). Reassuring team member positions by a project-wide wrote every year (every 6 months would be even worse!) would just put extra burden on both the Developer body as a whole, and the team members for, I believe, no real gain. I feel strange that such a big project as Debian appears to work in a less democratic way than some software which has adopted open governance (truth, this is the new hype, but still...). There are things that work for other projects, but don't work for us. Excessive voting is one of those things. It works well if you have a small core of about a dozen people or thereabouts. If you have close to a thousand, even if only a third of those actively participate in voting, that's still a huge number. We also have a lot of teams, who just get the job done. I see no reason to hinder their performance by making their position a matter of voting: most likely, they'd be appointed anyway, and we wates time and effort of both the team members, and of the voters too. I see no reason why we couldn't have more direct appointments for key positions in Debian. I feel like it would be possible to have more democratic, ways to do things, with direct votes. I disagree. I believe in do-ocracy, and that it has served us well over the years, and I'm confident it will work in the future too. On the other hand, I've seen projects that strived to be openly governed fall flat to their face and accomplish nothing. Direct votes introduce an unneccessary burden and a bit too much politics into what is almost entirely a technical decision best left to be made by those who work in or close to that area. Also, on the opposite side, the DPL is currently having to appoint regularly others, which is only a formal thing and is sometimes a useless loss of time (maybe Zack can tell a bit more about this in a better English than mine...). I believe it still takes less time, and only from a handful of people, than a vote would, and the results would be pretty much the same. What are the improvements in this area that our 2012 candidates foresee? There are of course, shortcomings of the current system (see Zack's explanation), which might be improved upon. The idea of self-determining, non-synchronized time-limited memberships is interesting, but for that to work, we'd need a slightly larger pool of people to work with. That happens to be very much in scope for my plan of encouraging people to work with the core teams, and to make those key positions and teams more attractive. In summary, I find project-wide voting boring and unneccessary. Once or twice a year is more than enough, more would be counter productive. Smaller-scale votes, within teams is another thing, that can work, and can result in improvement, but that has a few prerequisites to function well - see above! -- |8] -- 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/87obs0hheb.fsf@algernon.balabit
Re: Finding sponsors for Debian
Hi Stefano, On Montag, 12. März 2012, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: (Note/reminder: we have resolved last year that DebConf budget is part of Debian budget, it is just earmarked differently for a time period centered around the conference.) IIRC you still need to reply to a mail I sent to leader@ about this, where I question this or maybe parts of it :-) Let me summarize: If DebConf goes well, this modell works nicely. But if it goes really bad (not just a little), because the DebConf orga team made some stupid decissions, bad mistakes, etc. I dont think Debian as a whole should be liable for eg 100k€ losses. (As much as I dont want the individuals / the specific debconfX NGO to be in that debt for this, I do think if they mess it up, they have to pay the bill.) Comments how to fix properly are very welcome. Maybe it just needs some cleaner wordings ;-) Because probably most of this is already covered: _if_ $DebConf-Orga-person does something out of gross negligence, it's not Debians (or DebConfs) fault anyway. (ie someone drives a car (with the purpose of doing some requested job) for DebConf, and then drives way too fast and crashes and cause 2mio € damages.) But what if we book (way too) $expensive_place now and then later have to cancel this (and pay a huge cancelation fee) or have to take it, despite not having the money... Contracts/agreements are usually not needed if things go well, only if they don't. I'm not sure we have good enough agreement (for the D/DC releationship) for when^wif things go horrible wrong. I havent finished thinking about this, but still wanted to bring this up on the table now. DebConf travel sponsoring dominates our overall travel sponsoring costs, so it makes sense to go knocking at companies door yearly as part of DebConf organization. I don't think it would be useful to do so more than once per year. Companies would feel split among the different calls for donations and they would hardly give more. The DPL being already part of the effort, I don't see margin of improvement on that front either. we need to ask for money *way* earlier. Starting now (for the conf happening this year), is about 6 months too late. (Also, but not only, because many companies donate money at the end of the year...) What *would* help is to have more people participate in the yearly initiatives of the DebConf sponsor team. Coincidentally, this is precisely the time of the year where DebConf people are working on gathering sponsor. I hereby encourage anyone interested in this topic to volunteer as a member of the DebConf sponsor team. It's easy, there is plenty of easy coordination/bookkeeping work, and every company contact you have could help. Amen! (Please join!) cheers, Holger -- 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/201203131256.01795.hol...@layer-acht.org
Re: discouraging discussion styles - any cure?
Hi! Gerfried Fuchs rho...@deb.at writes: it happens every now and then, people assume bad faith in mails from others and call their action silly and active tries to sabotage, and there are also people who fight for their right to behave like assholes and belittle scathingly against people that wish for a better communication style. There are a few ways one can do in situations like this, which one to pursue, largely depends on the situation and the people involved. In every case, however, it is a very important step to maintain a clear head and not fall for the trap, so to say. So a crucial step is to try and calm down both parties, either publicly, or in private (or both, as appropriate). From my experience, a large number of name-calling stem from misunderstandings and mis-communications. Both can be fixed, and a third party who steps in, and the others can throw the stones at him has remarkably good effects, as the opposing parties do not have to talk directly to each other, and the mediator can calm them both down, and afterwards, gently guide them to an agreement and apologies. I've seen that work, had stones thrown at me, didn't mind. I've seen others do it, worked out nicely in the end. However, this doesn't always work, as this is best done when the discussion can be taken private, to discourage others from throwing yet more fuel onto the fire. On the other hand, I do not believe in a flame-war-free world, either. We do need heated arguments from time to time, and I see nothing wrong with that, as long as it remains civilised and does not resort to name-calling and an insult duel (unless it's in monkey island style ;). Besides that I would expect from a DPL candidate to lead by example (hope we can agree on that part), what else do you think you could do to discorage such behavior and encourage people, in cases of doubt, to rather simply ask how something might have been meant than assume bad faith in the others? The best way is to lead by example, indeed. But it's something that everyone else can do, too, not just the DPL. Sometimes this might mean ignoring a few harsh mails, and continue from a saneer point, by asking for clarification, if one party meant this or that instead of what the other understood. Then, if so need be, in case the falming part of the thread continues, one can post there, pointing out that hey, how about we stop bickering and ASK first, before shooting? might just have more desirable results. Nevertheless, this is a difficult topic, as pretty much each and every case needs to be handled differently. And unfortunately, I do not have ready made plans, nor cookbooks for the most common situations. One other thing I'd like to mention is that sadly, there will always be voices that try to disrupt, and generally act as complete jerks. There will always be cases where we can't teach them to express their opinions in a less hurtful fashion. In those cases, we need to ignore these, and not let them get under our skin. This is an even more difficult task, as this must not look like we're allowing such behaviour. -- |8] -- 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/87ehswhfge.fsf@algernon.balabit
Re: Gergely and Wouter: on the need of becoming a DPL
Raphael Geissert geiss...@debian.org writes: Reading zack's platform, it makes me wonder why would you (Gergely and Wouter) actually need to be elected as a DPL to do what you mention on your platforms. Because while Zack's regin as DPL for the past two years have been very successful, and there would be a lot of things I'd do the same way (which Wouter even highlighted as being communication), there are others where our goals for this year differ wildly. To explain this, I'll answer your questions in reverse order, as I believe that would be the easiest way to arrive to a conclusion: * If zack was re-elected, would you follow his initiative to share DPL activities with others? Yes, I would, to some extent. Sharing the load and building on the knowledge, skill and enthusiasm of others - or, to put it another way: standing on the soulder of giants - is a good way to avoid spreading oneself too thin, and remain effective. A leader, as the name implies, is there to lead, not do everything by himself. * If not elected, would you pursue your goals anyway? I would do everything within my power to pursue them. It would become considerably more difficult, though, but not impossible. If it's not impossible, it's still worth trying. If the elected DPL happens to share some of the ideas or goals I set forth, then I see no problem with working together to achieve both our goals. However, with Zack wishing to oversee the completion of projects he already started (an understandable desire!), and with his wish to train prospective DPLs and ease future transitions, I doubt he'd have enough time and energy to follow up on my vision too. * Why do you think you need to be elected as a DPL to do what you propose? Because I have a vision that points further into the future than the other candidates', I believe. It would be difficult to accomplish what I hope to do, without having the tools at hand, and those tools happen to be in the DPL's toolbox: the ability to delegate, to be noticed and perhaps even listened to, and to stand on a higher pedestal from where one can get a better overview of the project as a whole. All of these can be done without being a DPL, but then, even with the help of the DPL, it would take considerably more time and effort, than if I didn't have to go through another channel. Furthermore, there's the question of why not? Since both Wouter and myself intend to continue the great things Zack started and did, what would we loose if the DPL transition happend now, and not next year? Zack could still see his pending projects to completion, as he's the one with the most knowledge regarding them, and as such, can remain in control of these: that would also help the next DPL tremendously, and thus, ease the transition. Which in turn, also helps Zack accomplish his goal of training a new DPL, and everybody wins! Even better, this way there's already a successor present, and Zack does not need to worry about making sure that in 2013 we'll have a smooth transition: we can make that happen this year, while sacrificing nothing from either of our goals. I have doubts it'd work as well if it went the other way around. -- |8] -- 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/87aa3khe05.fsf@algernon.balabit
Re: Finding sponsors for Debian
On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 12:56:00PM +0100, Holger Levsen wrote:
IIRC you still need to reply to a mail I sent to leader@ about this,
where I question this or maybe parts of it :-) Let me summarize:
I don't think so :-), but I might be wrong of course. Please prod me at
leader@d.o if you confirm it's the case.
If DebConf goes well, this modell works nicely.
But if it goes really bad (not just a little), because the DebConf orga team
made some stupid decissions, bad mistakes, etc. I dont think Debian as a
whole
should be liable for eg 100k€ losses. (As much as I dont want the individuals
/ the specific debconfX NGO to be in that debt for this, I do think if they
mess it up, they have to pay the bill.)
Well, DebConf chairs are DPL delegates for a reason, and this is a big
part of it. This means that the Project, via the DPL, trusts you to be
responsible with the DebConf budget. It is a big responsibility, as I'm
sure you realize. In choosing the people who are now appointed as DPL
chairs, I've indeed looked for a good mix of skills that I thought are
needed to run DebConf. That included the ability to keep an eye on the
budget and stay away from risky agreements.
But the delegation also means that if you screw up badly, it will be
Debian who would have screwed up badly. That is part of the game. And
while you surely feel more the risk of screwing up with DebConf budgets
(a very healthy fear, if you ask me), there are plenty of other places
where Developers with responsibility in the project might screw up and
endanger the Project. Again, that is part of the game. By only looking
at worst case scenarios you simply end up doing nothing: we should
rather evaluate risks, try to minimize them, and then go for it.
... and speaking about risk minimization, part of the DebConf / Debian
reconciliation discussions included the presentation of a _tentative_
conference budget to the DPL for review before starting spending
money. That is a sensible safeguard measure, IMHO, and I'm looking
forward to start practicing with it :-)
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} . o .
Maître de conférences .. http://upsilon.cc/zack .. . . o
Debian Project Leader... @zack on identi.ca ...o o o
« the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »
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Re: discouraging discussion styles - any cure?
On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 09:40:35AM +0100, Gerfried Fuchs wrote: Dear DPL candidates, it happens every now and then, people assume bad faith in mails from others and call their action silly and active tries to sabotage, Well, for starters, I think it's fairly hard to read emotions in text-only messages. I've had to learn the hard way that your own emotions play a big role in that: if you're, say, unhappy, a bit tired, or simply opposed to the idea being discussed (or all of the above), it's much easier to read an aggressive or attacking emotion in a mail that wasn't meant as such. Personally, when I read a mail that makes me a bit angry or defensive, I tend to read it again, just to be sure that the person involved did really mean it that way. If I'm still not convinced it could be read positively, I'll try to contact them out of band to confirm what they meant and how they meant it, or leave the mail for another day to reply. I find that helps me a lot in avoiding flames. and there are also people who fight for their right to behave like assholes and belittle scathingly against people that wish for a better communication style. This, I agree, should not be acceptable behaviour. I hope you're not categorizing me as someone who would do that ;-) Besides that I would expect from a DPL candidate to lead by example (hope we can agree on that part), Certainly. what else do you think you could do to discorage such behavior and encourage people, in cases of doubt, to rather simply ask how something might have been meant than assume bad faith in the others? First, what I wrote above. I also intend to privately talk to people who I think exhibit excessive aggressivity, asking them to stop doing so. In addition, one of the things I've been considering is to lead a discussion on an overhaul of our code of conduct. I think our current CoC isn't really working, since it's outdated in parts, irrelevant in others, and ignored by many people in the parts that actually matter. Such an overhaul would of course require input from the project as a whole, but it would include things like assume good faith, keep things civilized, remember that we're all trying to work for a common goal, etc. That probably doesn't need me to be DPL, but it could help. It's unlikely that we could fix everything; in fact, it's impossible to completely eradicate bad behaviour. We all do things we regret later sometimes, mainly because nobody among us is perfect. -- The volume of a pizza of thickness a and radius z can be described by the following formula: pi zz a -- 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/20120313131130.gc4...@grep.be
Re: Stefano Zacchiroli: What would you do different
On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 04:10:11PM +0100, Martin Zobel-Helas wrote:
you are 2 years DPL already. In your current platform you state in 1.2
why you want to stand for DPL an other year.
Are there any areas within your current DPL work where you think you
will do completly different to the other two years?
_Completely_ different, no, not really.
As I've mentioned in my motivations to run this year, I think I've
offered a decent service to the project for the past two years. That has
happened due to the way I've chosen to do things over other possible
ways that I've put aside. As I've the energy to apply the same recipes
--- or the same style if you want --- for another year, I don't see
compelling reasons to change them.
There are projects that, time permitting, I'd like to complete and new
ones to take on, but that is unrelated to the wish of doing things
differently.
Obviously, I've also in mind mistakes and regrets, who doesn't? A
recurrent category for me is the category I should have worded better
that email, maybe the discussion would have turned out better if I did.
But that is just a big bag of experiences, that we all have, and that
make us do better next time.
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} . o .
Maître de conférences .. http://upsilon.cc/zack .. . . o
Debian Project Leader... @zack on identi.ca ...o o o
« the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »
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Re: Gergely and Wouter: on the need of becoming a DPL
On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 09:14:43AM +1100, Ben Finney wrote: Please don't send me personal copies of messages that are also going to the mailing list, as I haven't asked for that. Mail-Followup-To can help you with that, fwiw. [...] I know that there are a number of things that I want to do differently from how Stefano's been doing them. I want to have a different focus. As DPL, I want to try and motivate people to work on Debian. Please tell us what *specific* things you want to do differently, and why those specific actions need DPL authority. On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 01:22:45PM +0800, Thomas Goirand wrote: On 03/13/2012 12:14 AM, Wouter Verhelst wrote: there are some things I would like to see the DPL do differently Could you be a bit more explicit? Which things? Note that I have read your platform, but I still think it needs some clarifications. For example, you wrote that you think the DPL could do more than just procedural things. Like what? It's a matter of style. I think Stefano has done a good job in communication, but has been a bit of a... bureaucrat in other tasks. I'm not very fond of bureaucracy. It has its place, it's necessary sometimes, but it's always a necessary evil. What I want to see in a DPL (and hence, what I will try to do when I am DPL) is a motivator; someone who will try to find ways to get people working together more efficiently. The job of the DPL is about people, not about technology; and certainly not about procedures. Hence, I will try to be a DPL who will care a bit less about the letter of the constitution or the letter of the social contract, than about the people and the job that needs doing. Can I be more specific than that? Probably, but I'd rather not do that. Yes, I could start picking up specific things that have happened during the past two years and start slinging mud about it in Stefano's general direction, but I don't think that's very helpful. I can tell you that the difference won't be immense, however; they will be details. But I do think that change is good; that after two years, the project can use a different DPL. Keeping the same person in the leadership position for too long is not a good idea. I think this thread has started off on the wrong foot a bit. Is there a need for me to be DPL? Not really. There is a need for the project to have a good DPL, yes, and a *wish* for me to serve in that position. I think I can do a good job, and I have thought so for quite a while (otherwise I wouldn't be running three times in six years). No, I think a better question would have been do we need another year with Stefano. It's true that he's done a remarkable job, and that it's taken us many years to get someone who's done the job so well. In that context, I do understand the reluctance to choose the unknown over the known good, which probably led to this question. But I don't think that reluctance is warranted. Stefano's best qualities as DPL have been the way in which he's communicated with the rest of the project. He's also done an excellent job of documenting how he's done that; this means it should be possible for the people coming after him to copy his ways of doing things, in an effort to improve and build upon his accomplishments. I intend to do just that. -- The volume of a pizza of thickness a and radius z can be described by the following formula: pi zz a -- 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/20120313151830.gd4...@grep.be
Re: how informed should a DPL be?
On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 09:46:30PM +0800, Paul Wise wrote: Recent threads have made me concerned about how well informed some of our current DPL nominees are about what is going on within Debian. My question to the candidates is similar to what I asked in 2010[1]: How well informed should a DPL be about the activity of the Debian project? Very. If it's the DPL's job to take the lead in things, then that requires him to know what he's leading. You can't lead with a blindfold. Do you feel you are sufficiently informed about the Debian project? sufficiently is a fairly subjective term. Yes, I think I know a fair deal of the goings-on in many parts of the project. No, I don't think I know all the DPL needs to know. Yet. This is because I am not the DPL. Yet. As such, I'll have a lot of getting-up-to-speed to do. I do believe, however, that I know enough to get started. I am also someone who can learn easily if I put my mind to something; this is a useful skill, I think, for a DPL. What might be some deficiencies in your understanding of Debian? I've been involved with many parts of the project, but there are even more parts of the project that I've not been involved in. Logically, there are therefore some parts in Debian that I'm not very familiar with. However, I do tend to follow things in Debian fairly well, through the fact that I'm subscribed to numerous mailinglist, am a regular on IRC, and also read Planet Debian fairly often; and as such I do tend to know a thing or two even about the things that I'm not directly involved in. How would you improve that if you were to be elected? One of the first things I plan to do is actively reach out to some of our core teams, to coordinate with them and make sure any gaps in my current knowledge are filled as soon as possible. Same questions for Debian's relationship with the wider free software world and with the wider world in general. I believe I have a good enough understanding of what issues there are between Debian and other free software projects, but there may be more 'gaps' here. That isn't necessarily a problem, however; it's the DPL's job to lead the Debian project, not the free software world in general. As to the 'wider world', that's such a vague concept that it's going to be fairly difficult to formulate an intelligent answer to that. I do think there are some issues in the area of vendors (hardly any hardware manufacturers provide official support for Debian), and we may have a bit of a problem with name recognition, but that's about it. -- The volume of a pizza of thickness a and radius z can be described by the following formula: pi zz a -- 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/20120313153854.ge4...@grep.be
Re: Gergely and Wouter: on the need of becoming a DPL
On 13Mar, 2012, at 17:18 , Wouter Verhelst wrote: On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 09:14:43AM +1100, Ben Finney wrote: Please don't send me personal copies of messages that are also going to the mailing list, as I haven't asked for that. Mail-Followup-To can help you with that, fwiw. From the Debian mailing list Code of Conduct at http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/ When replying to messages on the mailing list, do not send a carbon copy (CC) to the original poster unless they explicitly request to be copied. -- 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/90116521-d198-4b76-a149-c5bed53c7...@iki.fi
Re: Gergely and Wouter: on the need of becoming a DPL
On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 05:23:50PM +0200, Kalle Kivimaa wrote: On 13Mar, 2012, at 17:18 , Wouter Verhelst wrote: On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 09:14:43AM +1100, Ben Finney wrote: Please don't send me personal copies of messages that are also going to the mailing list, as I haven't asked for that. Mail-Followup-To can help you with that, fwiw. From the Debian mailing list Code of Conduct at http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/ When replying to messages on the mailing list, do not send a carbon copy (CC) to the original poster unless they explicitly request to be copied. From that same code of conduct: If you want to complain to someone who sent you a carbon copy when you did not ask for it, do it privately. Also, I think the CoC is wrong in making policy about who to send replies to. Some people actually prefer getting replies, while others don't. Since there's a header that nicely allows you to specify just that, I think a more useful rule in a code of conduct is use a mailer that respects the Mail-Followup-To: header, or respect it manually. This way, people can express their preference, and there should be no complaints about whether or not replies should be sent. -- The volume of a pizza of thickness a and radius z can be described by the following formula: pi zz a -- 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/20120313160012.gf4...@grep.be
Re: Finding sponsors for Debian
I'm redirecting this thread to d-project... You and I tend to think about money very much DebConf-wise (specially in the March-July period ;-) ), but I think this is going away from the current d-vote topic. Please reply to this message to d-project only. Holger Levsen dijo [Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 12:56:00PM +0100]: (Note/reminder: we have resolved last year that DebConf budget is part of Debian budget, it is just earmarked differently for a time period centered around the conference.) IIRC you still need to reply to a mail I sent to leader@ about this, where I question this or maybe parts of it :-) Let me summarize: If DebConf goes well, this modell works nicely. But if it goes really bad (not just a little), because the DebConf orga team made some stupid decissions, bad mistakes, etc. I dont think Debian as a whole should be liable for eg 100k€ losses. (As much as I dont want the individuals / the specific debconfX NGO to be in that debt for this, I do think if they mess it up, they have to pay the bill.) Comments how to fix properly are very welcome. Maybe it just needs some cleaner wordings ;-) Because probably most of this is already covered: _if_ $DebConf-Orga-person does something out of gross negligence, it's not Debians (or DebConfs) fault anyway. (ie someone drives a car (with the purpose of doing some requested job) for DebConf, and then drives way too fast and crashes and cause 2mio € damages.) But what if we book (way too) $expensive_place now and then later have to cancel this (and pay a huge cancelation fee) or have to take it, despite not having the money... Contracts/agreements are usually not needed if things go well, only if they don't. I'm not sure we have good enough agreement (for the D/DC releationship) for when^wif things go horrible wrong. I havent finished thinking about this, but still wanted to bring this up on the table now. I'll just answer to this by stating that I... Agree with your general view and worry. Of course, the way a specific controversy (or situation-gone-terrible) is solved depends on the situation, and should be dealt with case by case. But, yes, in the moment we formally acknowledged that DebConf is Debian (and not, as it was +- managed before, that DebConf is *for* Debian), the project gives us some liability coverage... Which we, of course, prefer not to use! DebConf travel sponsoring dominates our overall travel sponsoring costs, so it makes sense to go knocking at companies door yearly as part of DebConf organization. I don't think it would be useful to do so more than once per year. Companies would feel split among the different calls for donations and they would hardly give more. The DPL being already part of the effort, I don't see margin of improvement on that front either. we need to ask for money *way* earlier. Starting now (for the conf happening this year), is about 6 months too late. (Also, but not only, because many companies donate money at the end of the year...) Right. DebConf produces quite a bit of burnout syndrome, where we don't want to even think about it for several months. And those are the aptest months for sponsor acquisition - And for testing some important improvements (say, as in the Penta replacement we have pending). signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: More votes in Debian? Any idea for improvement?
Anthony Towns a...@master.debian.org writes: On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 04:19:44PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: To make this concrete, we had a spat of GRs to decide various technical and social issues in Debian some years back, and that practice has died out almost completely. I know I at least much prefer the current situation to when lots of contentious decisions involved GRs; [...] Personally, I would put this down to Debian simply not having any contentious decisions to make. I haven't been following Debian as closely as I once did, though, so perhaps I just haven't seen them. I wonder if anyone can name three big controversies over the past few years that have gotten resolved within Debian? Multiarch. (Okay, we're not done yet, but we're a lot of the way along.) The DEP5 copyright format. Build hardening flags. How to implement build-arch (again, not done yet, but we do have a decision that I expect to be implemented shortly). My guess is that at least multiarch and build hardening would have become GRs about five years ago. The biggest controversies I've seen in Debian have been things like when should dpkg multiarch get uploaded to experimental/unstable (resolved by a vote though not a GR...), A very non-democratic vote. -- 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/87k42otq82@windlord.stanford.edu
Re: Gergely and Wouter: on the need of becoming a DPL
On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 05:00:12PM +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote: Also, I think the CoC is wrong in making policy about who to send replies to. Some people actually prefer getting replies, while others don't. Since there's a header that nicely allows you to specify just that, I think a more useful rule in a code of conduct is use a mailer that respects the Mail-Followup-To: header, or respect it manually. This way, people can express their preference, and there should be no complaints about whether or not replies should be sent. Is there any other policies that you disagree with, and would you be looking to change any of these as DPL? Neil -- Erik_J good day! i hear this might be a good place to get some technical advice when one is debian eliterate :) pgpE96QWBru8B.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Gergely and Wouter: on the need of becoming a DPL
On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 04:18:30PM +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
Can I be more specific than that? Probably, but I'd rather not do that.
Yes, I could start picking up specific things that have happened during
the past two years and start slinging mud about it in Stefano's general
direction, but I don't think that's very helpful.
Just a comment on this, since you seem to be mentioning me a lot, both
in your platform and in campaign discussions. Which, BTW, I find
entirely appropriate: I'm standing for reelection so it's only fair to
bring compare and contrast points in the discussion.
I won't mind specific examples of things people think I've been doing
wrong, both coming from candidates and non-candidates. It will be a
chance for me to explain why I did something in a specific way, in the
case that I haven't done so at the time. It will also make this
discussion more concrete and less hand-wave-y.
Since you've repeatedly mentioned my bureaucracy and procedures (not
to mention bureaucrat referred to my person, which doesn't feel as
nice, at least in popular connotations :-)), I'd like to point out that
procedures are just a mean to an end. They are incentives. They are
implementations of changes that we think are good for the project. Just
a few of concrete examples:
- I've been routinely asking delegates to provide a sort of tasks
description before renewing, or creating from scratch, delegations.
All those descriptions have been stored under (or at the very list
indexed from) http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/ . Is that bureaucratic?
Yes. But it allows to find out what is the scope of a delegation
rather than relying on folklore. And *that* is very useful in conflict
solving (been there).
- I've been routinely asking sprint participants to document their
sprints under http://wiki.debian.org/Sprints before asking for budget
approval and of sending public sprint reports before asking for
reimbursements. Is that bureaucratic? Yes. But is useful in many ways:
1/ it shows what we do with money and it helps in attracting sponsors
(see recent thread on -project); 2/ it dispels the risk of cabals
meeting in secret on Debian money (we have been there already, we've
had enough) and gives transparency on how Debian money are used; 3/ it
provides a flow of information about what is going on in various areas
of the project, increasing the permeability among teams.
Just examples, I'll be happy to provide similar rationales for every
single procedure I've encouraged.
On the other hand, procedures might have bugs, feel free to report them!
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} . o .
Maître de conférences .. http://upsilon.cc/zack .. . . o
Debian Project Leader... @zack on identi.ca ...o o o
« the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »
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Description: Digital signature
Re: Gergely and Wouter: on the need of becoming a DPL
Wouter Verhelst wou...@debian.org writes: I will try to be a DPL who will care a bit less about the letter of the constitution or the letter of the social contract, than about the people and the job that needs doing. Can I be more specific than that? Probably, but I'd rather not do that. The above (and the rest of your message) doesn't give any specifics of what you plan to *do* as DPL, though. Yes, I could start picking up specific things that have happened during the past two years and start slinging mud about it in Stefano's general direction, but I don't think that's very helpful. Right. No-one has asked for that. You've been asked several times for the actions you plan to take, and it's distressing to see you avoid the question like this. No, I think a better question would have been do we need another year with Stefano. Please don't deflect the question to Stefano. Regardless what people may think of Stefano, this is a question about you as a DPL candidate. What will you, if elected to DPL, do specifically with that authority? -- \ “It's up to the masses to distribute [music] however they want | `\… The laws don't matter at that point. People sharing music in | _o__)their bedrooms is the new radio.” —Neil Young, 2008-05-06 | Ben Finney -- 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/878vj4i6m5@benfinney.id.au
Debian's trademarks and logos, and their terms of use.
Dear Wouter, Gergely and Stefano, one of the conditions for a work to be considered free is to allow others to use it without making contribution back to the original authors (even if we whish everybody would do when they can). In the non-free section of our archive, we therefore have software where the authors reserve commercial use for themselves. In contrast with what we require for the software we distribute, we are forbidding to use some of our logos for profit. While there are some clear differences between software and carriers of visual identity, I feel that there is a strong mismatch between what we ask and what we give, if we reduce a software on one side, and Debian's reputation on the other side, to the fruit of the efforts of their makers. Said differently, I see a contradiction between forbidding people making money by printing our name on T-shirts, and requiring that all the software we distribute can be used for profit. I would like to know your position or vision on our trademarks and logos, and, if you indend to work on that question as a DPL, what would be the key points of your action. Have a nice day, -- Charles Plessy Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan -- 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/20120314004701.ga29...@falafel.plessy.net
Re: Gergely and Wouter: on the need of becoming a DPL
On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 04:46:14PM +, Neil McGovern wrote: On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 05:00:12PM +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote: Also, I think the CoC is wrong in making policy about who to send replies to. Some people actually prefer getting replies, while others don't. Since there's a header that nicely allows you to specify just that, I think a more useful rule in a code of conduct is use a mailer that respects the Mail-Followup-To: header, or respect it manually. This way, people can express their preference, and there should be no complaints about whether or not replies should be sent. Is there any other policies that you disagree with, No. and would you be looking to change any of these as DPL? Not without first trying to achieve consensus. -- The volume of a pizza of thickness a and radius z can be described by the following formula: pi zz a -- 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/20120314015059.ga3...@celtic.nixsys.be
Re: Gergely and Wouter: on the need of becoming a DPL
On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 07:33:06AM +1100, Ben Finney wrote: Wouter Verhelst wou...@debian.org writes: I will try to be a DPL who will care a bit less about the letter of the constitution or the letter of the social contract, than about the people and the job that needs doing. Can I be more specific than that? Probably, but I'd rather not do that. The above (and the rest of your message) doesn't give any specifics of what you plan to *do* as DPL, though. No, because (as I've said before) there is no detailed plan. In fact, I don't think you can plan a lot as DPL, since it's a job where the work is thrown at you, rather than that you need to go look for it. Yes, I could start picking up specific things that have happened during the past two years and start slinging mud about it in Stefano's general direction, but I don't think that's very helpful. Right. No-one has asked for that. You've been asked several times for the actions you plan to take, and it's distressing to see you avoid the question like this. I honestly don't see what more I could tell you, without making up examples. I do *not* want to do that, because that will always be contrived and missing the point. I've told you several times now what I plan to do as DPL: I intend to copy the things from Stefano's way of working that I think make sense (mostly in how he's done his communication), but I will focus less on procedures and more on the people that make up the project. What more do you want? There is nothing more to say than that. -- The volume of a pizza of thickness a and radius z can be described by the following formula: pi zz a -- 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/20120314015905.gb3...@celtic.nixsys.be
Re: Gergely and Wouter: on the need of becoming a DPL
Wouter Verhelst wou...@debian.org writes: I honestly don't see what more I could tell you, without making up examples. I do *not* want to do that, because that will always be contrived and missing the point. I've told you several times now what I plan to do as DPL: I intend to copy the things from Stefano's way of working that I think make sense (mostly in how he's done his communication), but I will focus less on procedures and more on the people that make up the project. What more do you want? There is nothing more to say than that. The place where this disconnects for me is that it seems like much of your platform is based on the idea of DPL as leader. That you feel like the DPL should be more dynamic and promote a vision. But you don't seem to have any specific vision, goals, or places where you want to lead, just an (apparently kind of vague) feeling that the DPL should be more leaderly. I had this disconnect the last time you ran too. The idea of DPL as leader was sort of interesting, but there didn't seem to be any meat under it, which made me unsure that anything would actually come of it if you were elected. I'm interested in hearing what people who are running for DPL with a vision want to do, but I want to know a bit more about what the vision is in advance. :) -- 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/87k42odj5h@windlord.stanford.edu
Re: Gergely and Wouter: on the need of becoming a DPL
Wouter Verhelst wou...@debian.org writes: On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 07:33:06AM +1100, Ben Finney wrote: Wouter Verhelst wou...@debian.org writes: I will try to be a DPL who will care a bit less about the letter of the constitution or the letter of the social contract, than about the people and the job that needs doing. The above (and the rest of your message) doesn't give any specifics of what you plan to *do* as DPL, though. No, because (as I've said before) there is no detailed plan. As I've said before, “what will you do” doesn't request that you lay out a plan. Saying what you will care about doesn't tell us anything about what you will *do*. Saying what you will focus on doesn't tell us what you will *do*. I honestly don't see what more I could tell you, without making up examples. I do *not* want to do that, because that will always be contrived and missing the point. You say that you feel you can do better. That's an entirely subjective statement, of course. We're asking what you will *do*, so we can better know what you mean by “do better”. In particular, what you will do. Naturally, that involves speculation about future possibilities. Surely, though, a DPL candidate can be expected to have some degree of foresight as to typical *specific* situations and how they would respond differently from other candidates. That's what is being requested – in my framing of the question, anyway. What more do you want? There is nothing more to say than that. Perhaps that's the most informative answer. Thank you. -- \ “It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to | `\persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” —Carl | _o__)Sagan | Ben Finney -- 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/87lin3hhr5@benfinney.id.au
