[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: On management



On Fri, Mar 02, 2007 at 05:58:58PM -0600, Peter Samuelson wrote:
> 
> [Roberto C. Sanchez]
> > I am not advocating having a manager without technical competency or
> > the ability to understand technical issues.  Just that being a
> > manager does not require being a fourth-degree blackbelt in Perl or
> > having written a textbook on C++ programming.
> 
> And you think the current NM process is geared toward people who have a
> fourth-degree blackbelt in Perl or have written a textbook on C++
> programming?
> 
Not at all.  It is biased in favor of those types of people.  As a
consequence of that, pretty much everyone with managerial
responsibilities within the project is a very experienced DD and so has
developed lots of those skills.  I am not saying that this is a bad
thing.  Simply that many of those skills are not used as part of the
managerial duties.  Having technical understanding is still important as
is knowing who the experts in various things are and when to trust their
judgment and recommendations.

> My experience is that the expectations on new maintainers are far, far
> lower.  You're supposed to know how to build packages that don't suck,
> but I don't remember noticing any test of my skills as a programmer,
> beyond simple shell scripting.
> 
I had to do some shell scripting as well to show that understood some of
the things that dpkg and apt were doing behind the scenes.

> If an applicant knows enough about Debian's technical side of things to
> be an effective manager for Debian processes, I don't see why that
> person should have any more trouble with NM than programmers do.
> 
It's not that.  What I was trying to get across was that there are
people out there who are good mangers and have some technical knowledge
and would be a great asset to the Debian project in a management
capacity.  However, that does not mean that such a person needs to pass
the traditional NM process with all of its technical hurdles.

> Peter, also in NM

Regards,

-Roberto
-- 
Roberto C. Sanchez
http://people.connexer.com/~roberto
http://www.connexer.com

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: Digital signature


Reply to: