Bdale, This gentleman makes a good point. Several days ago, this person and another (apparently independent) party mailed me in my capacity as SPI Treasurer with offers of equipment donations. As SPI Treasurer, I am not empowered to accept or refuse donations on behalf of Debian. SPI manages the Debian Project's assets only in trust, and disposes of those assets only as the Debian Project directs (except where this might cause legal problems or jeopardize SPI's 501(c)3 status). This is not the first time that potential donors have gone without a dialog. I think Mr. Hilarius hits the nail on the head; Debian does not appear to have a person actually in charge of managing incoming equipment donation proposals. I mailed both -admin and -alpha in effort to find a larger pool of interested people, but it appears possible that neither group felt it had a mandate to speak authoritatively on the subject. (After all, if the Alpha porters don't need another box, the DSA team doesn't need the administrative overhead of another box; and it's not much good for the Alpha porters to accept a box if the DSA team is unwilling or unable to administrate it for some reason.) On a related point (speaking as a Debian developer), the DSA team may be overworked/understaffed, and it may be apropos to appoint some additional members. In the event that this particular machine cannot find a home as an official Project Alpha box, I suggest we arrange for the box to be donated to a Debian Developer who is trusted and motivated to work on the Alpha port, if the donor is agreeable to this. As I stated in my earlier message, I do have a personal interest in an Alpha machine. If DSA cannot find a home for it, it has PCI slots, and there is no greater calling for it among the Alpha porters, I'm sure I can do some XFree86 testing work on it. On Fri, Apr 26, 2002 at 09:32:17AM -0600, Maurice Hilarius wrote: > Just for interest, I asked the Debian maintainers, through the recommended > page, and through the Debian alpha list, where we should send/communicate > with to donate a machine. > > So far we have no response. > > This is an example of what I perceive as the biggest issues with Debian ( > and Alpha) at present: > > Who is actually in charge of anything? > > Do they have time and inclination to deal with these issues and others? > > The offer of a free machine still stands. Does the Debian project need it? > If not I will throw this open to others who might be interested in Linux > Alpha development. > > With our best regards, > > Maurice W. Hilarius Telephone: 01-780-456-9771 > Hard Data Ltd. FAX: 01-780-456-9772 > 11060 - 166 Avenue mailto:maurice@harddata.com > Edmonton, AB, Canada http://www.harddata.com/ > T5X 1Y3 > > Ask me about the UP1500 Alpha - Full systems from $3,500! > -- G. Branden Robinson | Human beings rarely imagine a god Debian GNU/Linux | that behaves any better than a branden@deadbeast.net | spoiled child. http://www.deadbeast.net/~branden/ | -- Robert Heinlein
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