Re: Results of the Debian Developer's Survey about Usage of Money in Debian
The date on the first page is ambiguous. 10/03/2023 can be in either
the MM/DD/YYYY or the DD/MM/YYYY format. People will be confused
about it after October 2023. To avoid confusion, formats like
Mar 10 2023 is suggested.
The report is long -- it must be uneasy to prepare the report.
Thanks for the effort!
On Tue, 2023-04-04 at 19:43 -0400, Roberto C. Sánchez wrote:
> Hello Fellow Debian Developers,
>
> Nearly one year ago the "Debian Developer's Survey about Usage of Money
> in Debian" was announced [0].
>
> More than 200 of you graciously participated, providing useful and
> constructive answers. It is my pleasure to announce that the analysis
> of the survey is complete and available for public viewing/comment:
>
> https://debian.pages.debian.net/dd-surveys/dd-survey-analysis-2022.pdf
>
> Great pains have been taken to ensure that the report is accurate and
> error-free. However, if you happen to notice an error, please direct
> feedback to me personally.
>
> The document is rather long but a copy of the TLDR summary is available
> at the end of the mail, feel free to share your comments and questions
> on debian-project@lists.debian.org.
>
> Regards,
>
> -Roberto
> On behalf of the Debian contributors behind Freexian.
>
> [0] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2022/04/msg00002.html
>
> ---- SUMMARY OF THE SURVEY ----
>
> This analysis is based on 224 completed surveys. More than half of all
> respondents are active in Debian on at least a weekly basis. More than
> 90% are involved in maintenance of packages, while more than 80% vote on
> General Resolutions. This indicates that contributors to Debian tend to
> be involved regularly in both technical and non-technical ways. While
> email and mailing lists are the most popular means of communication for
> project-related matters and connections between Debian acquaintances and
> while nearly all respondents indicated that they use email for
> Debian-related communication, fewer than half of respondents indicated
> that they actively participate in mailing list discussions. This
> indicates that Debian contributors tend to be engaged more in “doing”
> than they are engaged in discussions of project-wide matters.
>
> Without a doubt, the volunteer ethos continues to be at the heart of
> what defines the Debian project. Nearly half of all respondents are
> active in Debian in a purely personal capacity, which is to say that
> they volunteer and are not compensated for their contributions to
> Debian. Another nearly half of respondents are active in a mix of
> personal and professional capacities, indicating that some of their
> contributions are purely volunteer while others of their contributions
> are monetarily compensated in some way. This suggests that non-volunteer
> or professional motivations play a part in the contributions of at least
> half of respondents.
>
> The team with the lowest view of the sustainability of their current
> level of Debian participation was the QA team, with only half indicating
> that the current level was sustainable. There were relatively few
> respondents overall who viewed their current level of Debian
> participation as unsustainable, most of whom also indicated that it
> would become sustainable if some of their Debian work were paid. This
> would suggest that targeted funding may be able to produce an increase
> in the sustainability of Debian participation and that such efforts
> should make allowance for both funding of contributors who are already
> being funded in some way for some of their participation and also
> contributors who are not being compensated for any of their current
> Debian contributions. This could be viewed as funding to maintain the
> current level of Debian contribution, or possibly to prevent current
> contributors from reducing their participation.
>
> As far as increasing Debian participation, 65% of respondents would like
> to spend more time contributing to Debian. More than 80%f of those, 112
> respondents, indicated an answer of “yes” or “maybe, but it would
> require important changes in my life” to the question “Could you
> increase your involvement if some work was paid?” Given that 50% of
> respondents indicated that they contributed in both personal and
> professional contexts and given the number who indicated that they
> definitely could or maybe could increase their participation if some of
> the work was paid, it seems logical to conclude that a substantial
> number of Debian contributors contribute to some degree in a
> self-employed capacity. This is positive as it means there is a high
> likelihood that targeted funding could produce meaningful increases in
> Debian participation. In general, there already exist actionable ideas
> which survey respondents consider important to the Debian project and
> for which funding could presumably be applied in order to aid their
> implementation.
>
> There seems to be broad support for paying people who are already
> involved as Debian contributors, but very little support for hiring
> contractors, that is to say, those who are not already Debian
> contributors in some way. Members of the Security Team were by far the
> most supportive towards the idea of paying Debian contributors.
>
> Concerning specific ideas to fund there is clearly a range of support,
> with some ideas (like “Paying for development of new
> features/improvements for Debian-specific infrastructure,” “Paying
> development of new features/improvements to Debian specific software,”
> and “Pay Debian contributors to complete large scale changes in a
> reasonable time frame”) having positive support exceeding 80%, to “Pay
> Application Managers to ensure we deal with new contributors in a timely
> fashion” with a level of positive support below 40%. In general, the
> most positively viewed ideas appear to be those with the highest degree
> of required technical effort, while the least positively viewed ideas
> can be seen to involve much less technical effort.
>
> As far as funding particular roles, the Security Team and LTS Team were
> viewed the most favorably and the Technical Committee and DAM the least
> favorably. Of the responses to the “additional roles to fund” question,
> DSA was the most often mentioned.
>
> Respondents were given an opportunity to voice individual concerns about
> the impact of funding on Debian (via a free-form text entry on the
> survey). As is to be expected when soliciting comments from as large and
> diverse a group as the population of Debian Developers, there were
> numerous reservations and concerns expressed. The two which were brought
> up most frequently had to do with ensuring that Debian project goals and
> core volunteer ethos are not subverted by the participation of paid
> contributors. Any funding efforts should carefully consider these
> concerns and ensure that they are addressed appropriately.
>
> In summary, there is broad consensus that funding would have a positive
> impact, that there are particular ideas/tasks that have a very high
> level of positive support for funding among the survey respondents, and
> that there are particular roles as well that have a similarly high level
> of positive support for being funded. Efforts to introduce funding to
> Debian should likely focus on those ideas and roles which have the
> highest level of positive support, and then possibly expand as the
> concept is proven and refined.
>
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