These are some random thoughts based on a not very thorough reading of
candidate platforms of the
DPL Election 2007, and my
subjective view of the candidates based on the mailing traffic I remember
reading.
Wouter
Verhelst: Has quite a
broad
Debian-background, the platform also seems to share quite a bit of my view
of where Debian's problems are at the moment. Doesn't propose a course of
action right now, not sure how to judge that. Not sure if I remember Wouter
being heavily involved in flamewars, but I do remember reading quite a few of
his emails in discussions with interest.
broad
Debian-background, the platform also seems to share quite a bit of my view
of where Debian's problems are at the moment. Doesn't propose a course of
action right now, not sure how to judge that. Not sure if I remember Wouter
being heavily involved in flamewars, but I do remember reading quite a few of
his emails in discussions with interest.
broad
Debian-background, the platform also seems to share quite a bit of my view
of where Debian's problems are at the moment. Doesn't propose a course of
action right now, not sure how to judge that. Not sure if I remember Wouter
being heavily involved in flamewars, but I do remember reading quite a few of
his emails in discussions with interest.
broad
Debian-background, the platform also seems to share quite a bit of my view
of where Debian's problems are at the moment. Doesn't propose a course of
action right now, not sure how to judge that. Not sure if I remember Wouter
being heavily involved in flamewars, but I do remember reading quite a few of
his emails in discussions with interest.
Aigars
Mahinovs: Quoting from his platform: “My goal of running for
DPL is not to be DPL, but to get a few concepts closer to real life.”
So don't run for DPL, but start doing these things you're thinking about. Not
being DPL has the advantage that you don't have to spend time on DPL stuff that
would detract you from these goals. Speaking about your goals: (i) No
release: I've thought about that, too, but I feel this would quickly make
Debian irrelevant. (ii) $HOME configuration files organisation: take it up with
the upstream developers of all the application. I think this is a very good
idea, but
freedesktop.org would be a
better platform. (iii) Old Maintainer Process: Idea looking for a problem.
(iv) Dropping Trademarks: not sure what to think about this.
Gustavo
Franco: Some focus on the desktop, and a constructive attitude towards
Ubuntu, both positive in my book. (The first one primarily because on servers
Linux is already quite well established, while the desktop is where more work
is still to be done. Not because servers are less important.) His goals: (i)
Core teams: as with Wouter, he sees that people and what goes on between them
are where the problems are. (ii) Release goals: I think building the release
based on release goals could be a driving force, but this is more RM area than
DPL. (iii) Adding features to the bts doesn't need DPL powers. (iii) New
developers: certainly an area that still needs attention, but the intended
course is not entirely clear to me. (iv) NEW queue: same. (v) CTTE: Not sure
what the idea behind this is. (vi) Groups: yes, but again not entirely clear
what and how. (vii) Backports: yes, new versions of some software should go
into Debian (stable) faster. Officially supporting backports or something
else, I don't know, but this is an area where a DPL could pull together the
RMs, security team(s), backports.org people etc. (viii) Universal OS: is this
about more media coverage or about more face to face meetings? Both are good,
but we should set clear goals beforehand. (ix) Much work is needed, especially
in the area of buildd management (meaning: the processes and people behind
it!). Does Gustavo have previous involvement here? (x) Vendors, Website,
Publicity: This is more or less all about media coverage and popularity. Much
needed, but as Debian as it is will never be able to commit to a public
official opinion of anything, we'll need to think hard about what to do here.
(xi) NMU: I don't see a great need for action here, personally. Overall: this
platform contains too much material, I fear trying to tackle all these areas
will lead to a burned out DPL within three months and little actually getting
anywhere.
Sven
Luther: It's true that it always needs at least two people for a
flamewar. But having a DPL who is always ready to provide one side of an
argument is not a good idea.
Sam
Hocevar: Everything is high-level on his platform. Both good and bad.
Not sure how to rate this platform, but I see myself nodding along. Learn from
other OSs is good, but I hope he also means active cooperation and not just
passive let's see how they do it.
Steve
McIntyre: Should have won 2006. Certainly did a lot of both
behind-the-scenes work and some good communication. The platform lacks mention
of relations between Debian and the outside world, which is an area where I
feel some work is missing (and where the DPL as the only person with a official
role also known outside Debian can make a difference), and also lacks mention
of legal problems (trademarks and patents) where I'm not sure how solid
Debian's work is. Additional argument in favor of Steve: Having a 2IC and
promoting him to DPL the year after might be a good idea overall. Maybe we
should actually elect the 2IC and only have a confirmation vote to promote him
to DPL?
Raphaël
Hertzog: I like the DPL board idea. I also like how Raphaël
focuses, in his platform, on the DPL board idea and some selected problems. On
the other hand, the platform is wholly focused inward, outside relations are
important, too !
Anthony
Towns: Not sure what to think of the current DPL. I think he had good
ideas, and I still think the original “spend Debian funds for the
release”-idea was not that bad, but seeing how it all worked out was
very, very painful for too many people. The platform seems pretty much empty,
so I guess ajt won't have my vote this time.
Simon
Richter: Maybe I miss something, but I only see “don't repeat the
dunc-tank flamefest” in his platform, which seems a bit thin. His
observation that the real power of the DPL is to get everybody's attention may
be partly true, though, even if this power will be spent as soon as a DPL,
trying to mediate, lets himself be drawn into the flamewar instead (I don't
accuse Simon that he ultimately will do this, but I fear that it happens all
too quickly).
Now what? I really don't have the time to thoroughly follow the
campaigning, but I'll certainly have a look at the rebuttals, and perhaps
somebody will do some summary. So the ballot below will certainly change.
(You might also be able to buy the vote if you're rich enough ;-)
[ 1 ] Wouter Verhelst
[ 5 ] Aigars Mahinovs
[ 3 ] Gustavo Franco
[ 6 ] Sven Luther
[ 3 ] Sam Hocevar
[ 1 ] Steve McIntyre
[ 2 ] Raphaë Hertzog
[ 5 ] Anthony Towns
[ 4 ] Simon Richter
[ 5 ] NOTA
A few days ago, I forwarded
a mail from Sven Luther to the debian-vote and debian-project
mailinglists. The reason I did so was that, apart from the last two
paragraphs, the mail's tone was reasonable, polite, and did not try to
rehash the old arguments. Also, and more importantly, I thought it was a
useful contribution to the discussion at hand. I then received a private
email in response to that forward from someone who shall remain
nameless that expressed disapproval of this forwarding. Not
because of the content (which i could understand), but because of the
person whose mail I forwarded.
I am shocked beyond words that such a thing is possible. Mind you,
I'm not supporting at this point that we just allow Sven back in the
project; the decision to throw him out was based on solid arguments, and
though I am sad that it was necessary, I do support the decision that
has been made. However, I would think we would have expelled him because
of the problems that resolved around his person, rather than because we
didn't like his name, background, or, say, the color of his skin.
Problems can be solved. Personalities can change. Throwing a person
out of the project because of interpersonal problems is one thing.
Forbidding him to ever join it again is quite another.
I'm not saying we should just forget the whole thing, pretend it
never happened, and move on. However, I do not think that just
because the man has a history, we should ignore his useful
contributions.
Although I disagree with some of the suggestions he made, I do happen
to think that this particular contribution was useful, and so I
forwarded it. I do disapprove of some of the things he's done, but that
doesn't mean I disapprove of the person; I do believe any
person deserves a minimum of respect.
Apparently some people in this project disagree with me on that,
however. I'm not sure what I'll do about that, but suffice to say that I
will not be part of a project that considers a person's history
to be of more importance than a person's current behaviour.
Let's hope this is just the opinion of one person...
