Re: Q to all candidates: about advancing Debian (as organisation) while not being DPL
Hi Chris
On 2019/04/03 15:00, Chris Lamb wrote:
> On 2019/03/29 16:01, Jonathan Carter wrote:
>> I agree that an overloaded DPL role can be harmful to both Debian and
>> the individual in the role. I think it's important for a DPL to take a
>> step back every now and again and look at the various properties of the
>> role and ask "Is this working?". If elected, I do plan on filing bugs
>> against the DPL role if I feel that something can do with improvement.
>
> I'd be very interested if you and the other candidates could elaborate
> on their thoughts in this approximate area.
>
> As a bit of background, I've actually written this reply twice before
> (or, admittedly ones somewhat similar) but it was difficult for it to
> come across as not appearing churlish or otherwise grumbling about my
> experiences. However, I hope with this paragraph, readers will read
> it in its intended context regardless. :)
>
> So, in general, I fear that the candidates may be over-estimating how
> much of the DPL's tasks can be delegated to teams or other individuals.
I did notice that some candidates (not going to point them out) did put
a lot of emphasis on this aspect, I think it may be because it was very
topical right around the campaign start date.
Having said that, I think if it's possible to even just reduce the DPL
workload overall by as little as 10% by shedding some work that can be
delegated, then it's worth while spending time on it.
> A lot of teams have entirely-legitimate questions before acting (for
> example, checking over some document) and often check-in with the DPL,
> asking for advice, guidance or whether the Leader's experience or
> contacts mean they have been exposed to a novel angle or approach to
> what they are trying to achieve. This is, of course, eminently sensible
> and healthy IMHO.
Yep, I'm 100% with you on that one.
> More importantly however the majority of tasks that land on a DPLs
> plate may technically and «prima facie» be delegatable but the total
> time and energy required to forward it, ensure it is correctly
> followed-up on, context switch, ping later, forward any replies, etc.
> etc. etc. regretfully exceed said time/energy of just "getting it
> done" yourself to begin with.
Ack.
> I suppose part of the solution here might be to ensure and promote an
> atmosphere where teams feel more empowered to push ahead without
> quasi-approval (as well as ensuring some requests reach the "right"
> place in the first place) but these are really far harder, long-term
> goals that would require supreme dedication to even start to move the
> needle on. I'm afraid I would be somewhat skeptical of any candidate
> who thought they possess any sort of magic bullet to any of this
> before being truly exposed to it outside of the abstract concepts I've
> outlined above. :)
Heh, I hope you don't consider me a «summa stultus» then, because if I
couldn't move the needle on that one I would certainly not run for a
second term. I'm sure you're aware that a core part of my platform is to
address part of the above. At least I can assure you that I don't
believe in any magic bullet. I believe it's something that we'll have to
work on together systematically as a project.
It sometimes feels like there's this mass delusion in Debian, where a
large amount of people believe that they have good ideas and that
everyone else is against them in implementing those good ideas.
This is exacerbated by people who mean well, but instead of looking for
reasons to support an idea and build on it, they see it helpful to play
devil's advocate to their maximum capacity, which muddles the water and
confuses bystanders, and ultimately distracts everyone from the actual
issues.
Whether it's going to be easy or not, and whether we're going to make
huge progress or just little on these fronts is irrelevant to me. What's
important is that we try and that we take any small win that we can and
build on it. If we're going to have the attitude that community stuff is
hard and that we want to have it all or nothing, then we're never going
to make any progress on improving our «genius loci».
> Indeed, some of these issues are not /really/ solvable in the sense
> that I'm not sure I, as a member of the Debian community, would want
> to be without the option of being able to ask the Project Leader for
> their connections, experience or plain-old sanity checking before
> doing something especially if that action might affect the reputation
> or image of the Project.
My cell phone number is in db, and I invite any DD to contact me on
signal or on IRC or by e-mail any time they believe that I could help
with anything, especially in the sense if they want a pair of extra eyes
on something or to just to soundboard. This will continue to be true if
I were to serve a DPL term.
> So, reading this back I am not entirely sure what I'm asking here but
> I would be interested if our candidates had any thoughts about this.
Thanks for the e-mail! :)
-Jonathan
--
⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ Jonathan Carter (highvoltage) <jcc>
⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Debian Developer - https://wiki.debian.org/highvoltage
⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋ https://debian.org | https://jonathancarter.org
⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀ «Illegitimi non carborundum»
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