On Mon, Mar 22, 2004 at 10:11:20AM +0100, David N. Welton wrote:
> Do you think it's possible for Debian to have a leader anymore?
One of the difficulties in leading Debian is making sure you're going
somewhere people want to go. To take a simple example, consider the
non-free thing: we've had all the DPL candidates, the SPI president,
and a whole bunch of influential developers trying to lead the project
in a direction they think's useful. If the CEO of Red Hat, or the board
of directors, was trying to do the same thing, that project would've
followed -- some people might've quit, or there might've been other
consequences, but that project would've followed their appointed leaders.
> Frankly, the most exciting development in Debian I've seen lately is
> Bruce Perens' UserLinux, [...]
For example, as well as the many things Bruce came up with that worked
out, he also proposed things like switching us to rpm, and dropping
packages like "bitchx" to make the distribution more approachable to
more people, or the Debian chicken, or the "deity" codename, or whatever
else. Bruce was, effectively, hounded out of the project two or three
times for his efforts.
I don't really think Debian's much easier or harder to lead -- or needs
it any more or any less -- people are just choosing not to do it, given
there are pretty good odds of people not wanting to follow, and whether
the project agrees with you or not, you're probably going to get pretty
vociferously disagreed with: eg, "Why Anthony Towns is wrong" is one of
the top ten hits on google when I egosearch these days.
I dunno, the question isn't so much whether Debian *can* be led, or
whether we've got people who could lead the project to good places, it
seems, to me, more one of whether it wants to be led. For example, after
the non-free vote, one of the first blog entries about it is Josselin's:
Non-free zealots are everywhere
I had very few hope for the non-free GR to pass, but still,
such a result is disappointing. Sad to see that Debian is not
about free software, even among Debian developers.
At the moment, the only people who'll want to help lead Debian are those
of us who just don't give a shit what people who disagree with them
think. Is that really remotely healthy? Are we willing to do anything
about it, or does everyone value the ability to call each other zealots
more than that?
(Is there any chance we can reach a consensus on an issue like this,
or should we have a GR to come to a solution and kick everyone who
disagrees with whatever resolution out of the project? The results from
the non-free GR sure made it seem like we don't have a lot of skill at
finding a middle ground, or reaching an amicable compromise.)
> [...] Not that I'm not grateful [...], just... I want a coherent core +
> aptable addons.
So the problem with this is still the same as it's always been:
"aptable addons" and the idea that you can split Debian into distinct
components and work on the independently doesn't really work: there are
bunches of packages that need to be synced with packages across whatever
sections you like to choose (ones that need to be updated whenever any
of postgresql, mysql, gnome, kde, perl, python, or apache change, eg),
and in any event our major problems with releasing aren't in the add-ons
they're in the core: getting glibc releasable, getting X current and
releasable, and getting something that'll install new the Debian base
system have all been signifiant long term problems over the past few
years, two of which are still yet to be resolved.
> PS Really, I mean no disrespect to Martin or any other past leaders.
> The ones I've met have been very nice individuals. Maybe too nice
> to kick some ass and make things happen?:-)
When the people who do try to actively lead the project, or defend
its principles in a visible way get beaten into the ground at every
opportunity, are you really surprised that our recent leaders haven't
really tried kicking asses, or that our tech ctte is fairly inactive and
actively avoids resolving some issues, or that our policy team aims to
only document existing practice rather than set new standards?
Basically, as it stands people seem quite happy to say "we want
more leadership" or "we want more chicks in debian" or "we want more
transparency", or any number of other things, but by our actions at least,
it seems more like what we really want is somewhere we can say whatever
we think, and abuse anyone who doesn't think the same.
Cheers,
aj
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.
Linux.conf.au 2004 -- Because we could.
http://conf.linux.org.au/ -- Jan 12-17, 2004
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature