On Thu, Feb 17, 2005 at 11:53:47AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> martin f krafft wrote:
> >Maybe we should tabulate most commonly bashed roles and see if there
> >is a correlation with inavailability of information?
>
> What would be the point? That would tell us nothing about causation,
> which is the question at issue.
The assertion that causation and correlation are never tied is false.
Correlation is not causative to causation, but it is, in many cases, highly
correlated with it.
Or, in more homily terms:
If there's smoke, there may not be fire, but you'd still be well advised
to grab a fire extinguisher and check it out just in case. However, from
your tone of other replies on this thread, it has become clear to me that
you have no intent of discussing the actual issues in any type of public
forum, feeling them to be "too hostile", and thus I can only assume that
the only responses then possible for the developers at large are to either
pray, or work toward convincing the DPL (current, or to be elected) that
the delegates in this role are not, in fact, executing their duties with
due diligence, and should be replaced.
Which is a pity, but somehow, a great many other people seem to find the
forums available sufficiently inhostile to post discussions and meaningful
status updates. If the answer is that our ftpmasters need thicker skins
to deal with Debian lists, I agree that may say something poor about our
mailing lists, but it also says we should be asking for delegates that can
handle the job.
I can assume anything from outright obstructionism (which I do not think is
a warranted accusation for anyone involved) to simply having no time among
other Debian duties (I can hope) to the entire team apart from you having
been hit by a bus (again, seems unlikely), but frankly, the answer really
doesn't matter.
What matters are the following statements. If you have factual counters
to them, I'll be happy to discuss them, but I doubt there are any:
1) The ftpmasters are not keeping up with the NEW queue in anything like
the "documented as roughly to be expected" fashion (of approximately 1 time
per week). Anyone wishing to dispute this statement should start with an
explanation of the NEW queue as currently visible; I know, for example,
that I have at least two packages in it that are standard licenses, with
standard builds, of well-known and popular software, which should take a
reviewer about as little time as any package can (I won't say 'trivial
time', I have no way to know), and they've been in there for - well, anyone
who cares can go look it up. Quite a bit more than a week, or even two.
2) There has been no substantiative explanation forthcoming from the
ftpmasters, either formally or informally, in any of the normal channels
which I am aware of (debian-devel-announce for formal, various debian-*
mailing lists and my personal mailbox being the primary informal ones I
monitor). If I've missed one, even on debian-private, please provide me
with a Message-ID and info on where to find it (IE, "d-d-a archives") or
URL.
3) Related to #2, there have been no requests for specific assistance from
the ftpmasters regarding the queue (at least, not that I can parse as being
one; again, if I missed it, please provide message identifiers).
If any of these facts are incorrect, please inform me (in private, if
you don't want to do so in public, though I may ask permission to repost
it, with attribution optionally stripped, to correct this post). In the
absence of that, I really don't know what to make of these facts except
a persistant and consistant pattern of a lack of communication between
the ftpmasters and the project as a whole on what many people appear to
consider significant problems.
I'm not asking anyone to be perfect (I know I haven't been, and I've taken
my lumps for it on the mailing lists when something I'm involved with is a
problem). But from the perspective of several people, *this is a problem*,
and the current answer of the ftpmaster team (to wit, nil) on the topic
(as opposed to on the meta-topic of "This is insulting") leave few other
options.
DDs: if you are dissatisfied with this situation, speak to your DPL
candidates. Express your concerns. Let them put it in their platforms.
Vote for whomever seems the best fit for the direction you want to see the
project go. Maybe one or more of the above 'facts' is in error, and maybe
the situation isn't as pathological as it might appear, in which case this
should cease being an issue. If not, well, as delegates, the ftpmasters are
answerable to the DPL, and as our elected leader, the DPL answers to us.
Vote based on what you care about.
(Disclaimer: I'm not campaigning for any DPL candidate; I haven't even
looked to see if any platforms are up that might address this at all.
Campaigning for thoughtful, considered DPL voting should never be out of
style, however...)
--
Joel Aelwyn <fenton@debian.org> ,''`.
: :' :
`. `'
`-
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