(If any of this seems incomplete, it's because I'm writing it late at night, and my proofreading skills deminish rapidly past 11pm) > * What do you think are the three big things Debian should achieve > over the next twelve months? 1. Control over it's new maintainer process. 2. A handle on the bugs. 3. Releasing Woody. Your question implies "immediate" (twelve months). There are other important things that need to be handled this year and over the coming years. Also, just pointing out that you said "Debian" as opposed to "the DPL", which I'll assume means that you wanted the project agenda, as opposed to mine :) > * What do you think will be the three major problems Debian will face > over the next year or two? > * Debian has had four DPLs so far: Ian Murdock, Bruce Perens, Ian > Jackson, and Wichert Akkerman. What do you think each of these DPLs did > right, and are there any examples of things you would do differently > in their place (with or without the benefit of hindsight)? Well, I wasn't around for Ian M. and Bruce. I was only around for a few months at the end of Ian Jackson's term as DPL. So I can't begin to speak about what they did, since I was not really involved back then. I can speak about Wichert though, and will gladly do so :) Wichert did get NM backon track. What I would have done differently, is probably reacted a bit faster. It's hard to say if that would be the right thing or not though. There is something to say for sitting back and seeing if things resolve themselves, and there's also knowing when to step in because things are too far gone. Without hindsight, however, I probably would have reacted in the same timeframe as Wichert. > * The DPL is a fairly loosely defined position, so the successful > candidate can probably use that position to provide leadership in a > fair few areas. Bruce seemed particularly successful at publicising > Debian, and Ian Jackson did a fair bit of stuff getting Debian > set up procedurally. If elected, what sort of areas would you see > yourself focussing on: technical, political, procedural, publicity, > or something else? How would you see the areas you don't have the > time or ability to handle being dealt with? I see myself as more interested in technical and procedural aspects. Publicity needs to be addresses, but I feel others are better able to handle that than I am. I've never been one who can sling the suit lingo very well (a salesperson so to speak). I mainly deal in hard facts, and people either accept them or they don't (IOW, I'm not too good at hyping things up). I've always seen this as a process of the press team, and perhaps that group needs to be livened up a bit (hey Nils! :) > * Debian is becoming increasingly appropriate for commercial purposes: > whether as a server in a place of business, or as a base for a derived > distribution, or as a base on which to run proprietry software. What > sort of things should we be doing to make Debian more suitable for > these uses, for example, having someone people can call and tell > their credit card number to, in case their server goes down and > they need it back up right now, or making our non-free archive more > readily available for people distributing no-cost (or trial-only) > proprietry software (such as jdk 1.2, perhaps)? Well, I personally don't think we should expend a great deal of effort directly on non-free software, or for commercial entitities who wish to distribute them. IMO, if the things we do makes it easier, so be it, but doing things just to satisfy non-free software does not make sense. As far as technical support entities, and commercial entities basing products off of Debian's distribution, I think we can help them in several way. Possibly the best way is to keep documentation on our distribution up-to-date (not implying that we don't) and keep the base system as simple as possible. > * Debian currently has a reasonable amount of cash thanks to both > donations and awards. What should we be doing with it? Pay the DPL? :) I think we need to evaluate exactly what we need money for. Currently I don't think (atleast as far as I can tell from debian-admin folks) we *need* any hardware. My first inclination is to spend it on promotional items for Debian events; booth banners, pressed CD's, tshirts to be sold for return profit back to Debian, Debian mugs, Debian golf balls, Debian pocket protectors...let me stop :) Truely this would benefit us, since promoting ourselves potentially increases our visibility to potential donaters. Give that CEO a CD with a woody, and a mug with the DFSG on the side, and he'll be showing it off to his techies and asking them "Why not Debian?", or stroking a check to help out this "neat group of people". > * Do you still use proprietry, non-free, or unpackaged software (or > anything else not distributed by Debian) for anything? If so, what, > and is anything being done to remedy this unacceptable situation? I have 10 computers here at my house. 1 PC has Windows NT for testing LDAP across platforms. That's going away in a week since I don't work on LDAP for my employer anymore. I have 2 Mac G4's. One of them has MacOS so I can play Quake 3 (I have no x86's powerful enough, nor with a 3d accelerated card) :) None of my Linux systems use non-free software. I use links most of the time, and when I need graphics, I shoot over to Mozilla. As far as getting rid of MacOS, someone get me a nice x86 with a 3d card supported by XF4 :) The main thing I would like to see in Debian right now, is OpenOffice. > * What do you think about the social environment of Debian? For instance, > we tend to have a different flamewar every week; is this a > demonstration of our firey passion for what we're doing, or that we're > about to crash and burn? Should we be doing anything in particular to > change the demographics of our membership; perhaps trying to increase > the number of female developers, or documenters, or artists, or at > least to make it easier for such people to contribute? If so, what? > Are developers too removed from the userbase (with separate mailing > lists and IRC channels), or is the mix still pretty good? I like this question. However, talking about flame wars could start one up :) I do think that a lot of people within Debian do not stop to think about the human being on the other end of their sharp tongue. One of the problems I see most often is that people may not articulate things as well in emails as they do in person, so they come across as arrogant, ignorant, or mean. Misunderstandings occur on a regular basis, and I have been guilty of it just the same as anyone else. Sometimes the non-US developers catch flames simply because they did not understand a post, or because they did not word their own post exactly as they wanted to. Native English speakers need to be aware of the language gap. It's going to be hard getting beyond this without imposing on peoples right to flame someone. Let's face it, this is an open and free spirited project. I or anyone else has a right to bitch and complain at the expense of our own credibility. Also, sometimes that person on the other end deserves to be flamed. As far as the demographics of our group, and the deversity (or lack there of), I don't see much in the way to help that. We are a technical project, and we attract technical people. I don't see how our demographics differ any more than the typical work place. I have seen no sign of where a person's race, age, color, sexual preference, or gender has affected their ability to work in Debian, nor have I seen any hint of developer acceptance through NM being based on such factors. -- -----------=======-=-======-=========-----------=====------------=-=------ / Ben Collins -- ...on that fantastic voyage... -- Debian GNU/Linux \ ` bcollins@debian.org -- bcollins@openldap.org -- bcollins@linux.com ' `---=========------=======-------------=-=-----=-===-======-------=--=---'
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