Posted a week ago, already deferred back then, this report is
even more deferred now! But as there are people interest in knowing
what the "DPL job" is about even among non debian-devel-announce
subscribers, here is a blog-conveyed reproduction, for the
records.
Dear project members,
here is my monthly DPL activity report, this time for last March.
It is delayed by a couple of weeks because, myself being both
incumbent and candidate DPL, I preferred not to use d-d-a during
the voting period unless really needed. Apologies for the delay (or
the unneeded paranoia, you name it).
As a side effect of the delay, the results of the DPL election
are now known. I'd like to thank all the people who took part in
the elections: voters, people who asked questions on -vote, the
secretary, and obviously Gergely and Wouter, without whom the
campaign wouldn't have allowed to discuss relevant aspects of
Debian "politics".
Thanks for your trust. I'll do my best to match your
expectations.
... and just to remind you what you've just asked for, here goes
the BigMonthlyBlurb!
Highlight: long-term hardware replacement planning
The highlight for this month is long term planning of hardware
replacement. It's something I've been discussing with DSA for quite
a while and on which DSA has worked hard during the
recent
sprint. As a result, we now have a quite ambitious 5-year
hardware replacement plan that will guarantee that all machines in
production are under warranty at any given time (with the nice side
effect of generally better performances, as they go hand in hand
with newer hardware).
The current estimated cost per year is 29'000 USD. That does not
yet include buildds and porter-boxes, so it is expected to increase
a bit to cover all our hardware needs. But we expect it not
increase too much, as we tend to get explicit hardware donations to
cover arch-specific needs.
Given the current state of Debian finances and donation trends,
the plan
looks sustainable for at least 2-3 years. But
this assessment still needs to be refined as soon as, together with
the auditors, we'll manage to obtain the history of past Debian
transactions, in particular from SPI. We've been waiting for this
for about 5 months now, but I'm positive it could become a reality
in the next weeks. In the meantime, it is surely safe to start with
the plan for the next 1-1.5 years, so I'll give green light to DSA
for the first acquisitions as soon as they're ready for it.
When implemented, this plan will increase our ability to rely on
hardware. But it also means we will need to become a bit more
organized about fund-raising. The discussion started with
the
sprint report has some insights about how to do that. As part
of this, we'll also need to share resources (e.g. contact
databases, people, etc.) among the yearly DebConf fund-raising
initiatives and the initiatives mentioned in the aforementioned
discussion.
Ongoing discussions
-
A couple of important clarifications on how to deal with
trademark-encumbered software in the Debian archive have been
posted
to -project. It seems to me there might be consensus on the
overall topic, but we need to write down guidelines for maintainers
(and possibly a project position statement?). I could use some help
on that front, so if you've followed the discussion and/or have an
interest in trademark and free software, please get in touch.
-
To put an end to the long and glorious life of DEP-5, I've marked it as
ACCEPTED given that it has been "implemented" in February via
inclusion in the debian-policy package. You still have some time to
port your debian/copyright-s to it before the Wheezy freeze.
-
I've been contacted by the DuckDuckGo about a revenue sharing
agreement for the inbound traffic they already get from Debian
browsers. I've informed
-project proposing to accept it and that has spawned a
discussion that has won us an LWN article. I haven't yet
summarized the thread proposing a way forward; I'll do so
shortly.
-
as part of a discussion
on unofficial "debian" repositories, I've proposed to open up
the list of *.debian.net domains. As nobody disagreed, consensus
has been quickly reached and the
announced change is now imminent. Thanks to Carsten Hey and
Gerfried Fuchs for their help in figuring out the details of the
last discussion on the matter and DSA for their feedback.
Summer of Code
Debian
has been accepted as an organization for the Google Summer of
Code. At the time these bits go out, the student application
deadline has also elapsed. In March I've contributed a few project
ideas and chased potential mentors for them, when I thought the
project could be important for Debian and the prospective student.
I'm happy that
one (a dak building block needed for the implementation of PPAs
and more) has found both mentors and students. We'll see if any of
the corresponding student proposal is retained and how it goes.
Communication
I've given an interview, about Debian and Free Software in
general, to
La
Repubblica, one of the major newspapers in Italy. The interview
is
available
online, but only in Italian. If some kind (and
Italian-speaking) soul would like to translate it into English,
I'll be happy to publish the translation as well.
(update 22/04/2012: Matteo Cortese has
contributed an English translation of the interview, which I'll
make available shortly)
Legal stuff
In order to transfer ownership of the Debian trademark in Japan
to SPI, I've contacted the current owners (all Japanese Debian
Developers or contributors) to do the needed paperwork. I've been
blessed by the help of Kenshi Muto that has taken the matter in his
hands. He is now navigating through Japanese trademark procedures,
a subject neither myself nor SPI lawyers were familiar with. Thanks
also to Jonathan McDowell who has done the needed paperwork,
SPI-side.
Sprints
Plenty of sprints and sprint reports in March!:
Debian Med,
DSA,
DAM/FrontDesk. Everything should also be available from the
wiki sprint page where
you can find info to organize your team sprint.
Assets miscellanea
-
I've signed the annual memorandum of understanding with the
financial entity that will help us with local expenditures for
DebConf12 in Nicaragua. This year is ISIC, with whom we have an
important trust path via Norman Garcia Aguilar, member of the
DebConf orga team.
-
After discussion with auditors, we've resolved to set a 1
year deadline for reimbursement requests. The reason is that
it's a PITA to keep track of longer-running requests (yes, they do
happen!) and they add uncertainty to our available finances. There
can be exceptions, but please help on this front by timely
requesting reimbursements after travels or other expenses.
Cheers.
PS the boring day-to-day activity log for March is available at
master:/srv/leader/news/bits-from-the-DPL.txt.201203