the last year hasn't been an easy one for debian. we've seen lots of fights,
unproductive discussions, & in general behaviour which contributed to
what enrico in his brilliant
blog post
called the "stink in the kitchen". people's feelings were hurt,
some became less active, others resigned from a specific position or retired
completely.
it happened to me as well that reading through threads full of trolling,
aggressiveness, finger-pointing, unrespectful or abusive behaviour, etc. made
me frustrated, or sad, or angry, or all kinds of other negative feelings.
but then I usually told myself: this is not the debian project as I know it;
this is only a small part a part which urgently needs improvement!
; but if we only look at it alone, our picture of debian at large is
distorted.
the much bigger part of the debian life I know doesn't happen on this
handful of high-profile mailing lists; it happens on dozens of specialized
mailing lists, in many small IRC channels, in the BTS, & in in-person
meetings. & what I see there is most of the time constructive,
collaborative, respectful communication, & committed, helpful, funny,
awesome people.
the idea of this advent calendar was to give examples of some of my recent
experiences which demonstrate what the bright side of debian is in my
opinion & what contributes to my fun in debian. with the aim of sharing
my impression that the proverbial "stink" is, if we take a step
back, only
one piece of the bigger picture, & that we shouldn't
let ourselves get demotivated by only staring at this puzzle piece.
thanks to all the awesome contributors for polishing existing & adding
new shiny puzzle pieces to our common picture every day!
finally: thanks for reading this series of posts, & especially thank you
to all who provided positive feedback this in turn motivated me to
follow through!
& now: back to work, & don't forget to help cleaning the kitchen :)
this posting is part of GDAC (gregoa's debian advent calendar), a project to
show the bright side of debian & why it's fun for me to contribute.
The abbreviated title above means "Appreciation for Localization" :) I wanted to say a word of thanks for the awesome work done by 