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Re: [Debconf-team] Updating the DebConf Chairs delegation



Lucas,

On Mon, Aug 11, 2014 at 09:41:20PM +0200, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> Dear Developers,

> As you might be aware, Holger Levsen and Gunnar Wolf resigned from
> their role of DebConf Chairs earlier this year. I would like to
> sincerely thank them for their numerous years of contributions to making
> DebConf such a successful and major event. I'm sure many of us can
> think of great things DebConf brought to the Debian project and to
> our wider community, both on technical and social levels, and Holger and
> Gunnar both had a huge role in those achievements.

> I am very happy to announce that Martín Ferrari and Tássia Camões
> agreed to become DebConf chairs. As Tássia is not a Debian Developer yet,
> she cannot be officially delegated yet, but I expect this not to make any
> difference for her work as a DebConf Chair.

I am not happy at all to see this.

In all my feedback to you regarding DebConf chair delegations, I
consistently emphasized that the structure of the current delegation is
broken, and that many of the problems of the recent past were a direct
result of a delegation structure that relied on consensus to get anything
done.  When two of the chairs resigned leaving a single delegated
decision-maker for DebConf, this was an *improvement* over the status quo -
not because of any failing on the part of the existing chairs, but because
of a failing of the delegation structure.

I pointedly asked you in our private discussions: what problem are you
trying to solve by appointing additional DebConf chairs?

You did not respond to this question.

Instead, you have delegated new chairs, reproducing the previous broken
structure.

I have nothing against either Martín or Tássia - on the contrary, they are
long term members of the DebConf team, and I welcome them bringing their
perspectives to an active ongoing role throughout the DebConf process.  But
as DPL delegates, they deserve to be given the support of the project to
maximize their odds of success in this role, and I strongly believe this is
not what you've done here.

I would hope to have a constructive discussion about DebConf governance
while we are all together in a week at DebConf14.  But I am dismayed by this
delegation right beforehand, which I think reflects a misunderstanding of
the actual problems that face the DebConf team.

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
slangasek@ubuntu.com                                     vorlon@debian.org

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