Re: Question to all (other) candidates
On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 09:09:27PM +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> Well, last year's election was a bit exceptional in that there was
> almost nothing to do here on -vote. The previous election I participated
> in, OTOH, was one of the most contested elections in Debian's history. I
> guess we're both a bit biased in opposite ways :-)
Deal! :-)
> [Stefano's rebuttal]
> > For once, the idea of talking more with “Debian people” other than
> > DDs/DMs is wonderful—assuming that by that Wouter imagines the DPL
> > attending several events other than our “classical” developer-oriented
> > events. That however is not enough, because the big public of our
> > potential contributors is not (only) there. To that end, I found
> > striking that our Web presence is not mentioned in the platform as an
> > important strategic area to attract more developers.
>
> When I mention "talking" in my platform, I do not (only) mean that
> literally. I intend to "talk" to many people in many ways; One vague
> idea I've been thinking about is a web poll or some such. However, since
> I don't know whether or how that will work out in practice, I didn't
> think it proper to mention it in my platform and thereby make it a
> promise, or some such.
Thanks for the clarification.
FWIW, it seems rather difficult to me to ask the opinion of others about
Debian via a web poll: it is too rigid and it is probably too time
limited (an "always running" poll is not particularly useful). In the
end, I found that the most important input we can get from others is at
the level of their "impressions" about Debian which we think match
strict categories quite often ("we are difficult to use", "we are
flame-ish", "we are free sw extremists", etc.) without necessarily
knowing how much that corresponds to reality. (BTW, this is no real
criticism of the poll proposal, as you said, it is still a vague idea;
it was more on the side of "let's share comments on advanced
proposals".)
That is why I like your idea to go out and seek this kind of feedback
personally (which is how I initially interpreted it), but I still
contend that it must be paired with a proper communication strategy,
which necessarily encompasses our web presence, to let others know what
(we think) Debian is about.
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 all (other) candidates
On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 06:49:51PM +0100, I wrote: > > So, since part of the reason that I joined the race was to make sure it > > wouldn't get too boring, I was hoping there'd be a bit more life on this > > list. Since there isn't, allow me to ask a few questions myself. [Stefano] > FWIW, I disagree with that or, better, I think "too boring" is a > subjective notion. I've been indexing DPL campaigning questions this and > last year, and we're currently at about 20 discussion topics, with 1 > more week of campaigning ahead of us. Last year campaigning has been > *way* more quiet :-) Well, last year's election was a bit exceptional in that there was almost nothing to do here on -vote. The previous election I participated in, OTOH, was one of the most contested elections in Debian's history. I guess we're both a bit biased in opposite ways :-) > ... and while we are on rebuttals, let me comment a specific point of > your rebuttals to my platform: the one about the website. Reading your > rebuttals, it seems that I intend to favor external over internal > contributions to the website. This is not the case, as it is made clear > by the usage of the expression "emergency plan". Indeed; after re-reading your platform, I notice that I initially misread it. Apologies; I'll remove that part from my rebuttal. > Now, since fair is fair, I'm looking forward for your comments to my > rebuttals about your platform :-) Well, since you ask :-) [Stefano's rebuttal] > For once, the idea of talking more with “Debian people” other than > DDs/DMs is wonderful—assuming that by that Wouter imagines the DPL > attending several events other than our “classical” developer-oriented > events. That however is not enough, because the big public of our > potential contributors is not (only) there. To that end, I found > striking that our Web presence is not mentioned in the platform as an > important strategic area to attract more developers. When I mention "talking" in my platform, I do not (only) mean that literally. I intend to "talk" to many people in many ways; One vague idea I've been thinking about is a web poll or some such. However, since I don't know whether or how that will work out in practice, I didn't think it proper to mention it in my platform and thereby make it a promise, or some such. > > Charles: > > > > In your platform, in the "Program" section, you mention four ideas that > > could reasonable be described as being about the things that, > > respectively, the DAM and NM frontdesk, the ftp-masters, and the Release > > Managers (twice) are responsible for. Did you talk with these teams > > about your ideas before running for DPL? > > > > If not, do you believe this may cause problems? Are you still planning > > to, and may your ideas change if you do? > > > > If you did talk to these teams beforehand, did your plans change any as > > a result, or do you anticipate that still happening? [Daniel] > This comes across as calling Charles out for not consulting other people > (or at least not acknowledging their contributions). Indeed it was. When one puts forward ideas that a) could be considered to be rather radical, and b) involve something that particular groups in the project have worked on for quite a while, I think it is imperative that these people are at the very least aware of your plans and have had a chance to comment on it, *before* you start making it public in something like a DPL platform. To do otherwise is creating expectations that these groups might have told you cannot be reasonably followed up on anyway. [Charles] > I have not contacted these teams in private or in public. I expect the > three weeks of campaign to be long enough to openly discuss what I > propose. I believe this is wrong. For one, a campaign is the worst time to discuss plans like these, because you're betting your election on it. For another, you've not explicitly talked to the teams, so though unlikely, it's perfectly possible that they're not even aware of your plans. Finally, if you think three weeks is enough to discuss anything radical in Debian, I'm afraid you're sadly mistaken -- I remember the fuzz about the Vancouver proposal to take at least twice that time. And remember there's still an election going on, too. (so, to answer my own question: no, I do not think it is a good idea to come up with radical suggestions in DPL platforms without at the very least having had them pass by the relevant teams for input) [...] > In my platform, I have separate sections for ‘Program’ and ‘What I > will do as DPL’. In short: vote for my if you like my program, but I > will not come to the core teams with a long shopping list of things to > do. This is not fun, nor it gives trust to the teams that do the work. Good to know that; it does alleviate some of my concerns. However, I'm not convinced this is entirely clear for everyone who reads your platform. > > Marga: [...] > > Also, you seem to have received a great deal o
Re: Question to all (other) candidates
On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 2:49 PM, Wouter Verhelst wrote: > In my rebuttal, I mention that I lack a sense of vision in your > platform. In case that wasn't clear, this is because the ideas you > mention, while they might work to some extent, seem to be a bit > superficial; I'm afraid they will not strike at the heart of the issues > we face. Do you believe this is correct? If not, can you clarify? That's weird, I definitely thought that there was a "vision" in my platform. The ideas listed are just some things that can be done to achieve the general goals. They are not meant to be a complete list of everything that I plan to do if elected, just some starting points. The main objective is to go towards the goal of making the work done in Debian more attractive and more satisfying to everyone involved. Many of us have noted that one of the serious problems Debian is facing is the lack of committed people in many areas, I think that working actively into making our work in Debian more attractive to everybody is the only way to fix this lack of work force. > Also, you seem to have received a great deal of help in writing your > platform. In the interest of clarity, can you shine a light on how this > happened? To mention two possible extremes, was this more of a "I'd like > to run, but would need a platform, please send me some ideas", or rather > "hey, $RANDOM_PEOPLE, here's a platform, please give me some comments?" > (I realize the truth is probably somewhere in between those two, but > would like to know exactly what we get if I were to vote you second...) As you say, it's some point in the middle. When I first started thinking about running for DPL, I started discussing ideas back and forth with a small number of people, coming up with what would be good starting points and what could be done to make things better in Debian. After that, I drafted the platform and asked a few other people to comment, and then I improved the platform with their comments. I made a point of thanking all whose input was valuable to me, even though it doesn't mean they'd vote for me or that they support me as DPL in any way, because I think that a DPL should be able to listen to everybody's ideas, and make the best out of them, and I think that giving credit is very important. I've already said that I plan to delegate a lot. I don't think it makes sense for a DPL to try to do everything, it only leads to burn-out and dissatisfaction. I also plan to listen to what other ideas people have to make Debian better and put them into motion. -- 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/e8bbf0361003241024x2cecf23fn1ed803a2a3837...@mail.gmail.com
Re: Question to all (other) candidates
On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 11:12:14AM +, Steve McIntyre wrote:
> Sure, but to a certain extent that depends on the number of
> candidates. If you look back a few more years, you'll see much more.
Oh, absolutely, it was not meant to be a blame on last year candidates
(also because I was one of them *g*). Still, it is not _only_ related to
the number of candidates, as you already acknowledged: we could have
been "grilled" last year with tons of questions even if we were only
two. Anyhow, I didn't want to deviate to much into this, I just meant to
point out that the impression that this year campaigning has been too
quite is not necessarily shared by everybody (and in particular it is
not shared by me).
> For me, the "bits" emails take a long time to prepare. And the longer
> you leave between doing them, the bigger and more intimidating they
> become. It's a vicious cycle. :-/
Thanks for confirming! (and shame on me for not having actually asked
that directly to you, given that I had occasions to do that)
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -*- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
z...@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -<>- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
I'm still an SGML person,this newfangled /\ All one has to do is hit the
XML stuff is so ... simplistic -- Manoj \/ right keys at the right time
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Re: Question to all (other) candidates
On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 09:57:16AM +0100, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: >On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 06:49:51PM +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote: >> So, since part of the reason that I joined the race was to make sure it >> wouldn't get too boring, I was hoping there'd be a bit more life on this >> list. Since there isn't, allow me to ask a few questions myself. > >FWIW, I disagree with that or, better, I think "too boring" is a >subjective notion. I've been indexing DPL campaigning questions this and >last year, and we're currently at about 20 discussion topics, with 1 >more week of campaigning ahead of us. Last year campaigning has been >*way* more quiet :-) Sure, but to a certain extent that depends on the number of candidates. If you look back a few more years, you'll see much more. >There are various issue which I presume block sending frequently, >according to a given period, "bits from the DPL" mail to the project. > >I believe a significant one among such issues is the "expectation" that >the DPL knows DDs have on the monthly bits, and therefore the perceived >weight of of preparing those bits. My guess is that, on these premises, >actually sending out the DPL bits mail is a time consuming and >potentially stressing matter. I believe that, by diluting it with the >feed idea, it will become way more bearable. I hope so, yes. :-) For me, the "bits" emails take a long time to prepare. And the longer you leave between doing them, the bigger and more intimidating they become. It's a vicious cycle. :-/ -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.st...@einval.com "I can't ever sleep on planes ... call it irrational if you like, but I'm afraid I'll miss my stop" -- Vivek Dasmohapatra -- 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/20100324111214.ga24...@einval.com
Re: Question to all (other) candidates
On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 06:49:51PM +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> So, since part of the reason that I joined the race was to make sure it
> wouldn't get too boring, I was hoping there'd be a bit more life on this
> list. Since there isn't, allow me to ask a few questions myself.
FWIW, I disagree with that or, better, I think "too boring" is a
subjective notion. I've been indexing DPL campaigning questions this and
last year, and we're currently at about 20 discussion topics, with 1
more week of campaigning ahead of us. Last year campaigning has been
*way* more quiet :-)
> (The alert reader will notice that some of the points in this mail have
> not been mentioned in my rebuttals. This is because these are
> *questions*, not statements of what I believe is wrong; the latter
> belong in rebuttals, the former do not)
Oh, thanks, I've discovered from this that your rebuttals have been
published already on www.d.o. Mine are still not (the fault is all mine
though: I've sent them to the secretary after the suggested deadline),
but are available since yesterday on my homepage
http://upsilon.cc/~zack/hacking/debian/dpl-2010/platform.html#sec:rebuttals
... and while we are on rebuttals, let me comment a specific point of
your rebuttals to my platform: the one about the website. Reading your
rebuttals, it seems that I intend to favor external over internal
contributions to the website. This is not the case, as it is made clear
by the usage of the expression "emergency plan".
Now, since fair is fair, I'm looking forward for your comments to my
rebuttals about your platform :-)
> Stefano:
>
> You make a point of transparency and availability in your platform. As
> you yourself note, many past DPLs and DPL candidates have made similar
> promises/points, yet few have managed to actually be able to do so.
>
> You mention that you will attempt to succeed where others have failed by
> providing a "feed of DPL activity news". While the specifics of your
> plan may be innovative, the idea itself of constantly providing updates
> rather than bulk ones has been promised by others in the past (e.g.,
> Steve mentioned it in his 2008 platform). As such, I'm not convinced
> this will help all that much;
>
> How do you believe it will, and how do you think you are different from
> other DPLs who have tried and failed to be more communicative?
There are various issue which I presume block sending frequently,
according to a given period, "bits from the DPL" mail to the project.
I believe a significant one among such issues is the "expectation" that
the DPL knows DDs have on the monthly bits, and therefore the perceived
weight of of preparing those bits. My guess is that, on these premises,
actually sending out the DPL bits mail is a time consuming and
potentially stressing matter. I believe that, by diluting it with the
feed idea, it will become way more bearable.
In fact, there is also a personal reason: I know that a feed like that
would fit quite well my usual way of working, since I like taking notes
of what I did in a work day, for future reference / not forgetting.
Given that the DPL is an elective body I believe it is just fair to have
such a flow of information public.
Mind you, I cannot guarantee the feeds will not be empty, real life can
strike back on me as it can with any of us. Nevertheless I want to try
establishing an important correlation: no bits ~= no work being done by
the DPL (and hence the right to inquire, complain, etc.).
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 all (other) candidates
Le Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 06:49:51PM +0100, Wouter Verhelst a écrit : > > Charles: > > In your platform, in the "Program" section, you mention four ideas that > could reasonable be described as being about the things that, > respectively, the DAM and NM frontdesk, the ftp-masters, and the Release > Managers (twice) are responsible for. Did you talk with these teams > about your ideas before running for DPL? > > If not, do you believe this may cause problems? Are you still planning > to, and may your ideas change if you do? > > If you did talk to these teams beforehand, did your plans change any as > a result, or do you anticipate that still happening? Hi Wouter, I have not contacted these teams in private or in public. I expect the three weeks of campaign to be long enough to openly discuss what I propose. Also, I do not think that we need a conclusion now; what we need is to agree that a door is open to change some of our practices. In my platform, I have separate sections for ‘Program’ and ‘What I will do as DPL’. In short: vote for my if you like my program, but I will not come to the core teams with a long shopping list of things to do. This is not fun, nor it gives trust to the teams that do the work. If I am elected, I will contact the core teams about the main points of my program as general directions that, together, collected a majority of the votes in this election, and propose to discuss them in public. I want the outcome of these discussions to be open: we can find other ideas. Have a nice day, PS: interestingly, I just rediscovered an email that covers part of my platform in my ‘postponed’ folder, that I wrote for -devel last year but never sent. Last time I tried to discuss about not building everyting on all arches I was insulted, and this made me affraid to discuss this again in public for a while… -- 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/20100324015421.gd5...@kunpuu.plessy.org
DPL consultations with the community [was: Re: Question to all (other) candidates]
Hi Wouter-- You probably didn't mean to have this to come out this way, but: On 03/23/2010 01:49 PM, Wouter Verhelst wrote: > Charles: > > In your platform, in the "Program" section, you mention four ideas that > could reasonable be described as being about the things that, > respectively, the DAM and NM frontdesk, the ftp-masters, and the Release > Managers (twice) are responsible for. Did you talk with these teams > about your ideas before running for DPL? This comes across as calling Charles out for not consulting other people (or at least not acknowledging their contributions). > Marga: [...] > Also, you seem to have received a great deal of help in writing your > platform. In the interest of clarity, can you shine a light on how this > happened? This comes across as calling Marga out for consulting too many other people (or at least for acknowledging their contributions too much). But you can't have it both ways ;) How much consultation with other members of the community is appropriate for the DPL? How prominently should an acknowledgment of those contributions be presented? I see no acknowledgments of outside input in your own platform. Did you consult with other members of the community in drafting it? (or did i miss it when i read your platform?) Thanks for keeping things stirred up, --dkg signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Question to all (other) candidates
So, since part of the reason that I joined the race was to make sure it wouldn't get too boring, I was hoping there'd be a bit more life on this list. Since there isn't, allow me to ask a few questions myself. Oh, and before anyone asks: hey, I can vote too, and we have a Condorcet voting system. So there. (The alert reader will notice that some of the points in this mail have not been mentioned in my rebuttals. This is because these are *questions*, not statements of what I believe is wrong; the latter belong in rebuttals, the former do not) These questions have names, but don't let that stop any of the other candidates from answering those questions they want to answer, if any. Stefano: You make a point of transparency and availability in your platform. As you yourself note, many past DPLs and DPL candidates have made similar promises/points, yet few have managed to actually be able to do so. You mention that you will attempt to succeed where others have failed by providing a "feed of DPL activity news". While the specifics of your plan may be innovative, the idea itself of constantly providing updates rather than bulk ones has been promised by others in the past (e.g., Steve mentioned it in his 2008 platform). As such, I'm not convinced this will help all that much; How do you believe it will, and how do you think you are different from other DPLs who have tried and failed to be more communicative? Charles: In your platform, in the "Program" section, you mention four ideas that could reasonable be described as being about the things that, respectively, the DAM and NM frontdesk, the ftp-masters, and the Release Managers (twice) are responsible for. Did you talk with these teams about your ideas before running for DPL? If not, do you believe this may cause problems? Are you still planning to, and may your ideas change if you do? If you did talk to these teams beforehand, did your plans change any as a result, or do you anticipate that still happening? Marga: In my rebuttal, I mention that I lack a sense of vision in your platform. In case that wasn't clear, this is because the ideas you mention, while they might work to some extent, seem to be a bit superficial; I'm afraid they will not strike at the heart of the issues we face. Do you believe this is correct? If not, can you clarify? Also, you seem to have received a great deal of help in writing your platform. In the interest of clarity, can you shine a light on how this happened? To mention two possible extremes, was this more of a "I'd like to run, but would need a platform, please send me some ideas", or rather "hey, $RANDOM_PEOPLE, here's a platform, please give me some comments?" (I realize the truth is probably somewhere in between those two, but would like to know exactly what we get if I were to vote you second...) If any of the other candidates have questions they would like to ask me, I would be glad to answer them. Also, I will provide my own answers to some of the above questions (where that would make sense), but would like to see the other candidates' answers first. -- 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
