RE: What have we learned? (WAS -RE: Idea: Reponse to the responses( was RE: Interesting idea....(at least I think so) ))
On Fri, 26 Apr 2002, 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.
Not surprising, although probably not for the reasons that you would
think. Since Debian is a volunteer project, it is often difficult to
coordinate with many people at the same time, especially when you have to
consider that many of them cannot deal with these issues during their day
jobs. When it comes to accepting a donated machine, it is not like we can
just toss it in a location until we find somewhere better...we have to
arrange for donated rack space, bandwidth, etc AND make sure that someone
in the area is capable of maintaining it. The short answer is, it's not
easy when you are not a formal business with paid employees to get such
things done. In this case, I would've preferred if you would've shown a
little more patience and understanding before blasting us in a public
forum like this.
> 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?
Ultimately, the DPL (Debian Project Leader) is in charge of
everything. There are assigned roles and responsibilities, as with any
organisation, but bear in mind that we are not only in the final
stages of a release cycle, but we also just held the DPL election, so
we're experience a bit of administrative lag right now.
As for who's in charge of the Alpha port...you're talking to him, so fire
away with any questions or concerns :-)
> Do they have time and inclination to deal with these issues and others?
That depends on the magnitude of the "issues" that you're talking
about. So far, I haven't seen one issue in this email other than
accepting a machine donation. In that case, it's not within my power to
accept such a (generous) donation or else I would've already replied. For
that kind of stuff, I would have to defer to the debian-admins, who's
structure is something I'm largely unfamiliar with. Since this has become
a timing issue, I'll check with the DPL and a few of the people that I
know that are in debian-admins and see what we can arrange. I know that
we have a spot in Boston where a machine can go, so if I can still arrange
that, I'll do so (it's coincidentally less than an hour away from my
house, so it may be better there than in our normal location).
As for the "other issues", I can probably take the time to respond to
those if they're posed to me. Due to job obligations, I haven't had much
time to be a felt presence on the lists lately. For that, I apologise,
but it's something that is totally beyond my control (add more hours to
every day and things would be different :-P). I have, however, taken the
time to keep my packages as up-to-date as possible and made quite a bit of
time to test or look into specific technical issues that have popped up
and that I have been asked about.
> 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.
Yes, we'd be happy to accept it, believe me! While I'm not the right guy
to say that officially, I'm positive that those who are would agree. I'll
just have to speak to them to get shipping details and defer to Brandon
for any tax-related information that you may want/need.
I'll see what I can do ASAP (I'll start Monday, if you don't mind...I'm
swamped with work today and over the weekend)!
Thank you for the generous donation offer and I'm hoping that we can
repair what appears to be a broken relationship between Debian and your
company.
C
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-alpha-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
Reply to: