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Re: Questions to the candidates



[ First of all, apologies for the delayed response; I'm catching up
  after several days of FOSDEM-plague :-( ]

Hi Kalle,

On Sun, Feb 25, 2007 at 07:57:21AM +0200, Kalle Kivimaa wrote:
>Now that we are well into the campaigning period, I'd like to ask each
>candidate a couple of questions. Feel free to say that "this is
>answered in my platform", if that is the case.
>
>What is the role of the DPL? Is he a strong leader, who uses his
>position to Get Things Done His Way, a public figurehead, who just
>Speaks For The Project, a mediator, who tries to solve internal
>squabbles, or something else?

The DPL can be all of the above, at various times. But my own
expectation of the DPL is that he/she should mainly help Debian by
helping everybody else get their work done. That can mean spending
money on hardware or shipping or meeting costs, or acting as mediator
in disputes, or promoting the good work that is done, or many other
things. It's an open-ended job.

>Do you feel that the DPL is first and foremost The Debian Project
>Leader, in the sense that anything Debian-related the DPL does, he
>does so as the DPL, not as a DD or a private person?

No, not necessarily. In my opinion, the DPL has a right to a normal,
separate life too. However, it seems that many people do have a
problem distinguishing between the DPL and the DD behind the job, so
the DPL needs to be careful where confusion of this sort may cause
problems.

>There are problems with communication between some key teams and
>the rest of the project. What solutions will you try to implement
>during the next year?

As I mention in my platform, I want to encourage regular updates from
each of the core teams, be they blog postings or messages like the
"bits from" mails that have become popular over the last couple of
years. If elected, I also plan to ask each of those teams for a status
report immediately afterwards - the DPL needs up-to-date information
at hand if he/she is to do a good job of working with those teams.

>How do you feel about spending Debian monies into buying core
>infrastructure support?

Where it's clear it will help, I'm quite happy to do so. On the
hardware side, I have already given money and hardware to help in the
past and I expect I will continue to do so in the future. On the
management side, I'm less convinced that it's a useful way to go but
I'm open to discussion.

>Currently just about every single conversation on -project and
>-vote degenerates immediately into a (minor) flame war. What will you
>do to fix the current atmosphere?

First of all, I'd like to ask the participants in those conversations
to consider exactly what they're trying to achive with their
messages. At the moment, some of us are rather too eager to
misinterpret things wherever possible, and to take delight in finding
fault in others. Neither of those are useful or constructive. That's
something we all need to think about.

Finally, I'm curious - where do you stand on these issues?

-- 
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.                                steve@einval.com
"I suspect most samba developers are already technically insane... Of
 course, since many of them are Australians, you can't tell." -- Linus Torvalds

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