[NB: If you've been around Debian for a while and/or have contributed to some of these decisions, please read the bottom of the mail before replying.] So, to the relative Debian newbies to the list, I'm curious what your opinon is about: * The impending Social Contract changes If you're uninformed about these, a basic summary is that last year, there was a GR (general resolution) which decided to change the SC. These changes were considered editorial, but once they go into effect, they will basically change the way Debian deals with non-free "stuff", where "stuff" can be anything from binary firmware to maybe even stuff like image files, depending on who you ask. Once this GR passed, there was another one proposed to either defer changes to post-Sarge or to revert the decision -- as you can see, the changes were deferred instead. More reading can be found in the debian-vote archives from April of last year as well as debian-devel of the same month. If someone has trimmed mboxes of these, that would be very helpful -- I've got debian-devel-200404 which is just all over the place and therefore not trimmed at all[1]. * GFDL non-freeness Another GR which I don't remember being around for, but basically the GFDL isn't considered DFSG-free either to the chagrin or joy of some people. Debian has a position statement[2]. * Debian's relevance in the face of slow releases and derivatives Many people are concerned Debian will become less and less relevant if we don't get our act together and start releasing faster. This has lead to a lot of in-fighting and a general bad vibe about "competition" from some people. OTOH, some people see it as a net positive or irrelevant to what we do. * The new release strategy I would be surprised if anyone missed the discussions about this due to its recent discussion, but you can read the original mail[3] and the ensuing discussion[4] (warning: *very* long thread). * The general idea of pragmatism vs. purity Debian seems (to me) somewhat divided over this issue. There are people who think it's entirely practical -- and indeed, our mission -- to be extremely pure. There are also people that feel we are sacrificing our users' ability to use the OS due to the hoops they'll have to jump through in order to get a working system, or that we've simply lost our minds. I note that I am probably leaving some stuff out, but these are the things that sprang to mind immediately, so they are probably the biggest issues we are facing at the moment. If you're confused about any of the issues and want more of an explanation, don't hesitate to ask, even if you think they're stupid questions. Besides, if you don't ask, you may not ever reply because you'll need to read a ton of stuff. I'd prefer you reply. :) Another important note I would like to make: we have many "old school" Debian people on this list who've thought long and hard on these issues and have more or less decided which direction they think Debian is headed (and which direction it *should* be headed). While your input could be helpful, I'd like to encourage you to keep from turning this into a rehashing of old discussions. If you absolutely must contribute, please do so only to clear up facts or provide details -- these discussions can get heated occasionally, but I'm really just trying to see what people less embroiled in the current battles think about where we're headed. Thanks :) Also, if anyone has mboxes available for more of these threads, it'd be helpful if you could provide them. [1]: http://double-helix.org/debian/debian-devel-200404 (very large) [2]: http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/Position_Statement.xhtml [3]: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/03/msg00012.html [4]: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/03/msg00652.html -- off the chain like a rebellious guanine nucleotide
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