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Re: Joey Hess is out?

Marty wrote:

On 11/12/2014 07:48 PM, Gary Roach wrote:

On 11/08/2014 04:19 AM, Keith Peter wrote:

Hello Bret and All

Mr Hess was writing to the 1000+ Debian developers so the subject line
*may* have made instant sense to them, but I take the wider point.

We had better explain the 'so long and thanks for all the fish' quote
as well (looking at your sig) for the benefit of others. In one of the
volumes of the *The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy*, a very funny
mock science fiction story, the dolphins all suddenly disappear. They
have in fact left Earth because they know that the planet is about to
be destroyed to make way for a hyperspace route. They send the message
'so long and thanks for all the fish' to the humans by swimming in a
certain configuration (I recall).

Mr Hess has made some definite choices about work/life balance [1] and
I'm sure he will find an outlet for his considerable talents. I think
that Mr Hess's approach to things is to focus on the *rules that
define the process* (i.e. the Debian constitution) rather than any
specific contingent features of the way the process is unfolding at
present (the init/integration thing).

If there are any long time users here, I too would like to know more
about the Constitution and the history. I did find a chapter from
someone's thesis [2] which seems to describe the transition from a
small community of developers working on 'rough consensus' to a larger
and more formal organisation. It is a bit academic but seems to ring
true in the present circumstances.

[1] http://joey.hess.usesthis.com/

[2] http://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/ECM_PRO_067658.pdf

Cheers

On 8 November 2014 07:31, Bret Busby <bret.busby@gmail.com> wrote:

I posted this on a very abreviated thread a couple of days ago but feel
that it probably belongs hear.
------
After reading the foofaraw over the word "out", I took the time to read
Joey Hess' abdication message and then the Debian Constitution that
seems to be the center of his complaints. I am sorely confused. I have
been using Debian for over 15 years and have seen Hess' name associated
with an unbelievable  number of projects. His worth to the Debian
development effort can not be overstated. But after reading the Debian
Constitution, I wonder what is really wrong. I find the document
somewhat convoluted but doubt that I could do any better. Without a
document that carefully outlines the rights and responsibilities of the
participants in an endeavor of this size, the whole development effort
would sink into chaos. Could it be a simple case of burnout?

Maybe a discussion of why such a valuable member of the community would
throw in the towel would be more productive.
------
I have had experience with various large endevors (more that 6-8 people)
in the past. Believe me, you don't want to do it without some pretty
iron-clad rules to go by. Things like Roberts Rules are used for a
reason. I might add that the constitution seems to have adequate methods
for removing objectionable senior members by the rank and file. But the
super majority  rules and sometimes the losers can get pretty testy.

Gary R.
The problems seemed obvious to me, from the start, and hundreds of hours of reading articles, lists and blogs have not change my opinion.
I think the policy process has become politicized. This idea is based on the little that I've seen as an outsider, but I'll say it anyway because I think the nature of the problem lends itself to myopia on the part of those within the "system," and obvious only to an outsider.
Sidestepping the question of whether it's a constitutional issue, I see an abuse of process (or bad process): "bug reports" are used to decide any policy, with technical arguments overriding non-technical concerns in a way that is prone for abuse, to achieve political ends. I don't think it's malicious, but more of a habit that has evolved, possibly the result of some loophole in the process.
In the systemd decision, for example, a sweeping change was justified on narrow technical grounds, and this artificially limited the scope of the discussion. Everything else proceeded from this error: the split vote, flame wars, "schism," defections, GR, etc.
A system that was flawed from the start was finally strained to the breaking point by an external forcing function, consisting of massive software corporations leveraging their contribution to the repository by exploiting Debian's biggest weaknesses: it's governance flaws and its dependence on loose package coupling. Mark Shuttleworth's "concession" speech, to me, perfectly symbolizes this process of corporations using Debian as a business battleground.
If there's any validity to this idea, then I think the way to solve it is to work back to the cause, be it policy or constitution, and take measures to de-politicize technical decisions, and provide a mechanism for deciding non-technical policy. Some way to give equal (or greater) weight to non-technical policy decisions is essential, to defend the charter and prevent it from becoming like an empty corporate mission statement. Maybe the charter itself has to be (re-)defined.
In spite of these problems, I think TC members are well qualified to sort out these issues. 

(Sorry about the wall of text. I'll step off the soap box now.)
It occurs to me to add this comment: One of Debian's "selling points," for a long time, has been the social contract. That it seems to be failing is perhaps as concerning as some technical decisions of late. 

Miles Fidelman

--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra
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