Questions to candidates

[Andreas Tille <tillea@rki.de>]

Hi,

this morning I wrote in private to the DPL candidates but tbm asked me to
foreward my questions to debian-vote which I'm doing hereby ...

Here are my questions:

  1. My concern is to propagate Custom Debian Distributions because
     I think we should set a stronger focus to the end user.  I see
     Debian as a missing link between upstream developers and end
     users and Custom Debian distributions are a good way to care for
     end users.

     What are your plans according to Custom Debian Distributions?

  2. Recently we had some flamewars about concentration of "power" for
     some people inside Debian.  While I'm much more relaxed than many
     others and save my time for work instead of fighting flame wars
     I have one certain question here.  How do you see the role of
     James Troup in the project?

     While I think that he did a great job in terms of finding technical
     solutions he absolutely fails in communication with people.  This
     starts with the fact that he is known to actively maintain a quite
     long killfile (accompanied with the ability to ignore requests
     of people) and ends with the inability to accept critics to his
     person.  While I have no personal problems to cope with those
     people I noticed that this behaviour of a person who is doing
     not only one important job for the project does harm to the Debian
     project in general.  I had several private discussions with
     outsiders.  For instance one opinion was that the persion would
     not apply as New Maintainer as long as James Troup is ruling
     Debian.  (Please note: I do not think that James Troup is really
     ruling Debian - I was just quoting.)

     So what are your plans to enhance communication with people on
     important positions in Debian and how do you think that important
     jobs might be split onto different shoulders?

  3. Do you think Debian should continue to support non-free?

  4. Does your normal live allow sparsing time for Debian leadership
     which seems to include much additional work (perhaps you will not
     be able to continue on working on your packages) and does your
     current employer accept your intention.

  A. Meta-question:  Do you know that your jpb as a Debian leader has
     the consequence to travel in several countries all over the world
     which might lead to the situation that some countries handle you
     like a criminal by taking your finger prints?  I personally would
     not like to be handled like a criminal and thus I did not accepted
     the invitation to a conference in Texas.

Thanks for supporting Debian by volunteering for leadership

        Andreas.


PS: I have read the plans of each candidate and know that some of my
    questions are answered indirectly in some statements but I wanted
    to ask these question to each of you in the same manner.  I do not
    mind if you answer any of these question via a link to a certain
    paragraph of your statements.