Re: Question to all candidates: DPL's role in important package maintenance
On Thu, Apr 01, 2010 at 06:47:53AM +0200, Frans Pop wrote:
Agreed, but would you agree that it is a core part of the role of the
DPL/2IC, or indeed any mediator, to provide at least basic status and
progress info to the project as a whole?
Yes, absolutely. Beside this specific case---which I'm pretty sure
everyone in the project was aware of---we should not assume that the DPL
is aware of all problems like this. The ideal course of actions IMO
should be something like: either proactively or pinged by someone the
DPL is made aware of a problem like this one, he/she tries a mediation
informing the project of the effort, keeps the project posted for a
while, if that fails we fallback to tech-ctte.
I agree with Russ comments on the matter, I think our (as a project)
main responsibility in this specific case has been letting the issue be
delayed this far. I believe that some of the year-old rants on -devel
would have been much more useful if, instead of posting there, people
would have opened an issue to the tech-ctte.
What we've been seeing with this issue is that there has been complete
silence for over three months. I think that a lot of the (heated) public
discussion could have avoided if some progress/status info would have been
provided at regular intervals. In fact, I think that a lot of the public
discussion was as direct result of the total lack of such information.
What are the thoughts of candidates on that?
I completely agree with your analysis on this.
Several of the posts I've seen on -devel were clearly caused by the
frustration of the involved people. Knowing that something was going on
and, even better, being able to *see* what was going on (as it is right
now the case with the -ctte bug log) would have saved quite same flame,
IMHO.
Also, it has been claimed we cannot provide any information because
discussions are in private [1]. Do candidates agree to that, or do they
think that a DPL should make clear to parties in advance that the project
will be kept informed of status and progress (but of course not of
specifics).
[1] References:
- http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2009/12/msg00078.html (+ following)
My comment is in that very same thread already [2] (it is the latter of
your options).
Cheers.
[2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2009/12/msg00096.html
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
z...@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
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sempre uno zaino ...| ..: | Je dis tu à tous ceux que j'aime
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Re: Question to all candidates: DPL's role in important package maintenance
Dear Margarita and Stefano, On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 04:03:00PM -0300, Margarita Manterola wrote: [snip] On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 05:30:50PM +0200, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: [snip] Thank you for your replies. I am glad that you care about this issue, and have voiced your opinion on how to handle it. Kumar -- posix this guy _is_ crazy stargazer posix: from the looks of Enlightenment he's on LSD posix LSD is nothing compared to what this guy's on.. -- Seen on #Unix signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Question to all candidates: DPL's role in important package maintenance
Le Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 06:27:00PM -0500, Kumar Appaiah a écrit : My question to you is, do you envision a role for the DPL in fixing such inadequate maintenance of important packages. Hello Kumar, for the moment, you have taken the way of the Technical Comitee, and this does not require the intervention of the DPL. Asking the TC to solve a disagreement between two parties should be the occasion to write down the problem in a clear and concise way. In the case of Python, I think that it is really problematic that the maintainer did not give his point of view in public yet; I hope that it is only a question of time. Without interfering with the TC, as a DPL I would ask to the python's maintainer to explain himself on our mailing lists (this can be as simple as CCing the summary he has to send to the TC), and in return would make sure that he will not him regret this concession, by discuss in preliminary with the listmasters about the possiblity of limiting or delaying messages in case of a momentary lapse of self-control (the big red button that I proposed in another email). More in general, the DPL could be proactive. When a package or a service becomes very popular and interdependant with the rest, I would contact the responsible person or team and propose them to become more formal via a DPL delegation. Have a nice day, -- 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/20100401002325.ga16...@kunpuu.plessy.org
Re: Question to all candidates: DPL's role in important package maintenance
Hi Kumar, On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 06:27:00PM -0500, Kumar Appaiah wrote: Dear Candidates, First of all, I wish you all the very best for the elections! At the outset, this question is not meant to be inflammatory or to express ire at a particular individual or set of individuals involved; I have great respect for the contributions of all involved in the community. One of the questions which I've not yet seen exactly in the discussions is on the transparency in the maintenance of non-core but important packages, such as python, wherein the maintenance of the package and policy (till a short while ago) has been, poor at best, and we've had near zero communication from the maintainer(s) for over a year. This has led some parts of the community (Debian Python, in this case) to knock the doors of the tech-ctte[1] (recommended reading, unless you have done so already). I don't wish to comment on the specific case of python packaging. There's been lots of things going on there, and though some of it was in public, the thread you point to clearly states that some things were not discussed in public, but were instead only done through private mail between some of the people involved. As such, it's impossible for me to build a clear picture on what has been going on, which would be a prerequisite for commenting on this. My question to you is, do you envision a role for the DPL in fixing such inadequate maintenance of important packages, or are you of the opinion that is it up to the affected Debian community to stop whining and step up with some action themselves? In the general case, I believe that when there are issues with important packages involving technical and social difficulties that apparently cannot be solved easily by the people involved, it is indeed the DPL's duty to step in and discuss the problems at hand in as open a manner as possible with all people involved, and to try to come to a solution. This may not be easy, and a solution that makes all people involved happy may be impossible. Such is life. But if such an option exists, we should seek it. -- 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 all candidates: DPL's role in important package maintenance
On Thu, Apr 01, 2010 at 02:57:59AM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote: One of the questions which I've not yet seen exactly in the discussions is on the transparency in the maintenance of non-core but important packages, such as python, wherein the maintenance of the package and policy (till a short while ago) has been, poor at best, and we've had near zero communication from the maintainer(s) for over a year. This has led some parts of the community (Debian Python, in this case) to knock the doors of the tech-ctte[1] (recommended reading, unless you have done so already). I don't wish to comment on the specific case of python packaging. There's been lots of things going on there, and though some of it was in public, the thread you point to clearly states that some things were not discussed in public, but were instead only done through private mail between some of the people involved. As such, it's impossible for me to build a clear picture on what has been going on, which would be a prerequisite for commenting on this. Isn't this, by itself, a problem? Shouldn't it be very easy to find out what the discussions were, rather than have to ask those who discussed behind closed doors as to wha t the current situation is? I wish to draw your attention more towards this issue, rather than the particular case of python packaging. My question to you is, do you envision a role for the DPL in fixing such inadequate maintenance of important packages, or are you of the opinion that is it up to the affected Debian community to stop whining and step up with some action themselves? In the general case, I believe that when there are issues with important packages involving technical and social difficulties that apparently cannot be solved easily by the people involved, it is indeed the DPL's duty to step in and discuss the problems at hand in as open a manner as possible with all people involved, and to try to come to a solution. This may not be easy, and a solution that makes all people involved happy may be impossible. Such is life. But if such an option exists, we should seek it. Thank you for this opinion. Kumar -- rm_-rf_ The real value of KDE is that they inspired and push the development of GNOME :-) -- #Debian signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Question to all candidates: DPL's role in important package maintenance
Dear Charles, On Thu, Apr 01, 2010 at 09:23:25AM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote: for the moment, you have taken the way of the Technical Comitee, and this does not require the intervention of the DPL. Asking the TC to solve a disagreement between two parties should be the occasion to write down the problem in a clear and concise way. In the case of Python, I think that it is really problematic that the maintainer did not give his point of view in public yet; I hope that it is only a question of time. Without interfering with the TC, as a DPL I would ask to the python's maintainer to explain himself on our mailing lists (this can be as simple as CCing the summary he has to send to the TC), and in return would make sure that he will not him regret this concession, by discuss in preliminary with the listmasters about the possiblity of limiting or delaying messages in case of a momentary lapse of self-control (the big red button that I proposed in another email). More in general, the DPL could be proactive. When a package or a service becomes very popular and interdependant with the rest, I would contact the responsible person or team and propose them to become more formal via a DPL delegation. Thank you for sharing your opinion on this issue. Kumar -- What is the status of Linux' Unicode implementation. Will Linux be prepared for the first contact? We have full klingon console support just in case -- Alan Cox on linux-kernel signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Question to all candidates: DPL's role in important package maintenance
Kumar Appaiah a.ku...@alumni.iitm.ac.in writes: On Thu, Apr 01, 2010 at 02:57:59AM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote: I don't wish to comment on the specific case of python packaging. There's been lots of things going on there, and though some of it was in public, the thread you point to clearly states that some things were not discussed in public, but were instead only done through private mail between some of the people involved. As such, it's impossible for me to build a clear picture on what has been going on, which would be a prerequisite for commenting on this. Isn't this, by itself, a problem? Shouldn't it be very easy to find out what the discussions were, rather than have to ask those who discussed behind closed doors as to wha t the current situation is? I wish to draw your attention more towards this issue, rather than the particular case of python packaging. Insofar as disagreements are technical, I think they need to become public. As with anything else about free software, more eyes are better; plus, we have as a project goal to not hide our problems and to discuss them in public. Insofar as disagreements are personal, I think requiring that they always be discussed in public has some implications that I'm not sure everyone realizes. By requiring that all personal disagreements be exercised in public, we would effectively be selecting for project contributors who can hold their own in vituperative public flamewars. I'm not sure that's actually a criteria that we should be selecting for. Obvious, in many cases, the two get intermingled badly, and I think that's probably the case here. In that case, it's often useful to bring in a third party to untangle the personal from the technical so that the technical can be discussed in public and we can reach a technical decision. But I would be very leery of applying the same problem resolution mechanism to all interpersonal problems that we want to apply to all technical problems. In general, and not here speaking about any specific case, I think that approach would drive away a fair number of people who would otherwise be valuable assets to the project. -- 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/87pr2krmum@windlord.stanford.edu
Re: Question to all candidates: DPL's role in important package maintenance
On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 08:05:40PM -0500, Kumar Appaiah wrote: On Thu, Apr 01, 2010 at 02:57:59AM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote: One of the questions which I've not yet seen exactly in the discussions is on the transparency in the maintenance of non-core but important packages, such as python, wherein the maintenance of the package and policy (till a short while ago) has been, poor at best, and we've had near zero communication from the maintainer(s) for over a year. This has led some parts of the community (Debian Python, in this case) to knock the doors of the tech-ctte[1] (recommended reading, unless you have done so already). I don't wish to comment on the specific case of python packaging. There's been lots of things going on there, and though some of it was in public, the thread you point to clearly states that some things were not discussed in public, but were instead only done through private mail between some of the people involved. As such, it's impossible for me to build a clear picture on what has been going on, which would be a prerequisite for commenting on this. Isn't this, by itself, a problem? Not necessarily. Shouldn't it be very easy to find out what the discussions were, rather than have to ask those who discussed behind closed doors as to wha t the current situation is? It depends on what the problem is. If the problems are purely of a technical nature, then sure, things should be discussed in the open. But it is my experience that often, problems that keep dragging on for months on end are /not/ purely of a technical nature. When the problem at hand is basically I think $FOO is an arse, but I don't want to say this in front of everyone, then it does make sense to discuss things behind closed doors. It doesn't even have to be purely emotional like that. $FOO thinks the right solution is to do this. I've explained several times now that that won't work, because of some particular cornercase that he dismisses out of hand, but which actually does happen. Every time I bring it up, the same arguments are rehashed over and over again, and I'm sick of them. I'll fix it, eventually, but he should stop nagging, and no, I'm not going to talk to him anymore. Discussing problems in public works very well if two people like eachother. If they don't, however, you get two people cursing at eachother. Now there are some people who really don't mind doing that in public; but when things get messy, not being messy out in the open actually makes a whole lot of sense. I think it's much more important that the problem at hand is solved. How this is done is less so. The technical arguments for why things are done in one way or another should be as public as possible; but if there are personal problems involved, smearing them out in the open should not be necessary, and it should be fine to have a private discussion so that the mediator can find out what the actual problems are. Of course that shouldn't be the principle; but we should not be afraid of discussing things in private, either. -- 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 all candidates: DPL's role in important package maintenance
Wouter Verhelst wrote: Discussing problems in public works very well if two people like eachother. If they don't, however, you get two people cursing at eachother. Now there are some people who really don't mind doing that in public; but when things get messy, not being messy out in the open actually makes a whole lot of sense. Agreed, but would you agree that it is a core part of the role of the DPL/2IC, or indeed any mediator, to provide at least basic status and progress info to the project as a whole? What we've been seeing with this issue is that there has been complete silence for over three months. I think that a lot of the (heated) public discussion could have avoided if some progress/status info would have been provided at regular intervals. In fact, I think that a lot of the public discussion was as direct result of the total lack of such information. What are the thoughts of candidates on that? Also, it has been claimed we cannot provide any information because discussions are in private [1]. Do candidates agree to that, or do they think that a DPL should make clear to parties in advance that the project will be kept informed of status and progress (but of course not of specifics). Thanks, FJP [1] References: - http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2009/12/msg00078.html (+ following) - http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2010/03/msg00032.html (last para) -- 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/201004010647.54249.elen...@planet.nl
Re: Question to all candidates: DPL's role in important package maintenance
Le Thu, Apr 01, 2010 at 06:47:53AM +0200, Frans Pop a écrit : Also, it has been claimed we cannot provide any information because discussions are in private [1]. Do candidates agree to that, or do they think that a DPL should make clear to parties in advance that the project will be kept informed of status and progress (but of course not of specifics). Hi Frans and everybody, Rants are better to go in private or not be sent at all, and it may be better to keep tractations private as well as long as they are speculative, to avoid fueling misunderstandings. But I think that a clear, emotion-neutral, and synthethic summary of what each party wants and what they disagree with the other is essential and has to be public. Cheers, -- 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/20100401050137.gb17...@kunpuu.plessy.org
Re: Question to all candidates: DPL's role in important package maintenance
On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 8:27 PM, Kumar Appaiah a.ku...@alumni.iitm.ac.in wrote: My question to you is, do you envision a role for the DPL in fixing such inadequate maintenance of important packages, or are you of the opinion that is it up to the affected Debian community to stop whining and step up with some action themselves? I think my view is somewhat in the middle. I do not think that the DPL should be constantly checking on every maintainer or team in order to see if their job is being done correctly, or meddle with people that are generally doing their job right. However, when such an issue is brought to the DPL attention, I believe that it's part of the DPL role to help in finding the solution that's best for Debian, acting as a sort of mediator. In the particular case of the Python packages that was linked, I agree that the correct place to bring the issue to was the tech ctte, but keeping the DPL involved was also a good idea, because the DPL can help by organizing meetings and the like. Regarding your second question, posted to zack: The method adopted for resolution of this conflict has, for better or for worse, happened behind-the-scenes. Now, some in the project feel that this is the best way to avoid a conflagration of sorts, but others feel that this back channel approach does not augur well for a project which strives to adopt open procedures. Would you, as DPL, facilitate such negotiations in the open (for instance, on a publicly viewable mailing list), or under wraps? I've been thinking about this myself, for a while. If I'm elected, I'd like to have a most viewable point of contact that goes through RT or a similar interface, so that requests are easy to track and follow. I'm not sure if the current installation of RT for Debian would be well suited for this purpose, but in case it isn't, it's probably easy to find one solution that is well suited I'm also not sure if redirecting leader@ to that system would be alright, because it might break an expectation of privacy from certain people. But I'd definitely like to have an open by default policy, and have closed conversations only when the subject of the conversation requires it. -- 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/e8bbf0361003291203r9400a3er7dc2791d15e6f...@mail.gmail.com
Re: Question to all candidates: DPL's role in important package maintenance
On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 06:27:00PM -0500, Kumar Appaiah wrote:
First of all, I wish you all the very best for the elections!
Hi Kumar, thanks a lot!
This has led some parts of the community (Debian Python, in this
case) to knock the doors of the tech-ctte[1] (recommended reading,
unless you have done so already).
I'm aware of the issue and I'm subscribed to the bug report.
My question to you is, do you envision a role for the DPL in fixing
such inadequate maintenance of important packages, or are you of the
opinion that is it up to the affected Debian community to stop
whining and step up with some action themselves?
I do see a DPL role in fixing this kind of issues between the maintainer
of an important package and the community revolving around all its
satellite packages. While the proper mechanism to solve this kind of
issues is exactly the tech-ctte, I believe there is quite some room of
moral suasion that the DPL should do (or delegate) to avoid this kind
of issues escalate or go on for much too long anyhow. When the does not
work, there isn't much more that the DPL can do.
In the specific case you mention, I'm aware that Steve has tried to
mediate at least in the form of offering resources to organize a F2F
meeting with all involved people (as reported in the bug log), but
unfortunately some of the involved parties did not reply to the
offer. All this is TTBOMK, on all sides of the issues.
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 candidates: DPL's role in important package maintenance
On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 16:51, Stefano Zacchiroli z...@debian.org wrote: ... unfortunately some of the involved parties did not reply to the offer. Not some, just one: the Python maintainer. (as said in the bug log.) Regards, -- Sandro Tosi (aka morph, morpheus, matrixhasu) My website: http://matrixhasu.altervista.org/ Me at Debian: http://wiki.debian.org/SandroTosi -- 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/8b2d7b4d1003280756h3d26b5b0h79225ccfeca89...@mail.gmail.com
Re: Question to all candidates: DPL's role in important package maintenance
Dear Zack, Thanks for the response. On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 04:51:52PM +0200, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: My question to you is, do you envision a role for the DPL in fixing such inadequate maintenance of important packages, or are you of the opinion that is it up to the affected Debian community to stop whining and step up with some action themselves? [snip] In the specific case you mention, I'm aware that Steve has tried to mediate at least in the form of offering resources to organize a F2F meeting with all involved people (as reported in the bug log), but unfortunately some of the involved parties did not reply to the offer. All this is TTBOMK, on all sides of the issues. Probing further on this response of yours: The method adopted for resolution of this conflict has, for better or for worse, happened behind-the-scenes. Now, some in the project feel that this is the best way to avoid a conflagration of sorts, but others feel that this back channel approach does not augur well for a project which strives to adopt open procedures. Would you, as DPL, facilitate such negotiations in the open (for instance, on a publicly viewable mailing list), or under wraps? Thanks! Kumar -- Linux: the operating system with a CLUE... Command Line User Environment. (seen in a posting in comp.software.testing) signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Question to all candidates: DPL's role in important package maintenance
On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 09:59:08AM -0500, Kumar Appaiah wrote:
The method adopted for resolution of this conflict has, for better or
for worse, happened behind-the-scenes. Now, some in the project feel
that this is the best way to avoid a conflagration of sorts, but
others feel that this back channel approach does not augur well for
a project which strives to adopt open procedures.
I absolutely agree with this concern of yours (well, of the others
mentioned, not sure if you're among them or not :-P).
Would you, as DPL, facilitate such negotiations in the open (for
instance, on a publicly viewable mailing list), or under wraps?
Negotiations should happen in the open. That is the case not only
because we are meant to be an open project, but also because when they
are not, the disruptures in the community they will cause later on are
unbearable (as some of ours most typical flame patterns show).
I concede that in some cases there might be some under wraps mails,
but the only justification I can imagine for that right now is when
there are personal feelings or other personal information at stake
(which, I think, can be censored somehow to not let the project in the
dark).
I also understand that in some cases there can be exchanges which are
not immediately available (e.g. if a meeting it set up to solve the
issue, I don't necessarily expect the meeting to be in streaming).
Nevertheless they should be planned in the open a priori, and promptly
summarized a posteriori to let the rest of the project know and possibly
contribute.
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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Question to all candidates: DPL's role in important package maintenance
Dear Candidates, First of all, I wish you all the very best for the elections! At the outset, this question is not meant to be inflammatory or to express ire at a particular individual or set of individuals involved; I have great respect for the contributions of all involved in the community. One of the questions which I've not yet seen exactly in the discussions is on the transparency in the maintenance of non-core but important packages, such as python, wherein the maintenance of the package and policy (till a short while ago) has been, poor at best, and we've had near zero communication from the maintainer(s) for over a year. This has led some parts of the community (Debian Python, in this case) to knock the doors of the tech-ctte[1] (recommended reading, unless you have done so already). My question to you is, do you envision a role for the DPL in fixing such inadequate maintenance of important packages, or are you of the opinion that is it up to the affected Debian community to stop whining and step up with some action themselves? Thanks. Kumar [1]: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=573745 -- Machine Always Crashes, If Not, The Operating System Hangs (MACINTOSH) -- Topic on #Linux signature.asc Description: Digital signature
