Re: The correct use of debian-devel
On Sun, Jun 04, 2006 at 05:51:17PM +0200, Cesare Leonardi wrote:
> In particular, the primary question is: Who can write on
> debian-devel?
Anyone:
- interested
- that has constructive things to say, on-topic, that is the
technical development of Debian.
- that does so in a socially acceptable way (not too much insults, ad
hominem attacks, ...)
The "interested" part would tend to restrict it to Debian
contributors, upstream authors (for specific threads), ... I say
"contributors", not "developers".
> Steve Langasek wrote:
>>On Sun, Jun 04, 2006 at 12:18:16PM +0200, Olaf van der Spek wrote:
>>>On 6/4/06, Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> wrote:
>>>>On Sun, Jun 04, 2006 at 12:18:39AM -0700, Mike Bird wrote:
>>>>> It is past time that the covert actions of the "small cabal"
>>>>> were openly reviewed. The license (for convenience), any
>>>>> relevant written promises from Sun (if any), and any relevant
>>>>> written legal opinions from counsel (if any) should forthwith be
>>>>> posted to debian-legal.
>>>> For those playing along at home, Mike isn't a Debian developer,
>>>> doesn't maintain any packages, and isn't a new-maintainer
>>>> applicant. He doesn't even seem to be a regular participant on
>>>> the debian-legal list.
>>> None of those things seem to be relevant.
>> For those still playing, Olaf also isn't a Debian developer,
>> doesn't maintain any packages, and isn't a new-maintainer
>> applicant. He's made something like 5 posts to debian-legal,
>> though, which I guess given Andrew Donnellan's assertion that
>> someone with one post ever on -legal is a "regular participant",
>> means Olaf is a senior analyst or something.
>> As beautiful as this irony is of a non-developer asserting on a
>> developer list that being involved in development is irrelevant,
>> you might want to give some thought to the question of why a
>> non-developer making demands of anyone might be seen as
>> doubly-inappropriate.
> Because for someone that is not a "primary collaborator", a DD, but
> use Sid to follow the Debian development, report and comments on
> bug, reply to suggest improvement, collaborate with developer to
> solve problems (DD: Please can you try this? What if you run... Your
> hardware in uncommon, what do you see...)
This self-description qualifies you as contributor.
> and express sane, constructive and polite opinion on subjects that
> he judges important and, in general, acts hoping to help the Debian
> project going on, even on non-regular basis,
And this as "socially acceptable" and "constructive things to say,
on-topic".
> They seems to say: "If you don't write code, you cannot permit to
> speak in debian-devel".
For in so far as I can agree with what was said, it meant "if you are
not a member of Debian (a status that is confusingly called 'Debian
developer'), you don't get to speak in the name of Debian (unless by
specific, subject-restricted proxy of Debian)". Even DDs should be
very cautious about _not_ speaking in the name of Debian on subjects
that are not consensual within Debian. Just a note to the public that
this comment was not done in the name of Debian. This was particularly
"needed" in the context of licenses, because non-DDs have not been
checked as adhering to the social contract / DFSG and as understanding
the Debian "caselaw" interpretation of these documents.
And also: if you are not a DD (that is member of Debian), you don't
get a direct "vote" about how the internal Debian decision-making
process works, but you can convince a DD to take up the idea and you
can contribute in the discussion. But try to avoid hot buttons like
the word "cabal", people will listen better to you if you don't. (I
think I've slipped well into personal opinion, and out of "what I can
support in the statements made" there.)
> Or, that is worse: "If you don't write code you are not
> partecipating in the Debian development".
That is wrong. People do get DD status for doing translation, there is
a special NM track for that. We are not quite setup to handle a flood
of NMs that come for _other_ competences than packaging or
translation, but nobody let that keep hir from applying; we'll treat
them as special cases (if not too many) or setup an NM track for it
(if numerous).
--
Lionel
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