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Raphael Hertzog | 1 Mar 2007 09:07
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Re: Questions to the candidates

On Wed, 28 Feb 2007, Pierre Habouzit wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 28, 2007 at 04:55:58PM +0100, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> > Unfortunately we have big cultural differences when it comes to use of the
> > money. Some people [...] feel they are some sort of second class
> > developers because they will never have that opportunity to earn money
> > while doing Debian stuff.
> 
>   Hey, that's not really a cultural difference here.

It's not indeed, and I said that to show that not everybody has the same
reason to dislike (or like) the initiative. However, the people who have
had the biggest problems with the initiative are those who have been
affected by the cultural difference.

> If you really already know for sure some people won't never ever get
> paid, how could they feel otherwise?
> 
>   And I'm curious, which "kind" of developer will never get paid?

Thijs and Frank already responded to those questions and I agree with
what they said.

> > * Deciding what to pay (and hence who to pay) and how much to pay is
> >   a very difficult task. How can we ensure effective use of the money
> 
>   I suppose you meant efficient ?

You're french like me and I wonder what subtle difference you put between
those two words. When I do "dict effective" I have in the definition
"efficient" which means that both terms are closely related.
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Pierre Habouzit | 1 Mar 2007 11:16
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Question to Anthony Towns: precision about your platform

  In the “DPL Review” part of your platform, I'm quite surprised to see:

      * September: Dunc-Tank.org launch

  It feels like sometimes the separation between your two alter egos
(the DPL and the Debian Developer) gets confused as we see the actions
you claim to be from the latter being attributed to the former.

  If you're going to be re-elected, and if dunc-tank is to be continued
also, will you still remain on the board and pursue this rather
schizophrenic split, that does not seem to be that clear, even to you ?

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·O·  Pierre Habouzit
··O                                                madcoder <at> debian.org
OOO                                                http://www.madism.org
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Peter Nuttall | 1 Mar 2007 11:46
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Question for Steve McIntyre

Hello all,

Quick questions for Steve McIntyre, though anyone can throw in their
two cents:

You have been 2IC for a year, give or take a bit. Do you think the
position has been a sucess? If elected, would you appoint a 2IC
yourself, and, assuming you would, how would you select your 2IC?

Thanks 

Pete
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Anthony Towns | 1 Mar 2007 12:02
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Re: Question to the candidates: inclusion of the kFreeBSD-* ports

On Tue, Feb 27, 2007 at 05:17:01PM +0100, Julien BLACHE wrote:
> The kFreeBSD ports are now in a good enough shape to be included in
> unstable. Aur?lien Jarno got ftpmaster's approval for that during an
> informal conversation at debconf5 [1] but so far, there's been no
> progress on this front.

http://wiki.debian.org/ArchiveQualification/kfreebsd-i386

seems to list under three DDs actively involved in the port, about 40
systems in total using it, and 20% of the archive unbuildable.

I don't really see how it would benefit from being added to the archive,
tbh: it looks like a niche distribution that's working fine as it is.

Personally, due to things like [0], I tend to think having different
sources for different OSes is likely to make sense; which isn't something
we can manage with the main archive as it stands.

Cheers,
aj

[0] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/06/msg00012.html
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Frank Küster | 1 Mar 2007 13:08
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Re: Question to the candidates: inclusion of the kFreeBSD-* ports

Anthony Towns <aj <at> azure.humbug.org.au> wrote:

> Personally, due to things like [0], I tend to think having different
> sources for different OSes is likely to make sense; which isn't something
> we can manage with the main archive as it stands.
>
> Cheers,
> aj
>
> [0] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/06/msg00012.html

I'm puzzled.  The mail you cite explains a really simple way to make a
source buildable with SElinux on linux, and without on other OSes.  

How can you take that as an argument for separating the archives?

Regards, Frank
--

-- 
Dr. Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding  <at>  Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)
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Julien BLACHE | 1 Mar 2007 13:32
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Re: Question to the candidates: inclusion of the kFreeBSD-* ports

Anthony Towns <aj <at> azure.humbug.org.au> wrote:

> Personally, due to things like [0], I tend to think having different
> sources for different OSes is likely to make sense; which isn't something
> we can manage with the main archive as it stands.

I disagree here.

Building for different OSes from the same source will improve
portability and quality.

We have a long history of helping make free software more portable
accross architectures, let's just take it to the next step.

As for the number of developers, there are a couple more than is told
on the qualification page, although obviously not all of them are DDs
(but that can be fixed).

I think we'll attract even more people once kFreeBSD will be an
official port. Also, consider that kFreeBSD enthusiasts will probably
join some of the biggest maintenance teams to help out with kFreeBSD
issues, which will also benefit to the current Linux ports.

And I truly hope Sun will re-license OpenSolaris under the GPL so we
can have an official OpenSolaris port too.

JB.

--

-- 
 Julien BLACHE - Debian & GNU/Linux Developer - <jblache <at> debian.org>
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Sam Hocevar | 2 Mar 2007 03:36
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Re: Questions to all candidates: Release importance, release blockers, release quality

On Tue, Feb 27, 2007, Steve Langasek wrote:

> >   * we announced a bogus release date. I know not everyone agrees on
> >   who is responsible for that announcement,
> 
> Who do you believe is responsible for that announcement?

   The story as I understand it is that the press team slightly changed
the release team's "12/4 confirmed as a realistic date" estimation to
"12/4 confirmed as a release date", and apparently few efforts were made
to take it back.

> Only after the freeze is it possible to do certain kinds of systematic QA,
> such as checking for build failures within testing.  Have you taken that
> into account when deeming that a decline of 10-20 bugs over two months
> indicates too early of a freeze?  Have you factored in the introduction of
> new RC bugs into testing without detection, prior to the freeze?

   I was aware of all these parameters, but their potential impact on
the RC bug evolution was all but clear. Again, I would have loved a
graph of newly found bugs, downgraded ones, bugs fixed by a transition
to testing, etc. to know the trend for all variables. And since our
target was 0 RC bugs /in Etch/ I was under the impression that we should
focus on the RC bug count /in Etch/, which was the main reason why I
thought freezing at 116 bugs in Etch while it was planned to do it at 80
was a bit too early.

> >    I do think a release of high quality is more important than a timely
> > release. However, I also think it should be possible to stick to a given
> > date (with the usual two-month buffer, of course).
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Simon Richter | 2 Mar 2007 04:22
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Re: Questions to the candidates

Hello,

Kalle Kivimaa wrote:

> What is the role of the DPL? Is he a strong leader, who uses his
> position to Get Things Done His Way, a public figurehead, who just
> Speaks For The Project, a mediator, who tries to solve internal
> squabbles, or something else?

The current role seems to be that the DPL can make things "official", 
like a public statement or a delegation. Obviously, there is noone in 
the project better suited to do that, but IMO the primary role of the 
DPL should be that of the mediator.

> Do you feel that the DPL is first and foremost The Debian Project
> Leader, in the sense that anything Debian-related the DPL does, he
> does so as the DPL, not as a DD or a private person?

Both. Foremost, the position of the DPL is a "hat" that can be put on if 
needed, and shouldn't be put on if there is no clear need for it, 
however it is also important that the person below the hat still has the 
trust and respect of the others. The DPL can only mediate as long as he 
is deemed impartial, and this is a highly subjective judgement in which 
the wearing or non-wearing of hats only plays a minor role.

> There are problems with communication between some key teams and
> the rest of the project. What solutions will you try to implement
> during the next year?

The best solution I can currently think of would be asking individual
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Simon Richter | 2 Mar 2007 04:27
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Re: Questions to the candidates

I wrote:

> There is a lot of gray area between those extremes, and we have to 
> decide on a case-by-case basis. I can see Debian spending more money 
> than it used to (e.g. to get some of the developer machines back up), 
> but I want to avoid both setting precedent and starting an internal 
> competition for money (which I've written more about in my platform[0]).

[0] happens to be at http://people.debian.org/~sjr/platform.html for the 
time being.

    Simon

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Simon Richter | 2 Mar 2007 05:47
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Re: Questions to the candidates

Hello,

> What do you think of the dunc-tank initiative ? What do you think are
> the result of the "experiment" ?

I think we should have been able to see the outcome before trying it.

The idea itself is not a bad one, however during the entire course of 
the experiment it was never questioned by the proponents that we should 
go through with it. Declaring it an experiment did not have the desired 
effect of magically creating a lab environment without connection to the 
outside world, so a bit of risk assessment would have been in order.

The result is that in the future, we should be more cautious when 
implementing project-wide changes. As expected, having someone work 
full-time on the release brings us nearer to that goal, so I wouldn't 
entirely disregard the idea of organizing funding for individual 
developers, however any such endeavor needs to be in line with how 
Debian actually works and not expect a cultural shift to happen.

    Simon
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Gmane