Re: [all candidates] Advertising testing and security support
On 19.03.2013 23:52, Jérémy Bobbio wrote: Given that our security support for stable is already not as best as it could be, do you think we should encourage volunteers to be more active in security support for testing? With due to respect, I disagree. From a user's perspective who occasionally interacts with the security team, I beg to differ. The security team does a great job, and their work is reliable, trustworthy and mostly invisible (which is what it should be, nobody wants to deal with conflicting/problematic upgrades during a security update). Of course, everything could always be improved - for example I'd like to have longer stable support cycles - but given the limited and restricted manpower, the result is great. I find your remaining judgment of the security team rather insulting than an opening of a discussion which is by no means constructive. -- with kind regards, Arno Töll IRC: daemonkeeper on Freenode/OFTC GnuPG Key-ID: 0x9D80F36D signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [all candidates] beyond tech: how do you deal with humans?
On 2013-03-19 03:26, anarcat wrote: You all have an impressive technical curriculum. Your deeds in Debian speak for themselves. However, the role of a project leader is unusually non-technical. Well, sure I could sell myself technically as - studied informatics at Edinburgh University - phd in machine learning - postdoc research - work freelance, e.g. debugging TCP on mobile operators' networks - strong interest in free software - enjoy learning new languages, most recently improved my Erlang but equally I could give you a non-technical CV - studied philosophy, dead languages, history at Cambridge University - moved to France for a few years - now freelance, e.g. customer-facing projects in Indonesia, Romania, Kuwait - participated in research projects on corporate ethics and on social investment - strong interest in early music - enjoy learning new languages, most recently improved my Spanish In fact, you will have to abandon significant technical tasks to tend to more administrative or leadership tasks the DPL role requires. Why are you good candidates for that role? What social skills do you bring to the community in terms of mediation and leadership? Quoting a previous answer in https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2013/03/msg9.html : I have already been working as a leader within DebConf for a number of years in a way similar to how the DPL acts within overall Debian. Although it rarely makes a lot of noise on the main Debian lists, DebConf is a big subproject within Debian. It handles a large budget every year and in addition to ongoing team members it recruits large number of temporary volunteers from existing Debian contributors and from people interested in contributing to Debian. I have learnt a lot from working to coordinate the many required tasks among these volunteers, many of whom are new each year, to make sure that each conference is ready on time and within the available funds -- and from mediating when there have been conflicts. How would you have dealt with the difficult decisions the previous DPL had to make regarding various conflicts or problems that occurred during his mandate(s)? Would you have intervened? How? Could you give an example of such a situation where you have successfully mediated a (potential) conflict? Which tools did you use to deal with the situation? As above, this has been part of my role in DebConf, as well as in other positions unrelated to Debian. However, I don't really think it's fair to comment on specific examples of past conflicts on a public list. Even for ones that were public at the time, I don't feel it would be helpful to start posting links to bad situations people got into in the past. Typically the most useful tools have been patience, calmness, listening to what each side has to say and making an effort to understand each side's motivations. Often in Debian conflicts develop slowly from negative interaction methods. For example, even if a team is making perfect technical decisions, a lack of transparency in how it makes its decisions, or a perceived lack of openness to listen to others' suggestions, can lead to resentments building up and then unwarranted accusations being made. We should all be vigilant to try to help fix negative communications before they build into a problem. While the DPL can be part of solutions to conflicts, there are a huge number of subgroups within Debian that contribute through almost independent processes to parts of the overall project, with their own particular styles and conventions. We shouldn't try to move to central coordination (and slow down development), but try to make sure that each team works better. I listed a few ideas about that in my platform. If we can show more clearly that high-profile Debian teams aim to continually improve their transparency, communication and openness, and that they gain from this, I hope this will set an example for good practice that will gradually flow through to every subgroup working within Debian. -- Moray -- 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/d6cf888b4399e95a54979ec457753...@www.morayallan.com
Re: [all candidates] beyond tech: how do you deal with humans?
On 2013-03-19, Gergely Nagy wrote: anarcat anar...@debian.org writes: Why are you good candidates for that role? What social skills do you bring to the community in terms of mediation and leadership? I'm pretty darn good at mediation, did that both inside Debian (see an example shortly below) and outside of it. It is something I find challenging and satisfying, an area where I have had great success in the past, an area I find particularly interesting (people *are* interesting in general). I speak, I teach, I coach regularly on various topics (Debian included, of course), other times, I use a handful of magic dust, and make things simple. On other occassions, I evangelise. One of my fondest moments of recent years were hearing these words - said very quietly under her breath -, by a person who's been hating GNU/Linux for the past decade or so: Can you get me a Debian sticker? I love Debian. Other times, I listen, and just stay invisible. To illustrate my skills, let me briefly mention a few accomplishments: [...] Thanks, those are pertty good answers. How would you have dealt with the difficult decisions the previous DPL had to make regarding various conflicts or problems that occurred during his mandate(s)? Would you have intervened? How? This is something I'd rather not answer, on one hand, because it would take too long, and on another, because in the most interestring (for some values of interesting, anyway) cases, I simply do not have enough historical data to see the whole picture, therefore can't make a well informed judgement, either. Too bad. :) Could you give an example of such a situation where you have successfully mediated a (potential) conflict? Which tools did you use to deal with the situation? Although this happened years and years ago, when I was young, foolish and hot-headed, there's one particular feat I'm proud of to this day. [...] This was a tough and dire situation, at a time when I wasn't half as much prepared, not half as much experienced as I am now. Thanks for walking the plank, algernon - and exposing such a sensitive example. I was disappointed to have no answer to my question, but you seem to have provided the best one so far. :) Good luck to all candidates, A. pgpQVRqe8Uplf.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: To all candidates: which way out of the project ?
On 2013-03-20 05:22, Charles Plessy wrote: In Debian, we stay member until we die or quit (or very exceptionally, are expelled). The consequence is that it is hard to evaluate how much active members we have. It may also create more crispations about giving membership. As other replies have said, this seems to be much less of a solved problem in recent years, especially thanks to the work of the MIA team. The easy process for reactivating emeritus accounts seems to help encourage people to retire gracefully. It's still possible for someone to continue as a project member indefinitely if they want to, without doing any work, if they get rid of all their responsibilities first, but I don't think that a large enough number of people have taken this path that we need to worry much about it skewing votes. However, we do still more frequently have problems in relation to maintenance of individual packages; see, for example, the discussions around package salvaging. And I think we also have MIA problems in individual teams; see my platform for a few suggestions regarding that. -- Moray -- 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/6620fc0e982f5f14799f9c3091862...@www.morayallan.com
Re: To all candidates: which way out of the project ?
Le Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 10:15:32AM +0100, Gergely Nagy a écrit : Do you see a particular problem, or shortcoming, perhaps, that you'd like to see solved? Hi all, the problem I was trying to solve was to find more differences between the candidates :) For instance, one of you might have answered that he is really enthousiastic about yearly pings, or that he is very concerned about dormant accounts, or anything that I did not expect, etc. Thanks for your anwers, and 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/20130323003226.gb30...@falafel.plessy.net
Re: To all candidates: which way out of the project ?
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 4:23 AM, Moray Allan wrote: retire gracefully. It's still possible for someone to continue as a project member indefinitely if they want to, without doing any work, if they get rid of all their responsibilities first, but I don't think that a large enough number of people have taken this path that we need to worry much about it skewing votes. There are definitely people in that position (I can think of at least one), it would be interesting to quantify how many Debian members make no visible contributions, if for no other reason than making their contributions (if any) visible. -- 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/caktje6esfmttmdb+nmkrthlftx+bmo8oc-6biffsx23f5gk...@mail.gmail.com
