Re: Question to Candidates: Disappearing DPLs?
Le Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 08:30:03AM +0100, Gerfried Fuchs a écrit : Hi! I have a question to the candidates: History has shown that DPLs more or less disappear not too long after their period or at least reduce their visible efforts immensly. I wonder where you see the reasons for this trend, what your impression is about it and wether you try to follow that trend or what you will try to do to not have this happen to you, too. Hi Gerfried, sorry for taking long to answer. This obviously demonstrates that we are not always as available as we wished. If after being elected my free time is strongly and permanently reduced, I will shorten my mandate. But I promise I will look left and right before crossing a street full of buses :) It is difficult to add much to what the other candidates and Anthony have already answered to this question. Being DPL can definitely be a final achievement that replenishes the energy and thirst for exploring other worlds. In my case, I think that I am far from having achieved my goals in Debian. When answering the “10 years” question, I wrote that I think that running Debian will mean more than just having it on one's destkop computer. I want to contribute to this adventure, this is why I participate to a Blends project and more modestly to some efforts for bringing Debian in the Clouds. I think that this combination, together with backports and snapshots, will be very powerful in the future. But this also challenges the way we publish our work. One of my motivations for standing as a DPL is to propose to the Project to expand in that direction. I think that after a one year term, I will be eager to go back to my Debian Med activities, and keep on hard work until the harvest. Have a nice day, [By the way, I apologise to all the persons who asked quiestions but did not yet get an answer. As Stefano noted, this campaign is much more intensive than last year's. This is something that I have not expected.] -- 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/20100324145227.ga11...@kunpuu.plessy.org
Re: Question to Candidates: Disappearing DPLs?
On Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 08:30:03AM +0100, Gerfried Fuchs wrote: I have a question to the candidates: History has shown that DPLs more or less disappear not too long after their period or at least reduce their visible efforts immensly. I wonder where you see the reasons for this trend, what your impression is about it and wether you try to follow that trend or what you will try to do to not have this happen to you, too. My guess is that it's a combination of factors. First, if you look at the developer body, I think you'll see that there are very few developers who've been in Debian for more than, say, a decade and are still very active and on the forefront. Being a Debian Developer demands a fair amount of time from people, and it's only normal that one cannot keep up a nearly full-time commitment (in some cases even in parallel to a full-time dayjob) for a whole lifetime. Second, I think you'll agree with me that the chances of someone who's not been part of the project for a very long time (say, only one or two years) to be elected are not the same as those who are active longer, and/or are better known. In other words, people who are DPL are on average already well-known long-time contributors who may run out of time or motivation to work for Debian within a few years. If you combine the two, you'll see why I think that while there does seem to be a correlation between 'is DPL' and 'has a high chance of resigning soon', I do not think there is a causal relationship. While a job that demands a lot of time, like the DPL position, may *speed up* the process of people resigning from the project, I do not think it will *cause* the same. As such, I don't think there's much I can do to prevent it. I know that if there is a day when I feel I cannot motivate myself anymore to work for Debian, I will not stay and stand in the way of people doing work. I love Debian too much to do that. But I don't expect that to happen soon. -- The biometric identification system at the gates of the CIA headquarters works because there's a guard with a large gun making sure no one is trying to fool the system. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/01/biometrics.html signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Question to Candidates: Disappearing DPLs?
On Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 08:58:42AM +0100, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
DPLs continue to be volunteers and as such they can be hit by any kind
of time demands from their job, their personal life, etc. Probably, the
fact that they are in a central position, which is expected to
communicate a lot, make their disappearance more evident than those of
other fellow DDs.
That being equal for all volunteers, there are probably additional
causes such as: the burden of the task (I imagine), extra-stress, and
even burn-out. I personally take these latter risks very seriously and
that's part of the reason why, if elected, I will put on all my other
Debian activities for the duration of the term.
Discussing this question on IRC I've realized that, when I wrote the
above, I was answering a slightly different question than the one
actually posed. I was answering to what I plan to do to avoid
disappearing after the _election_ rather than after the end of the term.
It turns out that my intended course of action applies to both,
though. I think that most disappearing ex-DPL do disappear due to some
form of burn-out and/or excessive stress accumulated during the term.
What I plan to do to mitigate both risks would help avoiding that too.
However, I won't be surprised ending up _changing_ some or several of my
Debian activities at the end of the term, if elected. I believe that
most of us need periodic rotations in their (Debian) interests: as
hackers we all love what keeps high our tech excitement and it is normal
for that to have a significant overlap with new interests (for some
value of new). Given that I plan to put on hold my current Debian
activities, I will probably get attracted by different ones when
evaluating which to restart.
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
z...@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Dietro un grande uomo c'è ..| . |. Et ne m'en veux pas si je te tutoie
sempre uno zaino ...| ..: | Je dis tu à tous ceux que j'aime
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Re: Question to Candidates: Disappearing DPLs?
On Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 4:30 AM, Gerfried Fuchs rho...@deb.at wrote: I have a question to the candidates: History has shown that DPLs more or less disappear not too long after their period or at least reduce their visible efforts immensly. I wonder where you see the reasons for this trend, what your impression is about it and wether you try to follow that trend or what you will try to do to not have this happen to you, too. As has been stated by people previously holding the DPL role, it's a very time consuming task, which tends to take away quite a lot of that person's time. Thus, I feel it as only natural to want to have a break to catch back with all the stuff that had to be relegated during the DPL term. I don't necessarily view it as a bad thing. Sometimes, taking a sabbatical means being able to come back to keep working on the project with renewed energies... Unfortunately, it also sometimes means completely disappearing from the project. Debian plays a very central role in my life, so no matter how burned out I could become, I would not totally disappear after the term. However, I'd like to prevent the burning out as much as possible. For that to happen, I intend to delegate a lot. I don't intend to be a solo leader. For all the initiatives that I plan to do, I'd first form a team of people and work with them into putting the ideas into action. -- Besos, Marga -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e8bbf0361003171835h77f500bfm2c96a2df20336...@mail.gmail.com
Question to Candidates: Disappearing DPLs?
Hi! I have a question to the candidates: History has shown that DPLs more or less disappear not too long after their period or at least reduce their visible efforts immensly. I wonder where you see the reasons for this trend, what your impression is about it and wether you try to follow that trend or what you will try to do to not have this happen to you, too. Thanks, Rhonda -- 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/20100316073003.ga32...@anguilla.debian.or.at
Re: Question to Candidates: Disappearing DPLs?
On Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 08:30:03AM +0100, Gerfried Fuchs wrote:
I have a question to the candidates: History has shown that DPLs more
or less disappear not too long after their period or at least reduce
their visible efforts immensly. I wonder where you see the reasons for
this trend, what your impression is about it and wether you try to
follow that trend or what you will try to do to not have this happen to
you, too.
DPLs continue to be volunteers and as such they can be hit by any kind
of time demands from their job, their personal life, etc. Probably, the
fact that they are in a central position, which is expected to
communicate a lot, make their disappearance more evident than those of
other fellow DDs.
That being equal for all volunteers, there are probably additional
causes such as: the burden of the task (I imagine), extra-stress, and
even burn-out. I personally take these latter risks very seriously and
that's part of the reason why, if elected, I will put on all my other
Debian activities for the duration of the term.
(I've discussed in another thread and in my platform the precautions
I'll took to avoid that my current Debian duties remain unattended.)
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
z...@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Dietro un grande uomo c'è ..| . |. Et ne m'en veux pas si je te tutoie
sempre uno zaino ...| ..: | Je dis tu à tous ceux que j'aime
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