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Re: Question to Candidates: Disappearing DPLs?



On Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 08:30:03AM +0100, Gerfried Fuchs wrote:
>  I have a question to the candidates: History has shown that DPLs more
> or less disappear not too long after their period or at least reduce
> their visible efforts immensly. I wonder where you see the reasons for
> this trend, what your impression is about it and wether you try to
> follow that trend or what you will try to do to not have this happen to
> you, too.

My guess is that it's a combination of factors.

First, if you look at the developer body, I think you'll see that there
are very few developers who've been in Debian for more than, say, a
decade and are still very active and on the forefront. Being a Debian
Developer demands a fair amount of time from people, and it's only
normal that one cannot keep up a nearly full-time commitment (in some
cases even in parallel to a full-time dayjob) for a whole lifetime.

Second, I think you'll agree with me that the chances of someone who's
not been part of the project for a very long time (say, only one or two
years) to be elected are not the same as those who are active longer,
and/or are better known. In other words, people who are DPL are on
average already well-known long-time contributors who may run out of
time or motivation to work for Debian within a few years.

If you combine the two, you'll see why I think that while there does
seem to be a correlation between 'is DPL' and 'has a high chance of
resigning soon', I do not think there is a causal relationship. While a
job that demands a lot of time, like the DPL position, may *speed up*
the process of people resigning from the project, I do not think it will
*cause* the same. As such, I don't think there's much I can do to
prevent it.

I know that if there is a day when I feel I cannot motivate myself
anymore to work for Debian, I will not stay and stand in the way of
people doing work. I love Debian too much to do that. But I don't expect
that to happen soon.

-- 
The biometric identification system at the gates of the CIA headquarters
works because there's a guard with a large gun making sure no one is
trying to fool the system.
  http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/01/biometrics.html

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