Standardization, large scale changes, innovations

[Raphael Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org>]

Hello,

those questions are for all candidates. By standardization I mean that
something should be used as default tool unless reasons exist to use
something else (I do not mean that we sould impose something to
everybody for all cases, but it should still be what's used in >95% of the
cases).

1/ Do you believe that it's a good move to standardize our packaging tools?
   (example: debhelper is almost standard, quilt is gaining status of the
   standard patch system thanks to the new source format)
   
2/ If yes, what would be the next thing that it would be good to try to
   standardize/uniformize?

3/ Do you have any preference on the tools that we should try to
   standardize on (which source format/patch system, dh7/CDBS/yada/etc.,
   VCS helper, etc.)?
   
4/ Organizing changes that have an impact on (a large part of|all) the
   archive is very difficult:
   - it might require advance preparation and planning, and you will not
     get enough review to have something final until the thing is
     available for use in unstable (so the initial design/planning might
     be wrong wich makes the whole process at risk)
   - you always have people that do not like the new thing and
     will try to make you feel miserable
   - you have lots of people not caring (for various reasons, not reading
     d-d-a or forgetting quickly, not willing to change something that
     works unless they are prodded, etc.)
   - you have to dedicate lots of time over a long period of time (in my
     case 2 Debian releases)
   - you have to convince separately a lot of people (for new source
     formats: ftpmaster, release managers, lintian maintainers, individual
     package maintainers) and there's always a risk that someone in power
     might block/stall the change (example: backports.org maintainer
     doesn't want to update dak to cope with new source formats)

   How can we change our processes so that doing/organizing such changes
   is less of a burden?

5/ I have the feeling that Debian is innovating less than it used to do.
   We are more often followers rather than leaders.

   Do you share that feeling?

   What shall we do to make that change?

Cheers,
-- 
Raphaël Hertzog

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