Dear project members,
here's another report of DPL activities, this time for a period longer
than usual (February + 1st week of March), so that the next one will be
at the very end of the current DPL term.
Highlights
==========
- As you know, we are now well within the DPL election process. And we
have 3 valuable candidates running. I encourage all of you to
participate in the discussions on -vote, and ask questions about
project vision, goals, and improvements. It's something that is rarely
as intense as during campaigning, so don't miss the chance!
- You might have noticed a sharp decrease in the count of RC bugs
affecting Wheezy; that is largely due to the Release Team, who started
the usual final sweep of RC triaging before release. Please thank them
for their work, ... but don't give up on our collective work yet! You
can still help up in the usual ways (NMUs, severity adjustments,
unblock reviews, etc).
- The technical committee had to deal with a rather urgent issue during
last month (#699808). I mention it here only to applaud their
efficiency in doing so: 4 days to reach a decision. Resorting to
tech-ctte shall always remain a last resort in Debian, but when it
comes to that it's useful to know that we can count on a wise and
speedy answer.
Appointments
=============
- As the previous term was about to end, I've agreed with the Kurt
Roeckx to [re-appoint him][5] as Project Secretary for another year.
- Following up to last month news, we've now assembled a team of admins
for Debian participation into Google Summer of Code 2013 and
[delegated them][6] for the task. Many thanks to David, Nicolas, Paul,
and Sukhbir for volunteering, as well as to last year admins for their
help in reaching out to interested volunteers.
On a related note, we've until March 28th to propose [projects][13]
and/or volunteer as (co-)mentor for GSoC 2013.
[5]: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2013/02/msg00001.html
[6]: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2013/02/msg00006.html
[13]: http://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2013/Projects
DPL helpers
===========
Two more DPL helpers IRC meetings have happened, [minutes][10] and logs
[of both][11] are available.
[10]: http://meetbot.debian.net/debian-dpl/2013/debian-dpl.2013-02-12-17.59.html
[11]: http://meetbot.debian.net/debian-dpl/2013/debian-dpl.2013-02-26-17.59.html
Assets
======
- I've worked with the press and publicity teams to [announce][6] the
new trademark policy more widely and call for producing Wheezy
merchandise. Apparently, we are now also [being cited][7] as a
reference on how to strike a balance between free software and
trademark (unfortunately the article is behind a paywall now).
- In related news, Brian Gupta has volunteered to help with answering
[trademark@d.o inquiries][8] and has already helped a lot in
streamlining the process and keeping track of past requests (thanks!)
- Following a -project inquiry by Thomas Koch, I've investigated with
SPI the possibility of assigning to them the copyright for (code)
contributions to Debian. The [bottom line][9] is that at present there
is no safe way to do that with SPI; that might change in the future.
- As agreed at a DPL helpers meeting, we are trying to federate
interests in Debian sponsoring and fund-raising. Part of the goal is
avoid duplication of efforts DebConf- and sponsoring for other Debian
activities; and part is establishing a more stable income flow for
Debian (to ease long-term budget decisions). If you have experience
and interest in this area, please join the [debian-sponsors-discuss
list][12] on Alioth.
- Together with auditors, we have updated [reimbursement procedures][16]
to better keep track of both outstanding and past requests. Main
difference is that you'll now have to mail a RT queue instead of
leader@d.o directly. Check the [wiki page][16] for details.
[6]: http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130301
[7]: http://www.worldtrademarkreview.com/daily/detail.aspx?g=e4019b9e-5eec-4110-9660-f60a833a3929
[8]: https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2013/02/msg00039.html
[9]: https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2013/02/msg00064.html
[12]: http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-sponsors-discuss
[16]: http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/DPL/Reimbursement
Events
======
Past
----
At the beginning of February, I've attended [FOSDEM 2013][1], together
with many other Debian people. I didn't have any specific talk this
year, but it's been a chance to talk F2F about several ongoing issues
(see logs), and help mediating in some conflicts. I've also accepted the
invitation to participate in the GNOME Advisory Board meeting, together
with Laurent Bigonville of our GNOME team. No report of that has been
prepared as of yet (sorry about that), but we have both reported "live"
to the rest of the team on IRC.
[1]: https://fosdem.org/2013/
Future
------
- It looks like my last month as DPL will be quite busy. Next week I'll
be first in New York City, delivering an invited Debian talk at
[NYLUG][2] (thanks a lot to Brian Gupta and Tom Limoncelli for the
invitation). Then I'll head to [LibrePlanet 2013][3] to talk about
the relationship between Debian and GNU (thanks to John Sullivan for
the invitation). Finally, at the beginning of April, I'll be in
Amsterdam to deliver a talk about Debian experience with various legal
issues across the years, at the yearly [FSFE Legal and Licensing
Workshop][4] (thanks to Karsten Gerloff for the invitation).
Both trips (LibrePlanet and FSFE) will be on Debian budget --- while I
usually insist on having travel sponsorship from inviting entities, in
this cases I've accepted to do otherwise given they are free software
non profits like Debian.
- I've been invited to represent Debian at [Distro Recipes][17]. Due to
a conflict with FSFE workshop I couldn't make, so I've looked for
substitutes. Lucas Nussbaum and Jonas Smedegaard have kindly accepted
to go in my stead and deliver two talks, one about QA and the other
about Pure Blends; thanks folks!
[2]: http://www.nylug.org/
[3]: http://libreplanet.org/wiki/LibrePlanet2013
[4]: http://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/ftf.en.html
[17]: https://distro-recipes.org/
Miscellaneous
=============
A couple of months ago I've [mentioned][14] that I had filed an
application, as Debian representative, to participate in a [working
table][15] to define software procurement rules for the Italian public
administration. Good news: my application has been accepted, together
with those of other well-known FOSS communities and organizations
(e.g. KDE, FSFE). I'll keep you posted of how it goes.
[14]: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2013/01/msg00001.html
[15]: https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/eupl/news/ad-hoc-working-table-write-new-evaluation-criteria-acquiring-software-public-sec
Let's go back to elect a new DPL and release Wheezy now,
Cheers.
PS the day-to-day activity logs for February and March 2013 are available
at the usual place
`master:/srv/leader/news/bits-from-the-DPL.txt.20130{2,3}`
--
Stefano Zacchiroli . . . . . . . zack@upsilon.cc . . . . o . . . o . o
Maître de conférences . . . . . http://upsilon.cc/zack . . . o . . . o o
Debian Project Leader . . . . . . @zack on identi.ca . . o o o . . . o .
« the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »
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