Re: Debian companies group

[Guido Günther <agx@sigxcpu.org>]

Hi Michael,
On Mon, Sep 02, 2013 at 04:23:31PM +0200, Michael Meskes wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> as you may or may not know there has been talk about starting a communiy of
> companies around Debian. I'd like to get things moving now and I believe the
> DPL agrees.
> 
> Let me start by answering a few questions:
> 
> Why? 
> Companies (may) have different needs and different ideas about what they want
> from Debian than other groups that have already been formed. Should we later
> find out that this assumption was wrong, the group can simply be merged with
> other groups.

I do think that's great. Topics like e.g. longer (paid) security support
by companies are on the table since quiet some time and this would be a
great place to discuss this and move things forward.

[..snip..] 

> Who?
> A companies community should only contain companies. We've been struggling for
> a while to come up with a reasonable definition of a company. It definitely has
> to be related to Debian, so my first idea was to ask for two DDs or one DD and
> one DM. But as Zac pointed out that might be too narrow a scope. He instead
> suggested to ask for one DD and at least 10 people on staff which I think is a
> good and reasonable number. Yes, I know,
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-companies/ needs to be adjusted accordingly.

I'm not sure if this is a perfect fit though. We do have many DDs that
freelance (including work with and on Debian) and they would not
qualify. Other companies might have several DDs but only <10 persons of
staff. What if the DD is only working part time? What if a company has
to lay of staff - will they be removed from the list if they drop beyond
10?
So in contrast to caring so much about the exact status of a person or
company wouldn't it be much more interesting to hear about the
motivations of the person joining the list beforehand. This would also
help with defining the scope of the list.

Cheers,
 -- Guido

> Scope?
> I think the scope of this group should be defined by the group itself and thus
> would like to encourage all companies to subscribe to said mailing list.
> 
> Of course I'm also available for questions and comments.