First let me say this message is not in any way meant to disparage or belittle our existing candidates. I'm just trying to describe the mental image I have when I think "Debian Project Leader". 1) Someone who's been with the project a long time, and in a visible capactiy. I myself have been using Debian (and subscribed to one or more of the mailing lists) since early 1996, but have only been "visible" for close to a year now. I personally would feel more comfortable with a leader I can remember from before I became a package maintainer. 2) Someone who is a competent programmer. I agree that being a good coder does not correlate strongly with good communication or leadership skills, but I think we need a leader who is strong in *both* of these areas, not just one or the other. The schism that led to Bruce's departure from the Project stems in part from a penchant among the developers for technical merit first and foremost -- sometimes with an "other considerations be damned" attitude. I don't think this characteristic is like to change any time soon. Therefore, the project leader needs to command the respect of the more technically-minded of our members. 3) Someone who's gung-ho for PR. This is where Bruce was great. He'd travel to conferences, issue press releases, and otherwise make himself, and Debian, very visible. I really liked that, and I really miss it. The Red Hat juggernaut churns on, to the point where most people (in the United States, anyway) who are aware of Linux aren't even aware of any distributions other than Red Hat. Mere mortals come from the Windows world, where there's only one company to an operating system. Red Hat themselves do absolutely nothing to combat this misconception. Just try finding a reference to another Linux distribution on their websites. Even the concept of a "distribution" itself is mentioned in passing, so the obvious inferences aren't made. Make no mistake, folks, we might be able to be chummy with the Red Hat tech-heads at conferences at expositions, but they have a marketing machine just like any other company, and that marketing machine is after the same proportion of market (and mind) share that Microsoft is. They can't particularly help that, either -- commercial software is a dog-eat-dog world. But that paradigm doesn't work for us. We're about free software, cooperation, and sharing -- which leads to my next point. 4) Someone with a firm grasp of the philosophy behind Debian. Now of course to some degree, everyone's going to characterize this a little differently. But essentially, I believe the project leader must not only agree with the Debian Social Contract, but believe in it with every fiber of his being. Maybe I fall closer to the RMS end of the free software continuum than to the ESR end, but I believe Debian, in having no direct commercial interests, is in a unique position to reinforce the concept of "community" in the expression "free software community". There will always be battles within the community over foo vs. bar, but note that the worst of these happen when something that isn't really free software, or has really onerous exceptions and conditions on it, clashes with something that is truly free. Of course, KDE vs. GNOME springs to everyone's mind immediately, but qmail vs. every-other-MTA-in-the-world occurs to me as well. 5) I see the project leader's job as helping to embrace and support fledgling software projects that are 100% free, without aggravating catches like "advertising" or "can't ship patched binaries" -- especially when such projects arise with only commercial software as competition. I guess this mail could cause a flamewar, but I don't think iwj's DFSG2 is really all that misguided. Free software is gaining strength in the marketplace, not losing it, and it's time to kick away some of the old compromises we made in the past, not reinforce them, or let them become further entrenched. Only the most fanatical BSD-head could argue that the advertising clause isn't onerous, and just makes work for people where there need not be any. I think the best idea is to petition the Regents of the University of California to retract that clause. Likewise with the existing compromise in part 4 of the existing DFSG. I think free software has come of age, and has proved its worth. We're indisputably coming from a position of strength now, not weakness, and it's time we played that card against licenses born of irrational paranoia and possessiveness. What happens if you make the code you write free? Does it get stolen by other free software authors, and your name removed, or -- if your software is truly a Good Thing -- do you get heralded as an all-around cool guy, and in extreme cases even get to do stuff like hobnob with the President of Finland? I'll note that the only recent case of code getting ripped off that I can think of is the non-free SSH version 2. These guys had the audacity to steal from GNU, and they got caught pretty quickly. Anyway, I've already digressed too far on this point. 6) Finally, though in some ways it pains me to say it, I envision the project leader as being someone as old or older than myself (24). Perhaps I'm simply manifesting old age already, and not wanting to get bossed around by some whippersnapper, but in truth I think it's just that I want a project leader who's a little more settled in Real Life(tm). If you're still pursuing a Bachelor's Degree, odds are you're going to have an upheaval or two in your life in the next 1-4 years. A "tenured" grad student, or somebody already settled into a "real job" that wouldn't cause problems, would be ideal. Also, I'll admit, it's crossed my mind that an older project leader might have more credibility with any PHB's that he might have to deal with. I acknowledge that this is a compromise, and above I was cheerleading for a no-holds-barred-anti-compromise approach, but these are different areas. Besides, these are just my thoughts, not the official list of candidate requirements, so they're allowed a little incongruity. :) The only two people that *spring* to mind as fulfilling all of these requirements are our current project leader, and Manoj Srivastava. Ian doesn't seem to have announced his own candidacy for re-election, which is a shame, and Manoj seems to have no real interest in project leadership. Anyway, I look forward to seeing some more candidates step forward. Half a dozen, minimum, would be great. Lest anyone challenge *me* to run (which would expose them to everyone as being hopelessly insane), I must point out that I fail point 1, am unsure of my capabilities in points 2 and 3, and only satisfy 6 by the barest fraction of an instant. Sorry for the long mail. -- G. Branden Robinson | The first thing the communists do when Debian GNU/Linux | they take over a country is to outlaw branden@ecn.purdue.edu | cockfighting. cartoon.ecn.purdue.edu/~branden/ | -- Oklahoma State Senator John Monks
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