Re: Debian Cloud Team delegation updates
On 4 June 2020 05:04:19 BST, Noah Meyerhans <noahm@debian.org> wrote:
>On Wed, Jun 03, 2020 at 11:22:26PM +0000, Luca Filipozzi wrote:
>> > > We're afraid of conflict of interest. There's been multiple times
>where
>> > > we saw it could happen, and by having the delegates not involved
>with a
>> > > provider, we're hoping to reduce that risk.
>> >
>> > Can you cite a specific example? I cannot think of one.
>>
>> A major cloud provider contracted a consultancy* to prepare official
>> Debian cloud images for that platform. These were published under an
>> account owned by that consultancy rather than by Debian. I had to
>repeat
>> myself a few times at that Seattle sprint when explaining how that
>> situtation was not appropriate, to the blank stares of some sprint
>> participants**.
>
>Keep in mind that that consultancy's work predated the existence of the
>cloud team and of the DPL delegation. Also keep in mind that you had
>not yet been delegated (or even officially nominated) as a DPL delegate
>for the cloud team. My point is that it does not take a formal
>delegation to recognize a problem and work to fix it.
>
>> See above example, now thankfully corrected + a few similar examples.
>My
>> opinion is that the delegate has the responsibility to ensure that
>these
>> accounts are held by Debian (via TO), at the very least. I would like
>> there never to be a situtation where one person or consultancy
>controls
>> Debian's presence on a platform, even if that person is employed by
>the
>> owner of said platform.
>
>I completely agree that Debian must control what goes into official
>images for any cloud provider. However, I can also envision a future
>in
>which the cloud provider acts similarly to a traditional CD vendor.
>The
>cloud team is responsible for the content, but the physical media (or
>in
>this case the image in the provider's infrastructure) is "published" by
>the provider. I can see plenty of ways for things to change over time,
>if everybody is acting in good faith and being transparent about their
>relationships with Debian and with cloud providers.
>
>The point that Emmanuel made earlier is worth repeating: "this
>requirement makes more difficult to find as someone from the
>people, as AFAIK many of us are working in a way for a cloud provider,
>or a partner."
>
>It doesn't seem particularly far-fetched to imagine that the very
>people
>who are most enthusiastic about running Debian in "the cloud" are going
>to end up doing something to that end on behalf of a cloud service
>provider or related entity. Excluding those people seems counter
>productive. Acknowledging and compensating for conflicts of interest
>seems both worthwhile and feasible.
>
>noah
Hey guys and sorry for top posting.
I see valid points raised from both ends of this conversation.
What I'm saying is that I agree with what Noah, Emmanuel and couple of other brought forward but I fully understand Zigo, Luca, etc..
I personally would like to think that all of us are impartial and independent even if employed or associated with cloud providers.
On the point of concerns presented by Zigo, Steve and a couple of other people (including myself) in my opinion we need to cater for those who are concerned that debian maybe directly influenced by commercial entity which puts strain and limitations on our ability to pick delegates.
To be fair we're a victim of our own success as Debian and it's policies and this is just a reflection of that status.
So my way of thinking about it is 'if in doubt bail out', what lead us to the situation we're at the moment.
Not enough independent volunteers.
IMO this unfortunately is not going to change any time soon as 'cloud' is very popular atm thus reaching out to those with experience in the field like Debian contributors make's it harder for us to keep status quo in regards to our policies.
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