Re: debian development
On Sep 25, Gorkem Cetin wrote
> I'm not sure if this is the right mailing list, if not flame me :)
It is (more or less).
> We've (the turkish linux user group) been working on a turkish linux
> distribution for some time. Its main purpose is to help users whose native
> lang is not english.. It attracted many people here, and everything goes
> fine by now . We're in the stage of discussing of packages and menu
> systems.
If you're considering using Debian as a basis for it, you might want to join
the debian-i18n list, which deals with internationalization issues in
Debian.
> I want to ask to old debian gurus how they did the scheduling, timing,
> motivating people, updating the packages, leading the project, etc. .
> Thought it'd be time saving to learn about mistakes and difficulties
> you've made during the development stage of debian ..
I think that one could write a whole book about the management side of
freeware development. I don't feel like writing that now.
So, I'll keep it short here. My opinion about what Debian did and still does
right is: open development.
Aspects of openness: public mailing lists and public bugtracking system
provide both strongly structured and less strongly structured forms of
communicating among developers and between developers and users; users can
easily become developers etc.
See e.g. http://www.ccil.org/~esr/writings/cathedral.html
Aspects of development: clear technical responsibilities (one maintainer per
package; other aspects (ftp, www, docs) also have one person as head), but
with an open attitude (no "territorialism": maintainers welcome feedback;
non-maintainer releases can be done when needed); good communication with
"upstream" developers (through the bugtracking system). Emphasis on doing
things (technically) right, rather than give in to pressures like "the rest
of the world does <something> <this way>, why doesn't Debian?"
HTH,
Ray
--
POPULATION EXPLOSION Unique in human experience, an event which happened
yesterday but which everyone swears won't happen until tomorrow.
- The Hipcrime Vocab by Chad C. Mulligan
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