Hi all,
as you probably already know, thanks to our *wonderful* DebConf
videoteam, the video recordings of DebConf12 talks are now available [1].
I've started adding English subtitles to them: it is quite a fun task,
but is definitely time-consuming and - as Velma Kelly from Chicago would
say - I Can't Do It Alone.
Any volunteer to help me? ;)
I've already completed the "Bits from the DPL" talk, and I'm working now on
"Understanding Debian" by Bdale Garbee and "Introduction to Debian
translation workflow and processes" by Christian Perrier.
[@ -l10n-english]
For Stefano's talk I've already done a technical review (mostly checking
the sync) but I'd really appreciate a native speaker review. Please note
that I have skipped most interjections ("ok", "so", etc) and fixed some
grammar errors (i.e. if the speaker make a mistake, I fix it in the
subtitles).
Attached the file with the sub: you can open it with a normal text
editor.
[@ -l10n-spanish team]
There are also some talks in Spanish, held during the Debian Day
[2].
I don't feel so confident to add subtitles in Spanish, so maybe someone
from l10n-spanish could do it?
If you need some info on how to do it, just ask me!
[@ debconf-team]
I'd like to put the subs in the same place of the videos: how can I do it?
Do I need to send them to you?
[1] http://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2012/debconf12/
[2] http://penta.debconf.org/dc12_schedule/day_2012-07-07.en.html
--
"Nostra patria è il mondo intero
e nostra legge è la libertà
ed un pensiero
ribelle in cor ci sta." P.Gori
1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,000 Daniel: Welcome everyone, this is the "Bits from the DPL" 2 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:09,570 with our Debian Project Leader, Stefano Zacchiroli 3 00:00:09,570 --> 00:00:13,550 so, really, give a round of applause, I don't think he need much of an introduction 4 00:00:13,550 --> 00:00:14,370 Stefano: Thanks 5 00:00:14,370 --> 00:00:22,200 [applause] 6 00:00:22,200 --> 00:00:25,620 So, I'm sure you're here because this will be the last time 7 00:00:25,650 --> 00:00:28,100 I'll bother you with this "Bits from the DPL" speech, 8 00:00:28,120 --> 00:00:30,410 at least at a DebConf, so thanks for being here. 9 00:00:30,410 --> 00:00:35,580 In this talk, I'm gonna go through two main parts: 10 00:00:35,580 --> 00:00:40,390 the first one is some sorts of... a set of mantras 11 00:00:40,390 --> 00:00:43,670 that have become the way I define Debian today. 12 00:00:43,670 --> 00:00:47,140 I've presented them to various people before 13 00:00:47,140 --> 00:00:49,490 I see there is enough people in the room 14 00:00:49,530 --> 00:00:52,010 that won't be bothered because it's the first time they hear them, 15 00:00:52,050 --> 00:00:54,340 so I hope you will allow me to go through them. 16 00:00:54,340 --> 00:00:57,740 And then, after this kind of defining mantras of Debian, 17 00:00:57,750 --> 00:01:01,570 I will present some of the challenges that I think we have in Debian 18 00:01:01,610 --> 00:01:03,290 and that we need to take care of 19 00:01:03,290 --> 00:01:06,510 to guarantee that we have a long and healthy life ahead. 20 00:01:06,510 --> 00:01:11,920 But before that I'm trying to make the point that we did make history. 21 00:01:11,920 --> 00:01:15,780 So, this is how Debian started in 1993, 22 00:01:15,780 --> 00:01:16,740 the first quote. 23 00:01:16,740 --> 00:01:20,250 1993 is almost twenty years ago. 24 00:01:20,250 --> 00:01:25,100 Back then there were very few GNU/Linux distributions around, 25 00:01:25,100 --> 00:01:27,310 and they were... they had troubles, 26 00:01:27,310 --> 00:01:29,310 and the quality was not stellar 27 00:01:29,310 --> 00:01:31,260 and people started to think about 28 00:01:31,260 --> 00:01:35,740 "how can we make GNU/Linux competitive with commercial operating system?" 29 00:01:35,740 --> 00:01:39,040 and Ian Murdock came up with this great idea of Debian 30 00:01:39,040 --> 00:01:41,350 and this is where all this started. 31 00:01:41,350 --> 00:01:45,250 But then we made history at least in two ways: 32 00:01:45,250 --> 00:01:48,390 one way is a sort of community and social way: 33 00:01:48,390 --> 00:01:51,940 in a more recent interview of a couple of years ago, 34 00:01:51,940 --> 00:01:56,790 Ian made the point that Debian has been the first intentional community project; 35 00:01:56,790 --> 00:01:59,360 there were distributions back then, 36 00:01:59,360 --> 00:02:01,860 there were Free Software projects back then, 37 00:02:01,860 --> 00:02:04,890 but Debian was kind of designed with community in mind 38 00:02:04,890 --> 00:02:09,060 and with the idea that if you want something to scale to the size of Debian today 39 00:02:09,060 --> 00:02:10,830 we need to have a community behind it. 40 00:02:10,830 --> 00:02:14,120 So, I think we really made the history 41 00:02:14,120 --> 00:02:16,480 showing up how a project as big as Debian 42 00:02:16,480 --> 00:02:18,480 can be made only in a community driven way. 43 00:02:18,480 --> 00:02:21,770 But then, we also made history in very technical ways: 44 00:02:21,770 --> 00:02:24,930 twenty years has passed since 1993 45 00:02:24,930 --> 00:02:26,620 and if we look today at Debian 46 00:02:26,620 --> 00:02:29,930 we have something like almost forty thousands binary packages, 47 00:02:29,930 --> 00:02:30,940 in Debian proper; 48 00:02:30,940 --> 00:02:33,160 we have made twelve releases 49 00:02:33,160 --> 00:02:36,610 and - who knows? - maybe we'll make the thirteenth before the end of this year; 50 00:02:36,610 --> 00:02:40,000 we have a project of almost one thousand members; 51 00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:43,510 and almost two hundreds Debian Maintainers 52 00:02:43,510 --> 00:02:45,660 that are interested in maintaining some parts of Debian; 53 00:02:45,660 --> 00:02:48,540 and various thousands of contributors doing a lot of other stuff 54 00:02:48,540 --> 00:02:49,450 useful for the project. 55 00:02:49,450 --> 00:02:52,200 We have the largest number of ports 56 00:02:52,200 --> 00:02:55,390 among - let's say - "major" binary distributions out there. 57 00:02:55,390 --> 00:02:57,710 We have non-Linux ports: 58 00:02:57,710 --> 00:03:01,620 we have released a version of Debian that works with a kernel other than Linux. 59 00:03:01,620 --> 00:03:05,560 We haven't yet release a version of Debian that works with a kernel like Hurd 60 00:03:05,560 --> 00:03:08,100 but for people who like Hurd and want to try it 61 00:03:08,100 --> 00:03:10,800 Debian still remains the best choice to do that. 62 00:03:12,560 --> 00:03:15,310 Well done! This is us, making this! 63 00:03:16,360 --> 00:03:18,440 Bravo! All of you! We made this! 64 00:03:18,650 --> 00:03:23,120 But then, one thing is making history 65 00:03:23,120 --> 00:03:25,810 in some ways, technically or socially 66 00:03:25,810 --> 00:03:29,480 and a completely different thing is remaining relevant. 67 00:03:29,480 --> 00:03:32,260 So, in these past three years as DPL 68 00:03:32,260 --> 00:03:35,650 I faced the problem that people were starting to question 69 00:03:35,650 --> 00:03:37,650 - that was like a couple of years ago - 70 00:03:37,650 --> 00:03:39,770 "Do we still need Debian?" 71 00:03:39,780 --> 00:03:42,980 "Ok, you made history, you made a lot of stuff 72 00:03:42,980 --> 00:03:44,720 you made derivatives, you made a lot of stuff but ... 73 00:03:44,720 --> 00:03:46,720 ... Do we still need Debian today?" 74 00:03:46,720 --> 00:03:49,980 I've asked myself how to answer the question 75 00:03:49,980 --> 00:03:53,620 and a way to answer the question is asking us ourselves 76 00:03:53,620 --> 00:03:57,230 what's different from what we do and what the other distributions do. 77 00:03:57,230 --> 00:04:01,530 There are something like three hundreds, four hundreds active Free Software distributions around: 78 00:04:01,530 --> 00:04:03,530 what is that makes Debian special? 79 00:04:03,530 --> 00:04:07,030 And I've started to thinking at some answers to that question 80 00:04:07,030 --> 00:04:13,790 and I've come to five specific traits that make - I think - the Debian Project unique. 81 00:04:13,790 --> 00:04:15,610 I think it's useful to keep them in mind 82 00:04:15,610 --> 00:04:20,280 and to remind why we are contributing to Debian and not to some other similar project. 83 00:04:20,280 --> 00:04:21,880 The first reason, 84 00:04:21,880 --> 00:04:25,480 and sort of my first mantra that makes Debian special, 85 00:04:25,480 --> 00:04:27,480 is freedom. 86 00:04:27,480 --> 00:04:30,630 This seems obvious but there's freedom in many ways. 87 00:04:30,630 --> 00:04:34,110 The first reason why Debian is special in terms of freedom 88 00:04:34,110 --> 00:04:39,270 is that we essentially have agreed with our public and with Free Software public in general 89 00:04:39,270 --> 00:04:40,850 to keep Debian always free. 90 00:04:40,850 --> 00:04:45,010 We've been promoting the culture of Free Software, not only giving Free Software to people, 91 00:04:45,010 --> 00:04:48,420 we've been promoting the culture of Free Software since 1993, 92 00:04:48,420 --> 00:04:52,160 and we have a product which is free the bottom up 93 00:04:52,160 --> 00:04:55,300 there is an incredibly high amount of dog food in what we do. 94 00:04:55,300 --> 00:04:57,590 So it is free in the software we give to people 95 00:04:57,590 --> 00:04:59,770 and it's free in the way we make it. 96 00:04:59,770 --> 00:05:02,030 Every single bit of the Debian infrastructure is free 97 00:05:02,030 --> 00:05:05,650 and nobody would accept if we start making Debian using like 98 00:05:05,650 --> 00:05:08,420 non free stuff in our infrastructure. 99 00:05:08,420 --> 00:05:10,720 This is kind of peculiar per se. 100 00:05:10,720 --> 00:05:13,830 And we have also a notion of freeness 101 00:05:13,830 --> 00:05:15,210 in the process we use. 102 00:05:15,210 --> 00:05:18,240 People who have been around in Debian for quite a while 103 00:05:18,240 --> 00:05:20,240 have heard the motto of "There Is Not Cabal!" 104 00:05:20,240 --> 00:05:22,240 as some sort of joke, several times. 105 00:05:22,240 --> 00:05:27,140 And we use it in saying that, in thinking that there is some cabal around 106 00:05:27,140 --> 00:05:29,040 but the point is that if we make this joke 107 00:05:29,040 --> 00:05:32,230 it means that we really cannot stand the idea that there is someone 108 00:05:32,230 --> 00:05:33,930 driving Debian behind the curtain, 109 00:05:33,930 --> 00:05:35,580 driving Debian not in the open. 110 00:05:35,580 --> 00:05:37,920 So we are free not only in our infrastructure, 111 00:05:37,920 --> 00:05:38,880 not only in the software we make, 112 00:05:38,880 --> 00:05:40,310 but also in the way we do things. 113 00:05:40,310 --> 00:05:43,010 We try to be as transparent as we could be. 114 00:05:43,010 --> 00:05:45,730 And what is interesting for me 115 00:05:45,730 --> 00:05:47,730 is that there's some sort of community awareness 116 00:05:47,730 --> 00:05:50,600 of this kind of attachment we have for freedom. 117 00:05:50,600 --> 00:05:55,020 Our community trusts us to not betray software freedom principles 118 00:05:55,020 --> 00:05:58,490 and they think that this is being a very high contribution to Free Software in general 119 00:05:58,490 --> 00:06:00,490 so we've set some sort of very high bar 120 00:06:00,490 --> 00:06:02,490 to decide when something is free or not. 121 00:06:02,490 --> 00:06:08,220 When people need to decide if some software is free or if some license 122 00:06:08,300 --> 00:06:10,150 should be considered Free Software or not 123 00:06:10,150 --> 00:06:12,450 they go basically to three entities: 124 00:06:12,450 --> 00:06:14,050 they go to the Free Software Foundation, 125 00:06:14,050 --> 00:06:15,470 they go to the OSI, 126 00:06:15,470 --> 00:06:16,290 they go to Debian 127 00:06:16,290 --> 00:06:18,750 and they see if that license is considered free 128 00:06:18,750 --> 00:06:20,750 by those people. And we are one of them. 129 00:06:20,750 --> 00:06:25,550 So first point, which I think is determining what we do in Debian, is freedom. Software freedom. 130 00:06:25,550 --> 00:06:29,020 Second point is a kind of perfectionism 131 00:06:29,020 --> 00:06:31,020 which sometimes strikes back on us 132 00:06:31,020 --> 00:06:34,890 sometimes makes that... 133 00:06:34,890 --> 00:06:36,850 it gets in the way of some of our choices 134 00:06:36,850 --> 00:06:40,570 but we do have a sort of culture of technical excellence. 135 00:06:40,570 --> 00:06:46,000 We have the Policy, which is where we have codified our quality needs for packages; 136 00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:49,120 we have a huge amount of testing: we have Lintian, we have Piuparts; 137 00:06:49,140 --> 00:06:52,620 we have automatic testing to see that packages matches our Policy; 138 00:06:52,620 --> 00:06:55,850 we have maintainers who are software experts. 139 00:06:55,850 --> 00:07:01,680 We try to discourage people to maintain software in Debian if they only know about packaging 140 00:07:01,680 --> 00:07:04,950 we try to encourage people to maintain software they use 141 00:07:04,950 --> 00:07:06,590 and software of which they are experts 142 00:07:06,590 --> 00:07:09,000 and this is huge in terms of users support. 143 00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:10,750 So when a user comes to us 144 00:07:10,750 --> 00:07:12,650 comes to the respective maintainer of some software in Debian, 145 00:07:12,650 --> 00:07:16,710 usually he find someone that knows about that specific piece of software. 146 00:07:16,710 --> 00:07:18,710 This, for us, is quality. 147 00:07:18,710 --> 00:07:24,660 We have packages that are all up to the same quality requirements 148 00:07:24,660 --> 00:07:28,020 and there are no packages... there is no distinction in the Debian archive that says 149 00:07:28,020 --> 00:07:31,490 "we try to have this quality requirements for one part of the archive 150 00:07:31,490 --> 00:07:33,490 and a different one for another part of the archive". 151 00:07:33,490 --> 00:07:36,370 And also when we say "we release when it's ready" 152 00:07:36,370 --> 00:07:38,370 it's our way to say that 153 00:07:38,370 --> 00:07:41,900 we know we cannot commit yet to a specific date 154 00:07:41,900 --> 00:07:45,640 because we fear finding issues, quality issues, just before that release date 155 00:07:45,640 --> 00:07:48,790 and we fear compromising our release quality for that specific date. 156 00:07:48,790 --> 00:07:50,790 So when we say "we release when it's ready" 157 00:07:50,790 --> 00:07:52,790 is also a matter of quality. 158 00:07:52,790 --> 00:07:56,950 Third point, and something important for what I'm going to tell you next, 159 00:07:56,950 --> 00:07:58,200 is independence. 160 00:07:58,200 --> 00:08:03,680 If you look around at the ecosystem of distributions out there 161 00:08:03,680 --> 00:08:06,850 you won't find many distributions where 162 00:08:06,850 --> 00:08:09,740 you cannot pinpoint a company that is backing the distribution. 163 00:08:09,740 --> 00:08:13,220 Among the big distribution, we are one of the very few 164 00:08:13,220 --> 00:08:16,250 that is completely run on a volunteer basis 165 00:08:16,250 --> 00:08:20,560 that have no corporate or some sort of hierarchical structure 166 00:08:20,560 --> 00:08:23,200 where the decisions come from top down. 167 00:08:23,200 --> 00:08:25,530 We have no single company babysitting us 168 00:08:25,530 --> 00:08:28,280 and we essentially live up to donations, 169 00:08:28,280 --> 00:08:31,040 in terms of time, so volunteers contributing time to Debian 170 00:08:31,040 --> 00:08:33,040 and donations in terms of money. 171 00:08:33,040 --> 00:08:35,040 This is very remarkable 172 00:08:35,040 --> 00:08:38,120 in the ecosystem of today, especially in Free Software distributions. 173 00:08:38,120 --> 00:08:42,000 And once more we have a phenomenon of community awareness: 174 00:08:42,000 --> 00:08:46,020 our community seems to trust that, due to this independence of us, 175 00:08:46,020 --> 00:08:50,180 decisions in Debian won't be taken due to some profit reasons 176 00:08:50,180 --> 00:08:52,700 or other kind of reasons than our own core values. 177 00:08:52,700 --> 00:08:58,100 So, independence is another very important value, for me, that motivates me to contribute to Debian. 178 00:08:58,300 --> 00:09:00,750 And then, we have decision making. 179 00:09:00,750 --> 00:09:07,490 Decision making is something that is very well codified in our Constitution. 180 00:09:07,490 --> 00:09:10,910 The basic rule, which I started to call a while ago do-ocracy 181 00:09:10,910 --> 00:09:14,950 - actually I picked it up from someone but I don't remember from whom I did pick it up, 182 00:09:14,950 --> 00:09:16,510 but it seems to be sticking around - 183 00:09:16,510 --> 00:09:20,590 essentially it says that if someone is responsible to do some kind of work in Debian, 184 00:09:20,590 --> 00:09:24,090 as long as is doing that work, well, they decide how to do it. 185 00:09:24,090 --> 00:09:27,510 Nobody can go there and say: "you need to do that work in that way", 186 00:09:27,510 --> 00:09:28,570 unless 187 00:09:28,570 --> 00:09:30,570 they are ready to commit and do the work themselves. 188 00:09:30,570 --> 00:09:32,570 And this is the default rule. 189 00:09:32,570 --> 00:09:35,900 All decisions in Debian, by default, are taken this way 190 00:09:35,900 --> 00:09:37,770 and then we have also democracy: 191 00:09:37,770 --> 00:09:42,250 we have come to some kind of potential correction on how we take decisions. 192 00:09:42,270 --> 00:09:44,790 So we are allowed to take decisions all together, 193 00:09:44,790 --> 00:09:47,030 in a democratic way, voting on stuff. 194 00:09:47,030 --> 00:09:52,290 We are wise enough to that only, and in general, for political reasons 195 00:09:52,290 --> 00:09:53,470 and for philosophical reasons 196 00:09:53,470 --> 00:09:56,330 we try not to do that for technical reasons 197 00:09:56,330 --> 00:09:58,840 but we can do that even for technical reasons. 198 00:09:58,840 --> 00:10:00,330 So we try to use this 199 00:10:00,330 --> 00:10:04,110 as some sort of way to make the default way of taking decisions works. 200 00:10:04,110 --> 00:10:06,050 And what this means? 201 00:10:06,050 --> 00:10:10,270 This means that is very easy to have an impact on Debian 202 00:10:10,270 --> 00:10:14,020 if you know how to do something in Debian, and nobody is doing that, 203 00:10:14,020 --> 00:10:16,020 you can pick it up 204 00:10:16,020 --> 00:10:19,280 and if you start doing it, you will decide how to do that. 205 00:10:19,280 --> 00:10:24,300 So, this is why is very is to have an impact on Debian thanks to the way we take decisions 206 00:10:24,300 --> 00:10:27,420 but it also means that the reputation in the project follows work 207 00:10:27,420 --> 00:10:31,780 if you have a good reputation in the project is usually because you've done a lot of work 208 00:10:31,780 --> 00:10:33,780 and a lot of very high quality work. 209 00:10:33,780 --> 00:10:38,340 And finally, once more, it means that there are not imposed decisions 210 00:10:38,340 --> 00:10:41,410 it's not like the people who own the infrastructure 211 00:10:41,410 --> 00:10:42,660 or who employ people 212 00:10:42,660 --> 00:10:44,820 can decide how decisions are made 213 00:10:44,820 --> 00:10:46,820 decisions are made this way. 214 00:10:46,820 --> 00:10:50,060 And last point, 215 00:10:50,060 --> 00:10:53,300 we've ended up being as some sort of root 216 00:10:53,300 --> 00:10:55,300 of a huge ecosystem of derivatives. 217 00:10:55,300 --> 00:10:58,300 I believe you all know what derivatives is about: 218 00:10:58,300 --> 00:10:59,860 you take an existent distribution, 219 00:10:59,860 --> 00:11:01,320 you start compiling packages, 220 00:11:01,320 --> 00:11:03,320 you add your own packages, you change stuff 221 00:11:03,320 --> 00:11:05,480 and you obtain a completely new distribution. 222 00:11:05,480 --> 00:11:07,920 This is something that started to happen in the last 223 00:11:07,920 --> 00:11:09,920 - started to happen massively - 224 00:11:09,920 --> 00:11:11,920 in the last - let's say - ten years 225 00:11:11,920 --> 00:11:16,260 and that really changed the way in which distribution products are made. 226 00:11:16,260 --> 00:11:19,730 Derivatives can focus on customization 227 00:11:19,730 --> 00:11:23,180 and benefit from all of the work that is done by their mother distribution 228 00:11:23,180 --> 00:11:26,360 and Debian ended up being at root at something like 229 00:11:26,360 --> 00:11:28,470 140 active distributions 230 00:11:28,470 --> 00:11:30,470 according to distrowatch. 231 00:11:30,470 --> 00:11:33,430 That means that the work we do in Debian 232 00:11:33,430 --> 00:11:37,750 is not only relevant for our own - let's say - "direct" users, 233 00:11:37,750 --> 00:11:41,300 is useful for the users of all this sort of distributions 234 00:11:41,300 --> 00:11:44,180 which include the most popular distributions out there. 235 00:11:44,180 --> 00:11:51,400 People out there, even if they do not know, rely a lot on the work which is done in Debian 236 00:11:51,400 --> 00:11:53,400 and I think that this is great. 237 00:11:53,400 --> 00:12:01,000 All in all, my point here is that Debian has a very important role to play 238 00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:03,600 in the Free Software ecosystem in general 239 00:12:03,600 --> 00:12:07,960 and if we fail at doing what we are supposed to do 240 00:12:07,960 --> 00:12:10,840 not only the direct users of Debian will fail. 241 00:12:10,840 --> 00:12:16,420 I think Free Software in general will suffer from a failure in Debian on delivering what we are about. 242 00:12:16,420 --> 00:12:19,000 So the question is: 243 00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:23,710 are we up to what we are supposed to do in Free Software in general? 244 00:12:23,710 --> 00:12:28,750 And I've seen some challenges that I would like to discuss with you. 245 00:12:28,750 --> 00:12:32,930 The first challenge is staying healthy 246 00:12:33,030 --> 00:12:34,680 and staying healthy 247 00:12:34,680 --> 00:12:38,410 for a Free Software project, for a volunteer Free Software project, essentially means 248 00:12:38,410 --> 00:12:41,650 being able to recruit people 249 00:12:41,650 --> 00:12:45,860 to find new volunteers that year after year join the project 250 00:12:45,860 --> 00:12:50,270 and if you have heard me talking at DebConf on the past two years 251 00:12:50,270 --> 00:12:53,320 or in general to the Debian developers public 252 00:12:53,320 --> 00:12:56,360 we have always discussed the lack of manpower 253 00:12:56,360 --> 00:12:58,360 as a major problem in the project: 254 00:12:58,360 --> 00:13:01,620 we cannot do stuff because we have a lack of manpower. 255 00:13:01,620 --> 00:13:05,390 In fact I've looked up the data 256 00:13:05,390 --> 00:13:09,700 and our recruitment, if we can call it this way, is going very well. 257 00:13:09,700 --> 00:13:13,240 Over the past two years 258 00:13:13,240 --> 00:13:15,480 we have had thirty new DDs 259 00:13:15,480 --> 00:13:18,560 more every single year 260 00:13:18,560 --> 00:13:21,730 this is net in the sense that this is an actual increase on the number of DD 261 00:13:21,730 --> 00:13:26,920 I have already discounted the number of DDs that dropped off the project 262 00:13:26,920 --> 00:13:29,050 because of some sort of natural turnover. 263 00:13:29,050 --> 00:13:31,990 Thirty DDs per year is quite a lot. 264 00:13:31,990 --> 00:13:34,790 And if we look at maintainers, Debian Maintainers, 265 00:13:34,790 --> 00:13:37,770 we have something like fifty new Debian Maintainers per year 266 00:13:37,770 --> 00:13:40,390 this is gross because I didn't find the actual net data 267 00:13:40,390 --> 00:13:44,990 but it still give an idea that we do, we are able to recruit people 268 00:13:44,990 --> 00:13:46,990 both to work on Debian in general 269 00:13:46,990 --> 00:13:47,860 - whatever the task - 270 00:13:47,860 --> 00:13:50,280 and to work on specific packages in the archive. 271 00:13:50,280 --> 00:13:56,950 I think we should really stop using the lack of manpower as an excuse 272 00:13:56,950 --> 00:14:01,310 we are a volunteer project: we will always lack manpower to do something 273 00:14:01,310 --> 00:14:04,300 but our ability to recruit new people is doing well 274 00:14:04,300 --> 00:14:06,300 is doing very well. 275 00:14:06,300 --> 00:14:12,120 What we really need to do is to actually better use the manpower that we do have 276 00:14:12,120 --> 00:14:14,590 and, in particular, I'm worried about 277 00:14:14,590 --> 00:14:17,880 the barriers for contribution that exist within the Debian Project. 278 00:14:17,880 --> 00:14:21,250 One thing we discuss often is 279 00:14:21,250 --> 00:14:25,400 we don't need people to maintain yet another package in the Debian archive 280 00:14:25,400 --> 00:14:29,190 what we need is people working on some of the core teams 281 00:14:29,190 --> 00:14:33,010 the infrastructure teams or maintaining the very important packages in the archive. 282 00:14:33,010 --> 00:14:36,160 But the key to make that work 283 00:14:36,160 --> 00:14:40,010 is to make it easier for people to contribute to those teams. 284 00:14:40,010 --> 00:14:43,650 We have a lot of services in Debian which are very difficult to contribute to 285 00:14:43,650 --> 00:14:45,580 we have services which are online 286 00:14:45,580 --> 00:14:49,420 which have no mentions of where is the code behind those services 287 00:14:49,420 --> 00:14:51,840 of where to report bugs for those services. 288 00:14:51,840 --> 00:14:55,130 These are all small attentions we could use 289 00:14:55,130 --> 00:14:57,820 to make it easier to contribute within the Debian Project 290 00:14:57,820 --> 00:15:01,990 and if someone starts working on some leaf package in the archive 291 00:15:01,990 --> 00:15:05,330 and if he find easier to contribute to some more important stuff 292 00:15:05,330 --> 00:15:06,590 they will do that. 293 00:15:06,590 --> 00:15:10,700 In fact that's how I think most of us that got involved in the Debian Project 294 00:15:10,700 --> 00:15:13,240 ended up doing more and more important stuff 295 00:15:13,240 --> 00:15:16,360 starting from the easy part and climbing up at bit 296 00:15:16,360 --> 00:15:18,360 doing the more complex stuff. 297 00:15:18,360 --> 00:15:23,410 So, if you are working on something within the Debian Project 298 00:15:23,410 --> 00:15:25,950 in addition to think at the work you're doing 299 00:15:25,950 --> 00:15:29,010 please think at "how can I make it easier 300 00:15:29,010 --> 00:15:31,010 for others to contribute to this?" 301 00:15:31,010 --> 00:15:33,820 "have I documented how to contribute to this?" 302 00:15:33,820 --> 00:15:37,720 "have I put a link of where is the source code of this thing I maintain in Debian?" 303 00:15:37,880 --> 00:15:41,430 "have I mentioned who should they contact for a project?" 304 00:15:41,430 --> 00:15:42,750 all this kind of questions. 305 00:15:42,750 --> 00:15:46,870 This is what will help in better using the manpower we have in Debian. 306 00:15:46,870 --> 00:15:50,800 And another one, and someone will probably kill me for this, 307 00:15:50,800 --> 00:15:53,360 is diversity in various senses. 308 00:15:53,360 --> 00:15:57,090 I think we've realized 309 00:15:57,090 --> 00:15:59,670 that to do an operating system like Debian 310 00:15:59,670 --> 00:16:01,670 we need a lot of skills: 311 00:16:01,670 --> 00:16:03,410 packaging is not enough, 312 00:16:03,410 --> 00:16:05,410 packaging is one piece in the puzzle 313 00:16:05,410 --> 00:16:07,060 but we need a lot of other stuff. 314 00:16:07,060 --> 00:16:08,310 We need translations, 315 00:16:08,310 --> 00:16:09,700 we need people doing artwork, 316 00:16:09,700 --> 00:16:11,370 we need system administrators, 317 00:16:11,370 --> 00:16:12,310 we need porters, 318 00:16:12,310 --> 00:16:14,310 and all this kind of skills are quite different, 319 00:16:14,310 --> 00:16:16,030 we need software developers, 320 00:16:16,030 --> 00:16:20,300 and good packagers are not necessarily good software developers and vice versa. 321 00:16:20,330 --> 00:16:22,820 We need a whole lot of different skills 322 00:16:22,820 --> 00:16:28,260 and we do should not think that packagers are good at doing all of it 323 00:16:28,260 --> 00:16:30,850 it is not the case: the skills needed are very different. 324 00:16:30,850 --> 00:16:35,650 This is one reason why I think diversity is good 325 00:16:35,650 --> 00:16:37,000 for a project like Debian 326 00:16:37,000 --> 00:16:41,020 but I think it's good also for the discussion culture in Debian: 327 00:16:41,020 --> 00:16:44,450 if you know that in a discussion place 328 00:16:44,450 --> 00:16:48,390 you will find people that have very different backgrounds from yours, 329 00:16:48,390 --> 00:16:50,390 very different point of view than yours, 330 00:16:50,390 --> 00:16:55,730 then you need to be more cautious about how you write things 331 00:16:55,730 --> 00:16:58,410 you need to make less assumptions when you write things 332 00:16:58,410 --> 00:17:00,590 so having a more diverse project 333 00:17:00,590 --> 00:17:04,150 actually helps also in having a better discussion culture. 334 00:17:04,150 --> 00:17:07,710 This is the second reason why I think diversity is good for Debian. 335 00:17:07,710 --> 00:17:11,250 We've done a lot in the past few years 336 00:17:11,250 --> 00:17:14,730 we've sort of fixed the membership process 337 00:17:16,150 --> 00:17:21,540 making it clear that we do welcome people with a wide range of skills joining Debian 338 00:17:21,540 --> 00:17:21,560 339 00:17:21,560 --> 00:17:26,520 and we have also, more recently, fixed the nm.debian.org website 340 00:17:26,520 --> 00:17:29,030 to make it clear... to avoid implicit assumptions 341 00:17:29,030 --> 00:17:31,780 that there are only packagers that we welcome. 342 00:17:31,780 --> 00:17:33,780 This is great, we've done that. 343 00:17:33,780 --> 00:17:37,700 But as Christian mentioned in the previous talk, stealing my argument 344 00:17:37,700 --> 00:17:39,880 we are not doing very well 345 00:17:39,880 --> 00:17:43,220 at attracting people who do stuff other than packaging: 346 00:17:43,220 --> 00:17:46,920 in two years we've attracted only five people 347 00:17:46,920 --> 00:17:49,930 in this so called "non-uploading" DD category, 348 00:17:49,930 --> 00:17:54,580 only five people decided to join Debian as a project members 349 00:17:54,580 --> 00:17:55,880 and said 350 00:17:55,880 --> 00:17:57,730 "you know, I don't really care about packaging 351 00:17:57,730 --> 00:17:59,610 I want to do something else in the Debian Project 352 00:17:59,610 --> 00:18:02,490 and I commit to do that on a longer basis 353 00:18:02,490 --> 00:18:06,940 but I do understand the values of the Debian Project and I'm ready to uphold them". 354 00:18:06,940 --> 00:18:10,140 Only five is a bit ... it's quite a few 355 00:18:10,140 --> 00:18:11,990 sorry, it's not too much. 356 00:18:11,990 --> 00:18:15,580 We really need to understand how to invite 357 00:18:15,580 --> 00:18:17,580 people with different backgrounds than packaging 358 00:18:17,580 --> 00:18:18,600 to join the Debian Project. 359 00:18:18,600 --> 00:18:21,370 I think that diversity statement we sent out 360 00:18:21,370 --> 00:18:23,910 is a step in the right direction, but we need to do more: 361 00:18:23,910 --> 00:18:27,400 I don't know what exactly, but we really need to do more to attract those kind of people. 362 00:18:30,530 --> 00:18:33,750 Some other challenges are related to the release process. 363 00:18:33,890 --> 00:18:36,910 I'm still amazed that people on the net 364 00:18:36,910 --> 00:18:40,530 still complain that Debian has unpredictable release cycles: 365 00:18:40,530 --> 00:18:43,790 the other day I replied on Linux Weekly News to someone who was complaining 366 00:18:43,790 --> 00:18:46,500 that Sarge has been very much delayed as release. 367 00:18:46,500 --> 00:18:48,060 Yes, that's true: 368 00:18:48,060 --> 00:18:50,060 Sarge has been a delayed release, 369 00:18:50,060 --> 00:18:51,170 like three years or something 370 00:18:51,170 --> 00:18:54,930 but it is something which happened seven years ago. 371 00:18:54,930 --> 00:18:57,190 Even in the time frame of Debian, that's a lot, 372 00:18:57,190 --> 00:18:59,430 that's one third of our time in existence. 373 00:18:59,430 --> 00:19:02,170 Since then we have learned: 374 00:19:02,170 --> 00:19:04,170 the release cycle of Etch 375 00:19:04,170 --> 00:19:05,610 took 22 months, 376 00:19:05,610 --> 00:19:07,610 same for the release cycle of Lenny. 377 00:19:07,610 --> 00:19:10,720 The release cycle of Squeeze took 24 months. 378 00:19:10,720 --> 00:19:14,750 All of these look pretty much predictable to me. 379 00:19:14,750 --> 00:19:16,750 I think we are doing well on that front 380 00:19:17,250 --> 00:19:18,750 and starting with Wheezy, 381 00:19:18,750 --> 00:19:19,120 382 00:19:19,120 --> 00:19:21,600 for the first time in our history, 383 00:19:21,600 --> 00:19:23,600 we've done time based freezes. 384 00:19:23,600 --> 00:19:26,260 You probably know that I'm a huge fan of that 385 00:19:26,260 --> 00:19:28,070 not all of us agree with that 386 00:19:28,070 --> 00:19:30,580 but I think that is a huge step forward 387 00:19:30,580 --> 00:19:34,840 because it helps developers in planning ahead changes. 388 00:19:35,680 --> 00:19:38,890 Yes, there are people that will upload the last minute no matter what, 389 00:19:38,890 --> 00:19:39,710 I understand that, 390 00:19:39,710 --> 00:19:42,240 but for all the people who want to plan ahead 391 00:19:42,240 --> 00:19:43,400 that's a huge help. 392 00:19:43,400 --> 00:19:46,320 And it also helps our upstreams: 393 00:19:46,320 --> 00:19:48,530 there are upstreams out there 394 00:19:48,530 --> 00:19:53,530 who very much care about the version of their packages that will end up 395 00:19:53,530 --> 00:19:54,950 in a stable Debian release. 396 00:19:54,950 --> 00:19:58,240 There are people out there that if they know we freeze on a specific date 397 00:19:58,240 --> 00:20:01,710 they will commit to give long term support for that software. 398 00:20:01,710 --> 00:20:05,810 So knowing a freeze date in advance is a huge help for them. 399 00:20:05,810 --> 00:20:09,880 I think we should keep this in mind, 400 00:20:09,880 --> 00:20:13,560 keep in mind what was not working with the previous model, 401 00:20:13,590 --> 00:20:16,780 like people getting upset of abort freeze 402 00:20:16,780 --> 00:20:19,390 without knowing in advance when they were going happen. 403 00:20:19,390 --> 00:20:22,590 And I think we should try to not forget this 404 00:20:22,590 --> 00:20:27,180 aim in the future at reliably freezing every x months. 405 00:20:27,180 --> 00:20:28,610 24? Maybe. 406 00:20:28,610 --> 00:20:30,300 More than that? 407 00:20:30,300 --> 00:20:32,300 Fewer than that? I don't know. 408 00:20:32,300 --> 00:20:36,010 But I think we should try to keep this in mind and maintain that in the future. 409 00:20:36,530 --> 00:20:38,390 And in case you didn't notice: 410 00:20:39,060 --> 00:20:40,390 Wheezy is frozen! 411 00:20:41,330 --> 00:20:44,710 And we did this with a time based freeze. 412 00:20:44,710 --> 00:20:45,760 I think it worked well 413 00:20:45,760 --> 00:20:47,760 but there is still a lot of work to do 414 00:20:48,380 --> 00:20:49,760 and in particular 415 00:20:50,330 --> 00:20:52,240 we have frozen with something like 416 00:20:52,240 --> 00:20:57,000 135 more RC-bugs with respect to the previous stable release. 417 00:20:57,000 --> 00:21:00,350 There is a lot of work to do for all of us. 418 00:21:02,450 --> 00:21:04,870 In this work which is ahead of us 419 00:21:04,870 --> 00:21:08,600 I think we should really aim to have a short freeze period 420 00:21:09,780 --> 00:21:12,350 that's something we should aim to. 421 00:21:12,980 --> 00:21:15,830 It will happen or it will not happen it depends on us, 422 00:21:15,830 --> 00:21:17,830 but I think it should be a goal. 423 00:21:17,830 --> 00:21:21,900 It should be a goal because it will show us that 424 00:21:22,470 --> 00:21:24,710 time based freeze is a sustainable model 425 00:21:24,710 --> 00:21:28,620 even if it means freezing with a bit more bugs than before 426 00:21:30,090 --> 00:21:32,430 it will reduce the period of time 427 00:21:32,430 --> 00:21:34,700 in which we are bit frustrated 428 00:21:34,700 --> 00:21:37,510 in which we cannot do far reaching changes. 429 00:21:37,510 --> 00:21:40,180 The shorter we can keep this period 430 00:21:40,180 --> 00:21:44,400 it will be better for people who really want to make some more profund changes. 431 00:21:45,320 --> 00:21:46,400 Asheesh do you have a question? 432 00:21:47,700 --> 00:21:48,400 Sorry? 433 00:21:48,400 --> 00:21:50,400 Asheesh: How short is good? 434 00:21:51,760 --> 00:21:53,680 Stefano: So the question is how short is good. 435 00:21:53,680 --> 00:21:55,080 Well, I don't know 436 00:21:55,080 --> 00:21:57,080 I think it should be a goal 437 00:21:57,080 --> 00:21:58,730 I don't think we can say... 438 00:21:58,730 --> 00:22:02,450 Well, I mean, staying within the limits of the past trend 439 00:22:02,450 --> 00:22:03,720 like six months 440 00:22:03,720 --> 00:22:06,450 I think that's would be good. 441 00:22:06,450 --> 00:22:07,880 Better would be shorter than that. 442 00:22:08,100 --> 00:22:10,540 But this is not really a question for me, this is more for the release team 443 00:22:10,540 --> 00:22:12,040 but I think we should have in mind 444 00:22:12,040 --> 00:22:14,040 that we should do all we can 445 00:22:14,040 --> 00:22:16,040 to keep that as short as possible. 446 00:22:16,880 --> 00:22:20,790 And also there are distributions out there 447 00:22:20,790 --> 00:22:22,110 that rely on testing 448 00:22:22,560 --> 00:22:27,310 we do have in mind a single product, which is Debian stable 449 00:22:27,310 --> 00:22:28,670 which is a great product 450 00:22:28,670 --> 00:22:30,390 but, like it or not, 451 00:22:30,390 --> 00:22:33,570 people out there are using Debian testing as a product 452 00:22:34,020 --> 00:22:36,470 they're using it on their desktop machines, 453 00:22:36,470 --> 00:22:37,760 on their development machines 454 00:22:37,760 --> 00:22:39,260 because it's kind of 455 00:22:39,260 --> 00:22:42,020 the thing that invented rolling distributions out there. 456 00:22:42,020 --> 00:22:44,020 And it's a great suite. 457 00:22:46,280 --> 00:22:47,590 Keeping it short 458 00:22:47,590 --> 00:22:49,900 keeping the release - ehm, sorry - the freeze period short, 459 00:22:49,900 --> 00:22:53,150 will also help other people that rely on something like Debian testing. 460 00:22:55,040 --> 00:22:56,020 How do we do that? 461 00:22:57,450 --> 00:23:01,920 I don't think it's really normal to have that many release critical bugs 462 00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:03,170 at the freeze point 463 00:23:03,170 --> 00:23:06,400 it means that there are maintainers... it means two things 464 00:23:06,400 --> 00:23:08,800 that there are very hard bugs to fix, which is normal, 465 00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:11,360 but it also means that there are some maintainers 466 00:23:11,360 --> 00:23:12,910 that they kind of neglected their work 467 00:23:12,910 --> 00:23:16,510 that they didn't manage to complete to clean up 468 00:23:16,510 --> 00:23:18,510 their packages of release critical bugs before the freeze. 469 00:23:19,350 --> 00:23:20,830 But it happens 470 00:23:20,830 --> 00:23:23,440 we are here, it has happened in the past, it will happen again in the future. 471 00:23:24,100 --> 00:23:27,200 So the only way I think we have to release at this point 472 00:23:27,860 --> 00:23:31,840 is to, once again, keep in mind that releasing 473 00:23:31,840 --> 00:23:34,820 is not something that the release team does alone 474 00:23:35,340 --> 00:23:37,480 they cannot release Wheezy alone. 475 00:23:40,320 --> 00:23:43,020 I've been bothering you with this idea since ever 476 00:23:43,020 --> 00:23:45,020 since way before I became the DPL 477 00:23:45,400 --> 00:23:47,520 but I think the only solution we have for this 478 00:23:47,520 --> 00:23:49,130 is doing NMUs, 479 00:23:49,560 --> 00:23:50,650 accepting NMUs, 480 00:23:50,650 --> 00:23:51,630 welcoming NMUs, 481 00:23:51,630 --> 00:23:52,960 loving NMUs 482 00:23:53,400 --> 00:23:56,810 every single day, please, have a look 483 00:23:56,810 --> 00:23:59,500 at the list of release critical bugs reports. 484 00:23:59,500 --> 00:24:02,100 I look at this graph, essentially, every morning 485 00:24:02,100 --> 00:24:04,740 and also after coffee, to see how we are going 486 00:24:05,360 --> 00:24:07,730 really, please do the same! 487 00:24:07,730 --> 00:24:09,580 Then, please, every day 488 00:24:09,580 --> 00:24:12,040 look up if there is a release critical bug you can fix 489 00:24:12,480 --> 00:24:16,110 even, and especially, if it is not in your package. 490 00:24:16,110 --> 00:24:19,520 There are people, like Gregor - who is somewhere here in the room - 491 00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:21,300 that every single day - thanks Gregor - 492 00:24:21,300 --> 00:24:23,300 every single day try to do that 493 00:24:23,470 --> 00:24:25,750 and publish the initiative to make other do the same 494 00:24:25,750 --> 00:24:28,280 he is not the only one, a lot of other people are doing that 495 00:24:28,280 --> 00:24:30,280 but also publishing it is very good. 496 00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:34,320 And, really, NMUs that fix RC-bugs 497 00:24:34,320 --> 00:24:35,610 are free for all 498 00:24:36,180 --> 00:24:39,330 do them properly, try to make it clear that you're trying to help 499 00:24:39,820 --> 00:24:41,900 the maintainer of the involved package 500 00:24:41,900 --> 00:24:43,900 but please: that's the only way 501 00:24:43,900 --> 00:24:45,900 we're going to release Wheezy 502 00:24:45,900 --> 00:24:47,900 really. 503 00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:51,060 And if you want another way of looking at this, 504 00:24:51,060 --> 00:24:54,910 it's for the software engineering fan, 505 00:24:54,910 --> 00:24:56,910 is collective code ownership. 506 00:24:56,910 --> 00:24:59,800 So, collective code ownership is a notion that 507 00:24:59,800 --> 00:25:03,080 well, this term comes from extreme programming 508 00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:05,210 and essentially says that all programmers 509 00:25:05,210 --> 00:25:07,210 have access to all of the code of a project 510 00:25:07,840 --> 00:25:10,760 so that no single person can be a bottle neck 511 00:25:10,760 --> 00:25:12,760 on a specific part of the project. 512 00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:16,490 This is considered good in agile development, 513 00:25:16,490 --> 00:25:19,480 this is considered a best practice to follow 514 00:25:19,480 --> 00:25:21,800 in open source project management, 515 00:25:21,800 --> 00:25:25,730 but in some way it is not always considered good in Debian. 516 00:25:25,730 --> 00:25:26,980 Which is kind of weird. 517 00:25:26,980 --> 00:25:30,380 In the past we didn't have the notion of maintainer 518 00:25:30,580 --> 00:25:33,990 then, Bdale will correct me if I'm wrong, in 1995 519 00:25:33,990 --> 00:25:34,840 has been introduced. 520 00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:37,190 Is it right? Something like that? Ok thanks. 521 00:25:37,380 --> 00:25:41,080 And with that we sort of added some barriers. 522 00:25:41,350 --> 00:25:44,330 There are useful stuff behind the notion of maintainer 523 00:25:44,330 --> 00:25:48,400 like pride in what you do, being recognized for the work you do 524 00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:49,280 which is great. 525 00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:52,280 But we should also keep in mind that there are barriers 526 00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:53,260 with the notion of maintainer 527 00:25:53,260 --> 00:25:54,420 that make it harder 528 00:25:54,460 --> 00:25:56,850 for others to contribute to your package. 529 00:25:56,850 --> 00:25:58,850 So the best approximation we have 530 00:25:59,160 --> 00:26:01,090 to collective code ownership in Debian 531 00:26:01,380 --> 00:26:05,460 is essentially being more liberal with NMUs 532 00:26:05,460 --> 00:26:06,830 and team maintenance, 533 00:26:06,830 --> 00:26:10,120 but we don't have teams which are as large as the Debian Project. 534 00:26:10,120 --> 00:26:13,550 So liberal NMUs is really our best approximation 535 00:26:13,550 --> 00:26:15,550 for collective code ownership in Debian. 536 00:26:18,980 --> 00:26:21,570 And then, moving to the past two, 537 00:26:21,570 --> 00:26:24,010 which probably will be a bit more controversial. 538 00:26:25,560 --> 00:26:28,910 Low company involvement, I think is becoming a problem in Debian. 539 00:26:29,750 --> 00:26:33,530 If you look at other similar project to Debian 540 00:26:34,230 --> 00:26:37,060 with the same kind of history and with the same size, 541 00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:40,500 you'll see that Debian has less paid work opportunity around 542 00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:44,090 and you'll see that we have few companies which are contributing directly. 543 00:26:45,900 --> 00:26:48,040 Think at the Linux kernel: 544 00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:51,300 everyone who can show that can get code in the Linux kernel 545 00:26:51,300 --> 00:26:53,730 will find a job in five minutes. 546 00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:57,980 We do have companies that will be happy to hire Debian Developers 547 00:26:57,980 --> 00:27:02,200 but not as much as you have around a project like the Linux kernel. 548 00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:06,280 So, for me, volunteering is great 549 00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:10,380 I wouldn't work on Debian on paid time, I would not do that. 550 00:27:10,380 --> 00:27:13,360 I work on Free Software for volunteering reasons 551 00:27:13,360 --> 00:27:16,390 it matches my view of society where 552 00:27:16,390 --> 00:27:18,390 each of us has a work 553 00:27:18,390 --> 00:27:21,150 and some extra time, after work, 554 00:27:21,150 --> 00:27:23,330 in which he does something to contribute to society 555 00:27:23,330 --> 00:27:26,010 so this is not really for me. 556 00:27:26,010 --> 00:27:28,790 But I think it could be a problem for Debian in general. 557 00:27:28,790 --> 00:27:29,990 Why? 558 00:27:30,590 --> 00:27:31,990 We do compete 559 00:27:31,990 --> 00:27:37,710 with companies and their full staff - sorry - and their full time employees. 560 00:27:38,710 --> 00:27:41,780 So, our competitors are commercial distributions 561 00:27:41,780 --> 00:27:45,970 with huge means in terms of employees who are working on the distro. 562 00:27:45,970 --> 00:27:50,790 That's fine, we don't do Free Software only to make money 563 00:27:50,790 --> 00:27:53,070 but we need to watch out for our morale. 564 00:27:53,070 --> 00:27:55,550 So, when we start thinking stuff like 565 00:27:55,550 --> 00:27:57,550 "Debian is not innovating anymore" 566 00:27:57,550 --> 00:27:59,870 "It is other distributions innovating" 567 00:27:59,870 --> 00:28:01,540 well, we need to keep in mind that 568 00:28:01,540 --> 00:28:05,840 the ratio of forces in the field may not be very well balanced. 569 00:28:06,300 --> 00:28:10,720 This is the first problem that I think having low company contributing to Debian. 570 00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:12,930 Second reason is that 571 00:28:12,930 --> 00:28:15,570 there are useful tasks out there 572 00:28:15,570 --> 00:28:18,160 that volunteers won't bother doing. 573 00:28:19,010 --> 00:28:21,350 I've been asked many many times: 574 00:28:21,350 --> 00:28:24,940 "why don't you go to hardware vendors and convince them 575 00:28:24,940 --> 00:28:26,940 to pre-install Debian on their machines?" 576 00:28:27,210 --> 00:28:30,980 Well, try to find a volunteer that is happy to spend his time 577 00:28:30,980 --> 00:28:35,150 in, you know, lobbying hardware producers to install Debian on it. 578 00:28:35,690 --> 00:28:36,870 That's an example. 579 00:28:36,870 --> 00:28:40,070 Other examples are all sort of certification lobbying: 580 00:28:40,070 --> 00:28:43,450 something that very often public administrations ask me 581 00:28:43,450 --> 00:28:46,470 is why Debian is not certified for 582 00:28:46,470 --> 00:28:52,610 random very high quality corporate database system. 583 00:28:52,610 --> 00:28:55,790 Why Debian is not certified for that unnamed system? 584 00:28:55,790 --> 00:28:58,340 Well, because you need lobbying to do that, 585 00:28:58,340 --> 00:29:00,730 you need people going to the 586 00:29:01,020 --> 00:29:04,370 software vendors and convince them to say "Yes, you can run this on Debian". 587 00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:07,210 Otherwise, there are people out there that won't run Debian. 588 00:29:07,750 --> 00:29:09,630 And all sort of other stuff, 589 00:29:09,630 --> 00:29:12,010 like creating a sort of networks that makes 590 00:29:12,010 --> 00:29:17,040 specific adopters convinced them they will be fine adopting Debian. 591 00:29:17,530 --> 00:29:21,910 And the last reason why I think we need a bit more of companies involved in Debian 592 00:29:21,910 --> 00:29:23,910 is a sort of disturbing thought. 593 00:29:23,910 --> 00:29:27,580 What if only one company or a few companies, for what it's worth 594 00:29:27,580 --> 00:29:30,430 end up hiring the whole lot of DDs? 595 00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:34,820 The independence I've been babbling around before will be gone. 596 00:29:35,390 --> 00:29:36,470 This is not paranoia. 597 00:29:36,470 --> 00:29:38,780 This is a kind of problem that has been discussed, 598 00:29:38,780 --> 00:29:41,240 for instance, in the Linux kernel community for a long time. 599 00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:44,920 They know that they have some sort of independence because they have 600 00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:46,690 many different companies 601 00:29:46,690 --> 00:29:48,690 with interest in the Linux kernel 602 00:29:48,690 --> 00:29:50,690 which sort of balance each other. 603 00:29:50,690 --> 00:29:54,010 So if we don't have more companies interested in Debian 604 00:29:54,010 --> 00:29:56,340 we'll risk ending up in that situation. 605 00:29:56,690 --> 00:29:59,990 Some sort of very early work in progress 606 00:29:59,990 --> 00:30:02,380 which I've tried to kick start 607 00:30:02,380 --> 00:30:04,930 is a sort of user group, debian-companies, 608 00:30:04,930 --> 00:30:07,330 of companies who have some strategic interest in Debian 609 00:30:07,510 --> 00:30:11,000 and want to try to work on fixing this problem. 610 00:30:11,510 --> 00:30:13,000 They may be other solutions, 611 00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:15,410 I don't know, I wanted to present this as problem 612 00:30:15,410 --> 00:30:17,410 as I think that in the long run we'll need to think about it. 613 00:30:18,670 --> 00:30:22,910 And the last thing is the DPL. 614 00:30:22,910 --> 00:30:25,170 Which happens to be me at the moment. 615 00:30:25,170 --> 00:30:27,800 What does the DPL do for you? 616 00:30:28,620 --> 00:30:30,760 According to my family possibly too much 617 00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:32,760 but that's a separate problem. 618 00:30:33,250 --> 00:30:35,080 He does fancy stuff: 619 00:30:35,080 --> 00:30:38,970 he goes to conferences, he's all around the world, he's invited to talk about Debian 620 00:30:38,970 --> 00:30:41,990 and he has a wikipedia page and all this kind of fancy stuff. 621 00:30:41,990 --> 00:30:43,780 But he also has to do 622 00:30:43,780 --> 00:30:49,650 all sort of needed but pretty boring, for the average geek, stuff. 623 00:30:50,100 --> 00:30:51,980 He has to take care of money: 624 00:30:51,980 --> 00:30:53,660 approving reimbursements, 625 00:30:53,660 --> 00:30:54,950 buying hardware, 626 00:30:54,950 --> 00:30:56,950 DebConf, donations 627 00:30:56,950 --> 00:30:58,780 trying to avoid bankruptcy, 628 00:30:58,780 --> 00:31:00,240 which is a nice thing to do. 629 00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:02,240 And he needs to take care of lawyers. 630 00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:05,070 I've never been working with lawyers 631 00:31:05,070 --> 00:31:07,070 as much as in the last three years. 632 00:31:07,070 --> 00:31:10,290 He takes care of what we do with patents: 633 00:31:10,290 --> 00:31:11,510 can we have it in the archive or not, 634 00:31:11,510 --> 00:31:12,600 what we do with trademarks, 635 00:31:12,600 --> 00:31:15,090 what we do with copyright, for instance, 636 00:31:15,090 --> 00:31:17,090 can we relicense the Debian logo 637 00:31:17,090 --> 00:31:20,100 without undermining some other asset we have? 638 00:31:20,100 --> 00:31:21,910 And legal responsibility: 639 00:31:21,910 --> 00:31:24,290 and what if a Debian Developer get a lawsuit? 640 00:31:24,290 --> 00:31:25,820 All this sort of stuff, 641 00:31:25,820 --> 00:31:26,820 which is useful, 642 00:31:27,100 --> 00:31:29,290 because if we now have a bit more 643 00:31:29,290 --> 00:31:33,350 - how to say? - enhanced multimedia experience in Debian 644 00:31:33,350 --> 00:31:35,280 is also because we take the time 645 00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:38,860 to discuss this stuff down with lawyers that are experts in Free Software. 646 00:31:39,050 --> 00:31:41,630 And he does mediations, 647 00:31:41,630 --> 00:31:43,260 and he does reports. 648 00:31:43,260 --> 00:31:46,280 How many reports from me have you got in the past three years? 649 00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:47,660 Yeah, too many! 650 00:31:47,660 --> 00:31:49,350 This is all sort of boring stuff 651 00:31:49,350 --> 00:31:51,350 which I think is useful for the project. 652 00:31:52,350 --> 00:31:57,030 But then, as it is today, the DPL is a problem. 653 00:31:57,770 --> 00:32:02,110 I am a problem, but it's not me, it's the role of DPL who has a problem in Debian. 654 00:32:02,690 --> 00:32:04,680 It just does not scale. 655 00:32:05,760 --> 00:32:08,990 We basically rely on some sort of luck 656 00:32:08,990 --> 00:32:10,990 that we will find 657 00:32:11,490 --> 00:32:15,290 candidates that will have enough time to do all of this 658 00:32:15,730 --> 00:32:17,810 and it's quite a bit of time. 659 00:32:17,810 --> 00:32:20,750 I don't know if it's wise to only rely on luck 660 00:32:20,750 --> 00:32:22,100 to finding those people 661 00:32:22,100 --> 00:32:24,100 over the years forever. 662 00:32:25,460 --> 00:32:28,640 Second problem: transparency is very hard. 663 00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:32,090 I've tried to... I've worked quite a bit on that: 664 00:32:32,090 --> 00:32:35,240 I think I spend like half of my time 665 00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:36,110 as DPL 666 00:32:36,110 --> 00:32:38,260 in trying to tell you what is going on 667 00:32:38,260 --> 00:32:40,260 and only the other half on working on stuff. 668 00:32:40,260 --> 00:32:42,450 I've been happy to do that, but is very hard. 669 00:32:43,270 --> 00:32:45,870 And as long as I'm talking to myself 670 00:32:45,870 --> 00:32:50,110 or replying to inquiries that come to the Leader's mailbox 671 00:32:50,110 --> 00:32:52,110 there are some sort of intrinsic limits: 672 00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:55,310 if you are in a team with more people 673 00:32:55,310 --> 00:32:56,490 you need to discuss things 674 00:32:56,490 --> 00:32:58,720 and if you force yourself to discuss things publicly 675 00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:00,720 you don't have these intrinsic limits. 676 00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:05,580 And the third problem is that there is very little institutional memory. 677 00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:11,730 We keep on, essentially, rediscover the job 678 00:33:11,980 --> 00:33:13,730 at each DPL change. 679 00:33:14,660 --> 00:33:17,250 Yes, I can write a DPL Howto 680 00:33:17,250 --> 00:33:19,250 with the help of all past DPLs. 681 00:33:19,250 --> 00:33:21,920 We can do that, but things change 682 00:33:21,920 --> 00:33:24,710 and essentially the key of the problem is that 683 00:33:25,170 --> 00:33:28,700 being the DPL is unlike any other task in the project: 684 00:33:29,370 --> 00:33:33,720 it's difficult to know who will be a good DPL before 685 00:33:33,730 --> 00:33:36,310 because he or she has never done that before 686 00:33:36,540 --> 00:33:39,030 and there is essentially only trial and error. 687 00:33:39,030 --> 00:33:41,890 There is very little institutional memory of how to do things. 688 00:33:44,840 --> 00:33:46,210 How can we fix this? 689 00:33:46,410 --> 00:33:48,820 I've been thinking a lot about this, 690 00:33:48,820 --> 00:33:52,190 is one of the reason why I decided to run again for a third term, 691 00:33:53,340 --> 00:33:55,340 essentially I think the problem is that 692 00:33:55,500 --> 00:34:00,620 the role of the DPL is a relic of the "benevolent dictator" era in the Free Software. 693 00:34:01,230 --> 00:34:03,520 It made a sense in the past, 694 00:34:03,630 --> 00:34:08,560 today projects of the size of Debian are not run in this way 695 00:34:08,560 --> 00:34:11,310 not even for only the management part. 696 00:34:11,810 --> 00:34:16,050 We do not do the technical part with a benevolent dictator, which is very good, 697 00:34:16,710 --> 00:34:19,530 but we do that for all the kind of management part. 698 00:34:20,270 --> 00:34:24,350 I think the only solution possible here 699 00:34:24,350 --> 00:34:27,410 is have some sort of board of directors 700 00:34:27,410 --> 00:34:29,410 as other projects have 701 00:34:29,410 --> 00:34:32,090 which essentially helps the DPL. 702 00:34:32,400 --> 00:34:34,440 The role of the DPL should not disappear. 703 00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:37,680 I think we should try to keep this as informal as possible 704 00:34:37,970 --> 00:34:41,850 but if we have a group of people that we can call the Debian Board of Directors 705 00:34:41,850 --> 00:34:44,260 that can have some sort of turnover 706 00:34:45,140 --> 00:34:47,620 to guarantee that there is some institutional memory 707 00:34:47,620 --> 00:34:50,440 so they should not be tied to the normal DPL period, 708 00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:53,900 otherwise you'd have the problem of institutional memory again, 709 00:34:53,900 --> 00:34:56,710 with periodic meetings for transparency 710 00:34:57,550 --> 00:35:00,360 and if we do have this 711 00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:02,670 you can have the people on this kind of board 712 00:35:02,670 --> 00:35:06,860 that help out and show if themselves they will be able to do 713 00:35:06,860 --> 00:35:08,860 good DPLs or not. 714 00:35:08,860 --> 00:35:11,670 I think this is the only way 715 00:35:11,670 --> 00:35:13,930 to make the role of the DPL scalable 716 00:35:13,930 --> 00:35:18,530 without changing the nature of what the institution is. 717 00:35:18,530 --> 00:35:20,910 And as an interim solution 718 00:35:20,910 --> 00:35:23,220 I'm trying to collect a group of DPL helpers 719 00:35:23,250 --> 00:35:25,980 you've seen the call for help, thanks to all the people who replied. 720 00:35:25,980 --> 00:35:28,250 So what I'm trying to do is to 721 00:35:28,250 --> 00:35:30,450 try to see if this kind of things could work. 722 00:35:31,930 --> 00:35:36,550 And yet, the DPL will remain. 723 00:35:36,550 --> 00:35:40,740 So, given I'm here basically because someone 724 00:35:40,740 --> 00:35:44,520 a few years ago started joking about me becoming DPL, 725 00:35:44,820 --> 00:35:46,740 well, this is a good occasion for all of you 726 00:35:46,740 --> 00:35:48,360 to start think at the next one 727 00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:49,730 and maybe start joking with him 728 00:35:49,730 --> 00:35:52,590 whether he or she will be happy to candidate the next year. 729 00:35:54,010 --> 00:35:56,700 So, thanks a lot 730 00:35:56,700 --> 00:35:59,310 it's a pleasure to be here 731 00:35:59,310 --> 00:36:02,400 and if you have questions or thoughts I'm available. 732 00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:03,590 Thanks 733 00:36:04,160 --> 00:36:12,720 [applause]
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