Grr. I shouldn't be doing this, but I can't help myself. Here's some
counterpoint to some of Raphael's points. Please consider them only
to moderate some of his claims, not necessarily to disagree with them
in principle.
On Wed, Feb 14, 2007 at 08:55:10AM +0100, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> But you're not going to delegate "check out what can be done to increase
> transparency within the ftpmaster team without scaring away current
> ftpmasters".
FWIW, this has happened in the past, more or less exactly as written,
while Martin was DPL. The result was:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2005/02/msg00184.html
That text was later reused as part of Branden / the 2005 DPL team's task
descriptions:
http://wiki.debian.org/TaskDescription/PackageRepositoryAdministrators
> And that's the kind of problems that many people would like to have
> tackled.
Personally, I'd say a bigger problem with tackling that is it's not
clear what would actually satisfy the request, particularly given that
there seems to often be an underlying sentiment that the real problem
isn't communication but the personnel.
> The tasks of the DPL are not about coding and reviewing code.
That's not necessarily true -- there are quite a few potential goals
a DPL might have for the project that do require code changes or new
code. Ultimately, the DPL's tasks are whatever the DPL wants them to be,
and that can just as easily involve all coding as no coding, depending
on what focus they're interested in.
In so far as it is true, it's probably an indication that the DPL isn't
actually acting like a leader in what's probably the most important part
of Debian. In so far as it /appears/ to be true, it probably means that
the DPL isn't setting an effective example for other people to follow
in that important area of Debian.
> Each DPL provided a platform: it ought to be his TODO list because he's
> elected on that basis. The platform are public, I've yet to see someone
> who worked on a project of a DPL.
I didn't propose specific goals in any detail in my platform this
year; but certainly there have been people who've helped with projects
throughout the year, including the "debian maintainers" thing (Christoph
Berg and Marc Brockschmidt in particular), what became dunc-tank (see
the board), and there are quite a few volunteers waiting for me to tell
them what to do for the DSA assistance a while ago. I'd be remiss of not
pointing Steve McIntyre as someone who's worked on some of my DPL projects
too. Beyond that, others have taken on board some of the ideas from my
and others platforms, and worked on that too, though there might not be
any reports or obvious ways to work out how much of a result that's had.
> > If the DPL can do it, great. If he/she can deligate it, fine. If not, let
> > the list be there so that others can step-up and say "I'll do the DPL's
> > bidding".
> If life was so simple ... :-)
There certainly are people who'll do that; it's just that sometimes
they'll change their mind once the find out what the DPL's bidding
actually is, and other times it's hard for the DPL to work out exactly
what his/her bidding should be in the first place...
Cheers,
aj
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