On Fri, Dec 11, 1998 at 03:58:41AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > First let me say this message is not in any way meant to disparage or > belittle our existing candidates. I'm just trying to describe the mental > image I have when I think "Debian Project Leader". You knew I'd answer this sooner or later.. => We already discussed your points on #debian, so I'll try to summarize here without confusing people who weren't there. I'm gonna do a lot of snipping here for space and hope people are either reading this in a threaded mail reader or recall your original message. > 1) Someone who's been with the project a long time, and in a visible > capactiy. [..] You believe candidates should have been around awhile and you said you'd like someone who has been around as long as you have. (They're getting rare aren't they?) I think this is somewhat important, but not as important as some things are. At least not directly. I think it applies in that most likely someone who just joined the project yesterday... Well, we don't know the person really and we don't know whether or not we want to trust them with running the project. Not that we don't trust our new maintainers, just that DPL is a BIG job. It also applies because it is usually over time that one's ability is made known. I don't recall if you agreed with my thoughts on this, but here they are for others to consider. > 2) Someone who is a competent programmer. [..] This ties into your first point. A measure of ability and whether or not someone has a clue or not, that sort of thing. As I have said elsewhere I think it's not the best incidation of ability. A block of code they have written might serve some needs but I believe it's best to look at everything they have written. Code, licenses, documentation, email, proposals, flames, etc. > 3) Someone who's gung-ho for PR. [..] I'm not sure how to answer this without delving into myself as an example, but the short of it is that I agree completely with this point. > 4) Someone with a firm grasp of the philosophy behind Debian. [..] Debian stands for Free Software and technical excellence. Of course, defining free software is a very difficult thing to do. I too prefer the more RMS view, but I realize that the GPL is not the end-all of licenses. I actually believe the BSDish licenses are "most free" though I consider the restrictions found in the GPL necessary sometimes. I hope people will see my view as balanced since that is how I see it. I like balanced views of free software because it seems both ends of the spectrum just aren't right. RMS isn't such an extreme as people think. Compare to the vocal BSD people who believe the GPL is horribly non-free. For Linux he is possibly nearer one of the ends, but not in the bigger picture. I think I would only consider there to be a great failing in the Debian project if we stopped following the DFSG and failed to deliver on our social contract. I think the best thing we can do is incorporate as much free software into Debian as possible and let our users decide what's best and why. This means KDE alongside Gnome when KDE becomes available with a free Qt and compatible licensing. > 5) I see the project leader's job as helping to embrace and support > fledgling software projects that are 100% free, without aggravating > catches like "advertising" or "can't ship patched binaries" -- > especially when such projects arise with only commercial software as > competition. I guess this mail could cause a flamewar, but I don't > think iwj's DFSG2 is really all that misguided. [..] I've already states that I do have a lot against the DFSG2 and believe it's not the answer. I think the DFSG should be kept short, sweet, to the point. I do not support completely disallowing the advertising clause whether entirely or after a certain date. Same with the patches only clauses in a few licenses. I don't like them, I'll say that outright. The patches clause more than the advertising clause, but they're both annoying. I believe my view on this is shared and that the DFSG should reflect this, but that it must be kept short and in the same spirit as it is currently written. I may offer a counterproposal on this after I review the threads on the subject. > 6) Finally, though in some ways it pains me to say it, I envision the > project leader as being someone as old or older than myself (24). [..] You know I disagree with this one. We don't need age as much as maturity in this spot. They are usually related but not as often as not in my experience. > The only two people that *spring* to mind as fulfilling all of these > requirements are our current project leader, and Manoj Srivastava. Ian > doesn't seem to have announced his own candidacy for re-election, which is > a shame, and Manoj seems to have no real interest in project leadership. I think Ian has indicated he does not really want to run again and when I asked Manoj to run (he would've had my vote) he said he just didn't have time. I also don't see Ian as big on the PR front or I wouldn't keep feeling like we need someone who was more active. Seems that the current batch of candidates, myself included, are all likely to hit the PR front a little more than Ian does, or a lot more depending on the candidate. > Anyway, I look forward to seeing some more candidates step forward. Half a > dozen, minimum, would be great. A few more would be good, yeah. The more the merrier and the better likelyhood that the right person for the task be chosen. > Lest anyone challenge *me* to run (which would expose them to everyone as > being hopelessly insane), I must point out that I fail point 1, am unsure > of my capabilities in points 2 and 3, and only satisfy 6 by the barest > fraction of an instant. I think probably you are already involved with a gigantic project for Debian that requires an insane amount of work and is possibly more thankless than even project leader. You have X to deal with. -- "You're despicable." -- Daffy Duck
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