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Manoj Srivastava | 1 Dec 2004 20:41
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Re: Mail forwarding in return for Debian donation

On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 18:19:32 +0100, Pete van der Spoel <P.vdSpoel <at> cetis.hvu.nl> said: 

>> We don't have any use for money right now. What we have mostly just
>> sits in a bank account getting slowly devalued by inflation. So
>> fund raising exercises aren't really a good idea.

> Oh. Okay at least I don't have to feel bad about using Debian and
> not contributing, but I have to say I find this very strange. Surely
> Debian has developers that would love to spend more time working on
> Debian than on their day-jobs, but don't do so because they need to
> pay the rent etc?

	Can we sustain paying salaries for about a 1000 people so they
 work on Debian? Where does the money come from? How do we handle the
 increased pressure on NM as more people clamour to join Debian as a
 means of getting paid whenever the job market is in a down turn?

	manoj
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bags. Sidney Paternoster, "The Folly of the Wise"
Manoj Srivastava   <srivasta <at> debian.org>  <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B  924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
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Andrew Suffield | 1 Dec 2004 22:15
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Re: FW: Mail forwarding in return for Debian donation

On Tue, Nov 30, 2004 at 01:09:19PM -0800, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 30, 2004 at 08:35:51PM +0000, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, Nov 30, 2004 at 06:19:32PM +0100, Pete van der Spoel wrote:
> > > Or is the whole Ubuntu thing (where I understand Mark Shuttleworth has hired
> > > a large number of the senior Debian developers) considered to be the
> > > solution to this problem?
> > 
> > Hiring developers away from a project, so that they no longer spend
> > time on it, is not normally considered a good solution.
> 
> Fortunately, that is not the case with Canonical.

Yes it is. Fork and forget is Canonical's modus operandi (despite all
the PR claiming otherwise).

--

-- 
  .''`.  ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield
 : :' :  http://www.debian.org/ |
 `. `'                          |
   `-             -><-          |
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Matthew Palmer | 1 Dec 2004 22:23
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Re: FW: Mail forwarding in return for Debian donation

On Wed, Dec 01, 2004 at 09:15:00PM +0000, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 30, 2004 at 01:09:19PM -0800, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> > On Tue, Nov 30, 2004 at 08:35:51PM +0000, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> > 
> > > On Tue, Nov 30, 2004 at 06:19:32PM +0100, Pete van der Spoel wrote:
> > > > Or is the whole Ubuntu thing (where I understand Mark Shuttleworth has hired
> > > > a large number of the senior Debian developers) considered to be the
> > > > solution to this problem?
> > > 
> > > Hiring developers away from a project, so that they no longer spend
> > > time on it, is not normally considered a good solution.
> > 
> > Fortunately, that is not the case with Canonical.
> 
> Yes it is. Fork and forget is Canonical's modus operandi (despite all
> the PR claiming otherwise).

Sounds like someone is ticked off that there's somebody out there who cares
about regular releases of an Arch client, and making one that's usable by
someone other than revision control gurus...

- Matt
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Matt Zimmerman | 1 Dec 2004 22:28
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Re: FW: Mail forwarding in return for Debian donation

On Wed, Dec 01, 2004 at 09:15:00PM +0000, Andrew Suffield wrote:

> On Tue, Nov 30, 2004 at 01:09:19PM -0800, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> > Fortunately, that is not the case with Canonical.
> 
> Yes it is. Fork and forget is Canonical's modus operandi (despite all
> the PR claiming otherwise).

Being in a position to know, much more so than yourself, I can say that you
are mistaken.  I can also point to thousands of lines of patches,
representing work funded by Canonical, which are now present in Debian or
filed in debbugs waiting to be merged.

Handwaving and FUD are no substitute for facts.

--

-- 
 - mdz
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Pete van der Spoel | 1 Dec 2004 22:32
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RE: Mail forwarding in return for Debian donation

-----Original Message-----
From: Manoj Srivastava
To: debian-project <at> lists.debian.org
Sent: 12/1/04 8:41 PM
Subject: Re: Mail forwarding in return for Debian donation

On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 18:19:32 +0100, Pete van der Spoel
<P.vdSpoel <at> cetis.hvu.nl> said: 

>>> We don't have any use for money right now. What we have mostly just
>>> sits in a bank account getting slowly devalued by inflation. So
>>> fund raising exercises aren't really a good idea.

>> Oh. Okay at least I don't have to feel bad about using Debian and
>> not contributing, but I have to say I find this very strange. Surely
>> Debian has developers that would love to spend more time working on
>> Debian than on their day-jobs, but don't do so because they need to
>> pay the rent etc?

>	Can we sustain paying salaries for about a 1000 people so they
> work on Debian? Where does the money come from? How do we handle the
> increased pressure on NM as more people clamour to join Debian as a
> means of getting paid whenever the job market is in a down turn?

I can see where you're coming from, but I think that's a very pessimistic
way of looking at it. Also, I'm not suggesting paying a thousand people a
full salary.

What about having a small financial reward for each release critical bug
that is squashed?
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Andrew Suffield | 1 Dec 2004 23:22
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Re: FW: Mail forwarding in return for Debian donation

On Wed, Dec 01, 2004 at 01:28:19PM -0800, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 01, 2004 at 09:15:00PM +0000, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, Nov 30, 2004 at 01:09:19PM -0800, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> > > Fortunately, that is not the case with Canonical.
> > 
> > Yes it is. Fork and forget is Canonical's modus operandi (despite all
> > the PR claiming otherwise).
> 
> Being in a position to know, much more so than yourself, I can say that you
> are mistaken.  I can also point to thousands of lines of patches,
> representing work funded by Canonical, which are now present in Debian or
> filed in debbugs waiting to be merged.

Being in a position of judging the facts without preconceptions, I can
point to plenty more that aren't.

> Handwaving and FUD are no substitute for facts.

Nor are arguments from authority, or a carefully selected sample of
facts.

--

-- 
  .''`.  ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield
 : :' :  http://www.debian.org/ |
 `. `'                          |
   `-             -><-          |
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Andrew Suffield | 1 Dec 2004 23:28
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Re: FW: Mail forwarding in return for Debian donation

On Thu, Dec 02, 2004 at 08:23:44AM +1100, Matthew Palmer wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 01, 2004 at 09:15:00PM +0000, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> > On Tue, Nov 30, 2004 at 01:09:19PM -0800, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> > > On Tue, Nov 30, 2004 at 08:35:51PM +0000, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> > > 
> > > > On Tue, Nov 30, 2004 at 06:19:32PM +0100, Pete van der Spoel wrote:
> > > > > Or is the whole Ubuntu thing (where I understand Mark Shuttleworth has hired
> > > > > a large number of the senior Debian developers) considered to be the
> > > > > solution to this problem?
> > > > 
> > > > Hiring developers away from a project, so that they no longer spend
> > > > time on it, is not normally considered a good solution.
> > > 
> > > Fortunately, that is not the case with Canonical.
> > 
> > Yes it is. Fork and forget is Canonical's modus operandi (despite all
> > the PR claiming otherwise).
> 
> Sounds like someone is ticked off that there's somebody out there who cares
> about regular releases of an Arch client, and making one that's usable by
> someone other than revision control gurus...

Try X. baz is one of the few things Canonical funds that is actually
being done right (so far), and it's no thanks to the company for
that. Alternatively, try cscvs, which was effectively stalled for
months.

--

-- 
  .''`.  ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield
 : :' :  http://www.debian.org/ |
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Matt Zimmerman | 2 Dec 2004 00:55
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Re: FW: Mail forwarding in return for Debian donation

On Wed, Dec 01, 2004 at 10:22:57PM +0000, Andrew Suffield wrote:

> Being in a position of judging the facts without preconceptions, I can
> point to plenty more that aren't.

The fact that not _everything_ has been submitted yet still doesn't support
your (exaggerated) argument.  That figure will never be 100% because the two
projects have differing goals, but we have submitted a great deal of code
already (both to Debian and further upstream) and will continue to do so.

> Nor are arguments from authority, or a carefully selected sample of
> facts.

An argument from authority is not the same thing as an argument from a
position of more accurate information.  The more that Ubuntu diverges from
Debian, the more work we create for ourselves.  We are motivated to push our
changes upstream wherever possible, and we do so.

All of the facts are in the open in the form of source code, and anyone who
is interested can make their own informed judgement.  I won't argue with you
about it any further.

Cheers,

--

-- 
 - mdz
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Martin Schulze | 2 Dec 2004 06:22
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Re: Mail forwarding in return for Debian donation

Pete van der Spoel wrote:
> What about having a small financial reward for each release critical bug
> that is squashed?

Just to heat up the discussion a bit:  Why should $some_developer get
a reward for popping up just before a release while other work on the
distribution continuesly with large personal engagement but can't
afford popping up for extra bugsquashing anymore?

The point is, you must not introduce unfairness as it would hurt much
more in the long term.

Regards,

	Joey

--

-- 
Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
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Craig Sanders | 2 Dec 2004 07:13
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Re: Mail forwarding in return for Debian donation

On Wed, Dec 01, 2004 at 10:32:46PM +0100, Pete van der Spoel wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Manoj Srivastava
> To: debian-project <at> lists.debian.org
> Sent: 12/1/04 8:41 PM
> >	Can we sustain paying salaries for about a 1000 people so they
> > work on Debian? Where does the money come from? How do we handle the
> > increased pressure on NM as more people clamour to join Debian as a
> > means of getting paid whenever the job market is in a down turn?
> 
> I can see where you're coming from, but I think that's a very pessimistic
> way of looking at it. Also, I'm not suggesting paying a thousand people a
> full salary.

having seen a few clubs and other organisations get destroyed rapidly by
parasites, leeches, hangers-on, thieves, con-men, embezzlers, creative
accountants, and other such vermin as soon as there was any hint of money
available to be siphoned off, i'd say that that was not in the least bit
pessimistic.

i think it's a Good Thing that a) debian doesn't have or need much money, and
b) it's quite difficult for anyone to spend or otherwise get their hands on
what little debian does have (even if that does make it harder for legitimate
expenses to be paid)

in short, money attracts the wrong sort of people.

craig

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