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[TAF] wml://vote/2013/platforms/algernon.wml



Rebonjour,

La page de candidature de Gergely Nagy est à traduire. La version
originale est disponible en ligne :

http://alioth.debian.org/scm/viewvc.php/webwml/english/vote/2013/platforms/algernon.wml?root=webwml&content-type=text%2Fplain

Ce n'est pas la première candidature d'algernon, il se peut donc que sa
candidature reprennent des éléments des années passées. Voici donc la
traduction de sa précédente candidature, au cas où.

http://alioth.debian.org/scm/viewvc.php/webwml/french/vote/2012/platforms/algernon.wml?root=webwml&content-type=text%2Fplain

Si vous souhaitez vous occuper de cette traduction, faites-le savoir en
répondant à ce message avec le sujet :

> [ITT] wml://vote/2013/platforms/algernon.wml

Comment procéder pour traduire :

Comme le site n'est pas encore compatible avec les outils de traduction
classiques, il suffit d'éditer les fichiers joints, et de les renvoyer
sur la liste une fois mis à jour en répondant à votre ITT avec pour sujet :

> [RFR] wml://vote/2013/platforms/algergon.wml

Une fois « suffisamment » de relectures envoyées et la synthèse faite,
envoyez vos fichiers à jour en réponse à votre RFR dans un message ayant
pour sujet :

> [LCFC] wml://vote/2013/platforms/algernon.wml

Quelques jours après, en absence de nouvelles corrections (sinon
renvoyez un bilan en LCFC2), un membre de l'équipe mettra à jour le
fichier sur le site et clôturera ce fil avec un DONE.

Amicalement,
Thomas
#use wml::debian::template title="Platform for Gergely Nagy" BARETITLE="true" NOHEADER="true"
#include "$(ENGLISHDIR)/vote/style.inc"

<p>
Last year, I invited you all to <a
href="$(HOME)/vote/2012/platforms/algernon">walk the plank</a> with me, to
follow me on a road, a road that even I was unsure where it led. I had a
vision, I had ideas, but I had little to show for a plan. Even worse, some of
my ideas, some of the things I've thought I knew, turned out to be wrong this
past year. While my original plan was to pursue the goals I set out in my
previous platform, I did none of that, and before I get to the meat of the
platform, I owe you an explanation why: After walking the plank last year, I
spent some time swimming to the shore, determined that no matter what, I will
get things done. But how shall I do that? And when, with whom? Those questions
needed an answer, therefore I took on a coat of an ordinary hacker, and started
a journey to find the answers.
</p>
<p>
That is how the past year's been spent: looking and learning. I was - and still
am - following every major Debian list, I'm on IRC, absorbing all the
information that fits into my tiny mind. I see now, that there's a lot more to
be done than I thought last year, that some of the assumptions I made then,
were wrong. And having spent a long time learning, it is my hope, that I did
learn, and that this time, the plans I came up with will serve the same goal I
had last year, better.
</p>
<p>
That goal is as simple as growing Debian from a community of mostly technical
folk to something much bigger, a community of enthusiastic, bright-eyed people
who all want to do their part of making the world a better place. Big words,
big task.
</p>
<!-- more -->

<h2 id="the-problem">The problem</h2>
<p>
One of the most fundamental problems with the project is that it is old, and
hasn't grown up yet. We're still very focused on technical merit - don't get me
wrong, that is important too, but there's much more we can do than that! We
have tremendous amounts of talent, but pretty much every team is suffering from
lack of people, and we seem to be slow and ineffective in recruiting new
contributors (either from within the project, or outside of it), and even worse
at keeping them motivated. This is not new, I worried about it <a
href="$(HOME)/vote/2012/platforms/algernon">last year</a>, and I'm not the only
one to see things this way, respectable members of the project <a
href="http://www.perrier.eu.org/weblog/2013/02/16#dpl-game";>expressed their
pessimism</a> publicly too.
</p>
<p>
This is our biggest issue. We can be excellent at the technical level, but not
being able to keep people motivated, failing to find new contributors is
hurting us more and more, and it is my firm belief that without quick
improvement in these areas, it won't be just me virtually walking the plank.
</p>
<p>
On the flip side, we have every tool in our possession to steer ourselves into
a better, brighter direction. We have excellent hackers, we have people who are
terrific at communication, we have people who inspire others (just see the
pattern on the <a href="http://blog.zouish.org/posts/dpl_game/";>dpl-game</a>!),
we have everything we need. Read on then, dear reader, and see my plan!
</p>

<h1 id="dancing-on-a-tightrope">Dancing on a tightrope</h1>
<p>
To tread on a path we have not taken so consciously before, we need to have a
vision to strive for. A vision for the project as a whole, and a vision for
ourselves, to see where we'd like to be a few years from now.
</p>
<p>
As Stefano put it so well in his <a
href="$(HOME)/vote/2012/platforms/zack">platform last year</a>, Debian is a
very unique member of the larger Free Software ecosystem - go and read his
description, it can hardly be written better. This is the same vision I share,
where Debian grows up to be much more than hundreds of talented people putting
together a distribution. I want to see Debian becoming more than that,
something that attracts not only the technical geniuses, but those who wield
the power of speech and inspiration too, for these traits rarely go together.
</p>
<p>
I envision a project, where people recognise each other's strengths, and make
use of these strengths; where we can - and will - turn to each other, and work
closely together, to achieve such good balance of skills of all kinds, as we
already achieved in creating and maintaining the distribution itself.
</p>

<h2 id="lets-dance">Let's dance!</h2>
<p>
But alas, a vision is useless without a plan. That is a mistake I made last
year, one that I will not repeat again. The approaches I choose may seem
strange, or weird at first, but rest assured, they were carefully considered,
and most of them tried out in a smaller setting.
</p>

<h3>
Communication
</h3>

<p>
What I've seen and experienced over the past year (and thinking back, far more
than that - I just didn't know where to put the experience at that time) is
that written communication is rarely the best medium to reach out to people. In
this age we live in, written text reaches those who were already curious, it
rarely reaches those who're still waiting for enlightenment. And even if it
does, more often than not, there is no direct channel between the writer and
the reader, which hurts not only the latency of the communication, but the
quality too. Not to mention, that - however sad it may sound - the recipient is
often too shy to engage.
</p>
<p>
What does help, is face to face time. Events, where we can reach out to people,
and receive immediate feedback, where we can notice the shy ones, and help
them. Where we can immediately adapt to expectations.
</p>
<p>
For this reason, I feel it necessary to encourage and help local teams in every
possible way, to organise hackfests, code retreats, and all kinds of events
that they feel will attract the bright-eyed youth (be them 20 or 80, it's the
spirit that counts) we so direly need. These events need not be technical at
all: a session about Debian publicity, about representing the project in press
or on conferences is just as useful (if not more). Along with hackfests, we
could - and should - have events focused on improving communication, for that
is just as important.
</p>
<p>
With strong focus placed on non-technical matters, I believe we can step on a
path of rapid progress: my experience shows that techies and non-techies can
inspire one another very well, much more than two techies would. With a focus
on areas we are lacking in, we are indirectly improving those we are already
good at.
</p>

<h3>
Inspiration &amp; motivation
</h3>

<p>
But finding new contributors, be them technically-sawwy or not is only part of
the task, and the easier one too. It is much harder to keep people interested
and motivated over a long period of time, than to find them once.
</p>
<p>
On one hand, I would like to rely on those members of our community, who we all
hold in high esteem (including, but not limited to those mentioned during the
<a href="http://blog.zouish.org/posts/dpl_game/";>dpl-game</a>). They know what
keeps them going, they know what drives them away, we need to learn from that.
I'd like to hear them speak more often, on conferences, if possible, as they
are, I believe, a much more credible source than any elected official, at least
in some situations.
</p>
<p>
I'd also like to hear everyone's voice, from old members to the newest ones,
I'd like to read - and if so need be, conduct - interviews with people who
recently became Debian Developers, to hear about their experience, to learn
what they think is good or bad, because a fresh view is just as important as a
decade long experience.
</p>
<p>
On the other hand, we need to act on the issues discovered too. We already know
that quite a lot of trouble stems from lack of time, overburden and eventually
burn out. We know the solution to this: recruit more people, and utilise the
resources we do have better. Part of that can be solved by expanding our
numbers, but for the other part, we may need deeper changes. What those may be,
I cannot tell yet, there simply wasn't enough time to dig deeper, and I'm
likely not the best person to undertake the task, either. I am, however,
confident that we'll discover the solution as we travel along.
</p>
<p>
The first step is gaining knowledge, without this, no further plans can be
made.
</p>

<h3>
Recruitment
</h3>

<p>
I already touched the recruitment part earlier, at least the <em>how</em> of
the approach. What I'd like to expand on is the <em>why</em>, in particular:
why encourage recruiting non-packaging contributors, when we are building a
distribution, and we're lacking packaging manpower too?
</p>
<p>
Let me answer those questions separately.
</p>
<p>
First of all, I still like to think - but perhaps I am wrong - that we have an
unbelievable amount of packaging manpower, which we fail to use to its full
extent. We can use more, we always will be able to. But it also helps if we
manage to put our existing resources to better use.
</p>
<p>
And that is where non-packaging contributions come in. If we improve our skills
in areas we're lacking in, that in turn, will improve the general quality of
the project, which in turns improves morale, and a vibrant, well functioning,
welcoming community attracts even more people, and keeps us motivated in the
long run too.
</p>

<h1 id="mouse-on-the-tightrope">Mouse on the tightrope</h1>
<p>
With all that out, you may be wondering who I may be, and why you have not seen
my name over the mailing lists in recent years. I'm not a terribly vocal person
anymore, not a hot-headed teen I used to be some ten years ago. Most who know
me, know me by my online nick name, <em>algernon</em>, and in most cases, I
prefer that in real life too, for silly reasons I'd rather not dive into (but
the primary one being that people have a hard time correctly pronouncing my
name, and I have a hard time recognising my name unless pronounced the way I
learnt it). Nevertheless, my name is <em>Gergely Nagy</em>, and I'm a
recovering hacker, who intends to become a bachelor of (hungarian) arts, by
majoring in Hungarian grammar &amp; literature sometime in the next three to
five years.
</p>
<p>
Over the course of the past year, I also strived to observe and learn from
exceptional leaders at my day job, because there, I have the advantage of
meeting with them face to face, to interact with them on a daily basis.
Fortunately for me, there are people among them from whom I learned a great
deal about not only motivation, but about behind-the-scenes politics too - both
a valuable lesson.
</p>
<p>
And while I still have a tremendous amount of things to learn, I like to
believe that I can do that. I know I can learn technical things extremely
quickly (my day job depends on that, I would be out of a job if I failed at
that), I'm positive that I can do the same in other areas as well, at least as
long as it doesn't involve extreme amounts of economics. That proved to be a
major barrier in the past.
</p>
<p>
But back to the more important point: my organising, presentation and leading
skills. I'm a co-organiser of the <a
href="http://www.meetup.com/Budapest-Clojure-User-Group/";>Budapest Clojure User
Group meetups</a>, I started to encourage GSoC participation at my day job <a
href="http://en.opensuse.org/Archive:GSOC_ideas_2012#syslog-ng";>last year</a>
(we participated thanks to <a
href="http://en.opensuse.org/Main_Page";>OpenSuSE</a> who gave us a slot), and
I'm driving it <a
href="https://github.com/balabit/GSoC2013/wiki/Idea-&amp;-Project-list";>this
year</a>, aiming to become a mentoring organisation of our own. I'm doing
regular talks and presentations, participate in code retreats, meetups and
other similar events where I can both practice and learn the art of interacting
with people, and the fine art of organising events.
</p>

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