Re: All DPL candidates: Debian assets
On Sun, Mar 30, 2014 at 07:55:54PM +0100, Neil McGovern wrote: > On Thu, Mar 27, 2014 at 01:03:31PM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: > > Do you think it's appropriate for these organizers to use Debian's name in > > seeking local sponsorship without consulting the DPL? > Sorry for not being clearer, but no. I think that a central repository > and/or sponsors team is quite important to ensure that our sponsors > aren't being pestered by disparate people. Organisations already find > the concept of Debian's distributedness quite hard to grasp, so I think > that this contact point would be useful. > However, with the example of sprints, then it's certainly useful for > local sponsorship to happen. I'd like to ensure it's easy for people to > see if some sponsor is being handled by a central team, but that > shouldn't bind people to a requirement that all requests go through > there - rather that the central team should be kept in the loop. > I wouldn't want my employer to offer me the office for a weekend, but > then me having to ensure approval happens for Debian to use it. Thanks for the response, and I agree with you that it would be silly to require central approval before $DD's employer could give them the use of the office for the weekend, which is not transmutable into global sponsorship. I'm mostly interested in the question when someone is looking for financial sponsorship. -- 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: All DPL candidates: Debian assets
Hi Steve, On Thu, Mar 27, 2014 at 01:03:31PM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: > Do you think it's appropriate for these organizers to use Debian's name in > seeking local sponsorship without consulting the DPL? > Sorry for not being clearer, but no. I think that a central repository and/or sponsors team is quite important to ensure that our sponsors aren't being pestered by disparate people. Organisations already find the concept of Debian's distributedness quite hard to grasp, so I think that this contact point would be useful. However, with the example of sprints, then it's certainly useful for local sponsorship to happen. I'd like to ensure it's easy for people to see if some sponsor is being handled by a central team, but that shouldn't bind people to a requirement that all requests go through there - rather that the central team should be kept in the loop. I wouldn't want my employer to offer me the office for a weekend, but then me having to ensure approval happens for Debian to use it. Neil -- signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: All DPL candidates: Debian assets
Hi Steve, On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 12:57:11AM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: > (To both) What kinds of unexpected expenses do you think Debian should keep > funds available to cover? What do you think is the appropriate level of > cash reserves for the project to hold, and why? > Basically, machines blowing up. It's been mentioned in the past that we may want to keep a fund in case of any legal challenges, but I don't subscribe to this view. Firstly, 100k isn't going to make much of a dent in any serious legal challenge. Secondly, Debian has never solicited funds from the general community in this way. I'm confident that if such an issue did occur, then we would be able to raise the required funds by simply asking. In other organisations I've been a director or trustee for, the basic principle I sought each organisation to abide by is to hold reserves that match 3 months of operation. The majority of this cost in in staff salaries, which obviously doesn't apply to Debian! A quick look at SPI's statements for 2013 does tell us that Debian is making a profit of 27k/yr (income of 38k, outgoings of 11k). With extra possible cash-flow issues for DebConf, and given the unique nature of Debian, I would be much more comfortable with about 40k in reserves to start with, rather than the > 100k we have now, which equates to approximately 1 year's worth of donations. [0] > > We need some amount of savings to care for all the unexpected problems > > that could happen, and at the same time, we need to spend money where > > needed to support Debian's goals. > > The really hard problem is to find a good balance between saving money > > for the unexpected, and spending more money. We need to be careful with > > that, and build a good understanding of Debian's historical needs so > > that we can spend more money if needed without jeopardizing the future. > > So, yeah, it seems that Neil and I disagree on that, because I don't > > think that it's as simple as 'our donations should be spent'. > > (To both) Management of Debian's assets is one of the key duties of the DPL. > What principles guide you in deciding how to balance the use of Debian's > assets (infrastructure, DebConf, other Debian sprints, other expenses)? If > elected, what will you do to ensure transparency to the project about how > Debian money is being spent, and how these expenses affect our overall cash > reserves? > My main principle when spending money is to consider what will help Debian the most effectively, by having the biggest impact. For infrastructure, we should ensure that there is adequate repairs and renewals funds in place to cover what we have now, and to ensure that any predicted future requirements are met. I would estimate this at approximately 20% of that. Debconf itself has a habit of being self funding, given a large enough timescale, especially due to the excellent work of the people doing finances and sponsor acquisition for DebConf. I know that cost control is taken seriously :) The rest of the excess can be spent on sprints or other ideas which people come up with. For transparency, in the immediate term I'd ensure that regular reports are published about income and expenditure. This could also simply be a dd readable file with what's been approved, and when. At the moment, I don't think we need anything much more complicated than that. We don't run cost-codes, and the overhead of doing so is not something I think would be required at this stage. Neil [0] Note, I haven't done more than about an hour to look at these numbers, but I think the order of magnitude is probably correct. -- signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: All DPL candidates: Debian assets
On Friday 21 March 2014 17:48:02 Lucas Nussbaum wrote: [snip] > Generally, my impression is that many Debian contributors do not fancy > travelling that much, or are just too busy, and thus don't really like > to attend too many such events. While I recognize that - I don't know many DDs in person except for those I met in DC8 and thus my view might be slanted, - I live **far** away from the nearest DD and even more **far** away from any normal meeting place, I think this is not true. If I had the chance to meet people from my teams and/or something else which could be useful to the project I wouldn't mind the travel. What I do mind are the expenses, which are truly prohibitive. But then again, my POV might be the result of an exceptional case, but I wanted to put in on the table non the less. Note: no, I'm not asking money for traveling, just wanted to present my POV. -- 17: Cual es la funcion inicial de un antivirus * Desarrollar virus para vender el producto Damian Nadales http://mx.grulic.org.ar/lurker/message/20080307.141449.a70fb2fc.es.html Lisandro Damián Nicanor Pérez Meyer http://perezmeyer.com.ar/ http://perezmeyer.blogspot.com/ signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: All DPL candidates: Debian assets
Hi Neil, On Thu, Mar 27, 2014 at 06:44:24PM +, Neil McGovern wrote: > On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 04:02:57PM +, Lars Wirzenius wrote: > > On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 10:44:07PM +0100, Neil McGovern wrote: > > > At the moment, in just SPI, we have > 100k USD awaiting being spent. > > > As an indication, that’s enough for a DebConf without any sponsors! > > > Our donations should be spent. Be that better porter boxes, or a > > > better backup service, or simply making sure our core machines are > > > replaced regularly. > > Lucas and Neil, what are your opinions on spending some of that money > > on frequent springs, e.g., for bug fixing? > I'm a lot more relaxed than Lucas about spending our excess money in > this way. If there's an organised BSP or event, then applying to Debian > through the DPL is very useful. However, I'd expect the organisers of > the BSP/sprint/whatever to seek local sponsorship as well if possible. Do you think it's appropriate for these organizers to use Debian's name in seeking local sponsorship without consulting the DPL? I ask because in many cases, our "local" sponsors are the same as our "global" sponsors. From a Debian fundraising POV, I am concerned about the idea of individual DDs soliciting contributions to Debian in an uncoordinated manner, that could jeopardize our future ability to secure sponsorship from them at the global level. There have indeed been several events in the past year organized at the local/regional level that were sponsored by companies that are regular sponsors of DebConf, and while there is no evidence that this has negatively impacted DebConf fundraising (it's possible that these sponsors have increased their overall sponsorship because of the local angle, rather than it taking away from money they would've given to Debian globally), I think DDs soliciting sponsorship in Debian's name is something that should only be done with central approval. What are your thoughts on how this should be handled? -- 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: All DPL candidates: Debian assets
On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 04:02:57PM +, Lars Wirzenius wrote: > On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 10:44:07PM +0100, Neil McGovern wrote: > > At the moment, in just SPI, we have > 100k USD awaiting being spent. > > As an indication, that’s enough for a DebConf without any sponsors! > > Our donations should be spent. Be that better porter boxes, or a > > better backup service, or simply making sure our core machines are > > replaced regularly. > > Lucas and Neil, what are your opinions on spending some of that money > on frequent springs, e.g., for bug fixing? > I'm a lot more relaxed than Lucas about spending our excess money in this way. If there's an organised BSP or event, then applying to Debian through the DPL is very useful. However, I'd expect the organisers of the BSP/sprint/whatever to seek local sponsorship as well if possible. Neil -- signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: All DPL candidates: Debian assets
Hi Steve, On 25/03/14 at 00:57 -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: > (To Lucas) Why should Debian need to hold a reserve with its TOs to fully > fund a DebConf for which fundraising has failed? I believe the operating > principle is that the DebConf organization should never spend money that it > doesn't already have - i.e., never more than the sum of confirmed DebConf > sponsorship plus money from Debian's general fund that the DPL has approved > (with the possibility, but not the guarantee, that it will be returned at > the end of the conference). Do you disagree with this principle? If so - > why, and what are the criteria you would use to decide a DebConf has > "failed" at fundraising and dip into these reserves? If not - why does > Debian need to worry about reserves to cover DebConf? > > (To both) What kinds of unexpected expenses do you think Debian should keep > funds available to cover? What do you think is the appropriate level of > cash reserves for the project to hold, and why? > > > We need some amount of savings to care for all the unexpected problems > > that could happen, and at the same time, we need to spend money where > > needed to support Debian's goals. > > The really hard problem is to find a good balance between saving money > > for the unexpected, and spending more money. We need to be careful with > > that, and build a good understanding of Debian's historical needs so > > that we can spend more money if needed without jeopardizing the future. > > So, yeah, it seems that Neil and I disagree on that, because I don't > > think that it's as simple as 'our donations should be spent'. > > (To both) Management of Debian's assets is one of the key duties of the DPL. > What principles guide you in deciding how to balance the use of Debian's > assets (infrastructure, DebConf, other Debian sprints, other expenses)? If > elected, what will you do to ensure transparency to the project about how > Debian money is being spent, and how these expenses affect our overall cash > reserves? (I'm answering globally, but I'm trying to cover all questions) One thing I was quite surprised to discover when I became DPL is the lack of visibility on Debian's assets. For example, we have no good visibility of incomes and expenses on the Debian earmark at SPI, besides the monthly treasurer's reports sent to SPI mailing lists (and those reports have been lagging a bit: the last one was for October, 2013). What I am proposing in my platform (3.3.1) is to build an overview of Debian's incomes and expenses, to make it easier to adjust future expenses to what we know we can afford based on recent history. Quite likely, that will mean that we are actually able to spend more for sprints, DebConf, or infrastructure, because we might currently be too careful due to a lack of overview of Debian's finances. However, the main guiding principle / litmus test when deciding about expenses should remain the same: would our donors agree that this is good use of their donated money, i.e. does that use of money really helps us move towards Debian's goals? Now, DebConf. A successful DebConf is very important to Debian. When discussing the DebConf budget, the DebConf organizers, the chairs and the DPL are actually on the same side, trying to answer a difficult question: how can we build a balanced budget that allows a successful DebConf? I think that the good way to visualize the DebConf budget is as a temporary fork of the Debian budget, with quite a lot of pre-approvals. DebConf is not a separate organization, and Debian will always cover the deficits (if any) of DebConf. That's why it is so important that we all agree on a budget early during DebConf organization, something we have not been doing yet this year, unfortunately. (more minor points:) Regarding transparency, I will continue to list approved expenses in the monthly reports. Regarding the appropriate level of cash reserves, I hope that we will have an answer to that question soon, thanks to the work described above. Lucas signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: All DPL candidates: Debian assets
Hi Lucas, Since I am one of the local organizers this year for DebConf, which is Debian's single largest annual expense; and in light of the ongoing discussion you and I are having about DebConf budgeting; it should be no surprise that I have opinions on the question of Debian asset management. ;) So I'm going to pile on this thread with some questions to both candidates about their view of the DPL's role in responsibly managing Debian funds. On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 05:37:04PM +0100, Lucas Nussbaum wrote: > On 20/03/14 at 22:44 +0100, Neil McGovern wrote: > > I don’t think there’s an “if” here. Ever since I was secretary of SPI, > > I’ve been concerned about the amount of money that Debian has > > earmarked. Again, I disagree with Lucas here - I don’t think that > > saving donors money is a good plan, our donators expect their > > donations to be spent to progress the project. > > At the moment, in just SPI, we have > 100k USD awaiting being spent. > > As an indication, that’s enough for a DebConf without any sponsors! > > Our donations should be spent. Be that better porter boxes, or a > > better backup service, or simply making sure our core machines are > > replaced regularly. > I would put it differently: "in SPI, we have ~$100k. That's barely > enough for a DebConf for which fundraising would mostly fail, or for > which many unexpected expenses would need to be made!" (the amount of > sponsorship raised for DC13 was ~ $160k; the deficit for DC10 was $50k > despite $90k of fundraising) (To Lucas) Why should Debian need to hold a reserve with its TOs to fully fund a DebConf for which fundraising has failed? I believe the operating principle is that the DebConf organization should never spend money that it doesn't already have - i.e., never more than the sum of confirmed DebConf sponsorship plus money from Debian's general fund that the DPL has approved (with the possibility, but not the guarantee, that it will be returned at the end of the conference). Do you disagree with this principle? If so - why, and what are the criteria you would use to decide a DebConf has "failed" at fundraising and dip into these reserves? If not - why does Debian need to worry about reserves to cover DebConf? (To both) What kinds of unexpected expenses do you think Debian should keep funds available to cover? What do you think is the appropriate level of cash reserves for the project to hold, and why? > We need some amount of savings to care for all the unexpected problems > that could happen, and at the same time, we need to spend money where > needed to support Debian's goals. > The really hard problem is to find a good balance between saving money > for the unexpected, and spending more money. We need to be careful with > that, and build a good understanding of Debian's historical needs so > that we can spend more money if needed without jeopardizing the future. > So, yeah, it seems that Neil and I disagree on that, because I don't > think that it's as simple as 'our donations should be spent'. (To both) Management of Debian's assets is one of the key duties of the DPL. What principles guide you in deciding how to balance the use of Debian's assets (infrastructure, DebConf, other Debian sprints, other expenses)? If elected, what will you do to ensure transparency to the project about how Debian money is being spent, and how these expenses affect our overall cash reserves? Thanks, -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developerhttp://www.debian.org/ slanga...@ubuntu.com vor...@debian.org signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: All DPL candidates: Debian assets
On 20/03/14 at 22:44 +0100, Neil McGovern wrote: > I don’t think there’s an “if” here. Ever since I was secretary of SPI, > I’ve been concerned about the amount of money that Debian has > earmarked. Again, I disagree with Lucas here - I don’t think that > saving donors money is a good plan, our donators expect their > donations to be spent to progress the project. > > At the moment, in just SPI, we have > 100k USD awaiting being spent. > As an indication, that’s enough for a DebConf without any sponsors! > Our donations should be spent. Be that better porter boxes, or a > better backup service, or simply making sure our core machines are > replaced regularly. I would put it differently: "in SPI, we have ~$100k. That's barely enough for a DebConf for which fundraising would mostly fail, or for which many unexpected expenses would need to be made!" (the amount of sponsorship raised for DC13 was ~ $160k; the deficit for DC10 was $50k despite $90k of fundraising) We need some amount of savings to care for all the unexpected problems that could happen, and at the same time, we need to spend money where needed to support Debian's goals. The really hard problem is to find a good balance between saving money for the unexpected, and spending more money. We need to be careful with that, and build a good understanding of Debian's historical needs so that we can spend more money if needed without jeopardizing the future. So, yeah, it seems that Neil and I disagree on that, because I don't think that it's as simple as 'our donations should be spent'. (On core machines being replaced regularly, this is already happening: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2013/03/msg00010.html) Lucas signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: All DPL candidates: Debian assets
Hi Lars, On 21/03/14 at 16:02 +, Lars Wirzenius wrote: > On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 10:44:07PM +0100, Neil McGovern wrote: > > At the moment, in just SPI, we have > 100k USD awaiting being spent. > > As an indication, that’s enough for a DebConf without any sponsors! > > Our donations should be spent. Be that better porter boxes, or a > > better backup service, or simply making sure our core machines are > > replaced regularly. > > Lucas and Neil, what are your opinions on spending some of that money > on frequent springs, e.g., for bug fixing? I'm all for useful developers meetings (sprints, BSPs, mini-debconfs). I don't think I have turned down any funding request for such an event during my term. Now, of course, each funding request need to be evaluated with the following test: "would our donors agree that this is good use of their donations?". Flying people around the world to attend one-day BSPs might not be such a good use of Debian funds. :) Generally, my impression is that many Debian contributors do not fancy travelling that much, or are just too busy, and thus don't really like to attend too many such events. Lucas signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: All DPL candidates: Debian assets
On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 10:44:07PM +0100, Neil McGovern wrote: > At the moment, in just SPI, we have > 100k USD awaiting being spent. > As an indication, that’s enough for a DebConf without any sponsors! > Our donations should be spent. Be that better porter boxes, or a > better backup service, or simply making sure our core machines are > replaced regularly. Lucas and Neil, what are your opinions on spending some of that money on frequent springs, e.g., for bug fixing? -- http://www.cafepress.com/trunktees -- geeky funny T-shirts http://gtdfh.branchable.com/ -- GTD for hackers -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140321160257.gg4...@mavolio.codethink.co.uk
Re: All DPL candidates: Debian assets
Hi Hector, On 14 Mar 2014, at 13:25, Hector Oron wrote: > Hello DPL candidates, > > First of all congratulations for your nominations. I have several > questions for you, I hope you do not mind to reply: Thanks for your question, it’s good to see a DSA member engaging with the election :) > a. Debian hardware infrastructure > 0. What do you think of Debian teams owning their own > infrastructure (hardware)? I believe there’s a real risk here. It’s important for everyone to remember that the work they do is for the project, not individual. I don’t agree with Lucas here that items purchased by a TO belongs to that TO, except in a strictly legal sense. The point is that it belongs to the project as a whole. I don’t think it makes much sense for a team to unilaterally purchase hardware without reference to DSA, but also that DSA should be able to accept any specialist requirements that any team have. I’ve seen this both as secretary and release manager, and I believe that DSA in general does a very good job of being flexible in requests. > 1. If Debian team gets hardware resources from external > parties/sponsors in monetary form, would you be willing to spend that > money buying hardware for that team, or re-use existing hardware which > is already part of Debian assets and save that money for something > else? Hrm, monetary form in exchange for hardware is a tricky theoretical. I believe it’s important to ensure that any donations are used with the wishes of the donator. Thus, if a donation came in for a specific purpose, then it should be spent on that, or returned. So I guess my answer is the latter. The issue is that I would try and ensure this problem doesn’t occur in the first place - there shouldn’t be a problem that there is excess hardware by a team that can be solved by existing DSA resources which requires external fundraising! > b. Debian money > 0. If Debian had an excess of cash, which topics do you think > are more important to spend that money for the overall project > benefit? I don’t think there’s an “if” here. Ever since I was secretary of SPI, I’ve been concerned about the amount of money that Debian has earmarked. Again, I disagree with Lucas here - I don’t think that saving donors money is a good plan, our donators expect their donations to be spent to progress the project. At the moment, in just SPI, we have > 100k USD awaiting being spent. As an indication, that’s enough for a DebConf without any sponsors! Our donations should be spent. Be that better porter boxes, or a better backup service, or simply making sure our core machines are replaced regularly. Neil -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/c0f24868-dac7-40e1-a5da-a75d2e955...@halon.org.uk
Re: All DPL candidates: Debian assets
Hi Hector, On 14/03/14 at 13:25 +0100, Hector Oron wrote: > a. Debian hardware infrastructure > 0. What do you think of Debian teams owning their own > infrastructure (hardware)? First, generally, I think that one big risk for Debian is fragmentation into smaller, team-sized sub-projects. That really scares me. One area where this is already happening is processes for packaging with Git: we so far failed to converge into a single (set of) recommended process(es), and each team tends to implement its own variation. But then, I'm not sure I understand the question. When a Trusted Organization buys hardware on behalf of Debian, that TO becomes the owner of this hardware, not a Debian team (even DSA). For Debian teams to own hardware, they would need an official legal identity. (I'm not sure I understood your question correctly, feel free to ask again if I didn't) > 1. If Debian team gets hardware resources from external > parties/sponsors in monetary form, would you be willing to spend that > money buying hardware for that team, or re-use existing hardware which > is already part of Debian assets and save that money for something > else? Generally, we should of course seek to use donations we receive in an optimal way. That most likely includes factoring the infrastructure needs with our existing infrastructure. However, if a Debian team does target-specific fundraising on behalf of Debian, and this results in donations to Debian, we have a moral responsibility (to our donors) to use that donation for the purpose that it was intended for. I would say that here, the problem would be failing to engage with DSA before doing fundraising for infrastructure. > b. Debian money > 0. If Debian had an excess of cash, which topics do you think > are more important to spend that money for the overall project > benefit? That's a difficult question. By definition, if Debian had an excess of cash, it would already mean that we have already explored all useful ways to make use of that money :-) Again, I think that we have a responsibility towards our donors to use donations a a way compatible with what they expect from Debian. If we can't think of a useful way to do that, we should probably just save it for later. Lucas signature.asc Description: Digital signature
All DPL candidates: Debian assets
Hello DPL candidates, First of all congratulations for your nominations. I have several questions for you, I hope you do not mind to reply: a. Debian hardware infrastructure 0. What do you think of Debian teams owning their own infrastructure (hardware)? 1. If Debian team gets hardware resources from external parties/sponsors in monetary form, would you be willing to spend that money buying hardware for that team, or re-use existing hardware which is already part of Debian assets and save that money for something else? b. Debian money 0. If Debian had an excess of cash, which topics do you think are more important to spend that money for the overall project benefit? Thanks in advance for your replies. Regards, -- Héctor Orón -.. . -... .. .- -. -.. . ...- . .-.. --- .--. . .-. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/CAODfWeHuXNfB5hzis1BVSzNB7Hm=kgep0-nm7ayx9jj0fms...@mail.gmail.com
