Re: Why do you think you are a good candidate for DPL
On 2013-03-10 15:40, Martin Zobel-Helas wrote:
Why do you think you are a good candidate for the next DPL term?
Thanks for your question. I hope that my platform sheds some light on
this:
http://www.debian.org/vote/2013/platforms/moray
I would see these as some of the key points:
- I have already been working as a leader within DebConf for a number
of years in a way similar to how the DPL acts within overall Debian.
Although it rarely makes a lot of noise on the main Debian lists,
DebConf is a big subproject within Debian. It handles a large budget
every year and in addition to ongoing team members it recruits large
number of temporary volunteers from existing Debian contributors and
from people interested in contributing to Debian. I have learnt a lot
from working to coordinate the many required tasks among these
volunteers, many of whom are new each year, to make sure that each
conference is ready on time and within the available funds -- and from
mediating when there have been conflicts.
- I have been a regular package maintainer for about 10 years,
including being part of a small packaging team. While the amount of
time I have spent on DebConf work hasn't left me time for major
technical projects within Debian -- and while during my time as an
academic researcher, I didn't always want to spend my spare time doing
too much more pure technical work and programming -- I do think it's
important that DPL candidates should be in touch with how the great
majority of Debian members experience Debian through this working on
this kind of task, not only good at managing. (Among other things I
also work within the press and publicity teams, seeing another aspect of
Debian, and previously worked as an Application Manager in the NM
process.)
- As DPL I would work to make sure our teams are transparent, open and
communicative. I would like to encourage more turnover of members
between different teams so that teams share experience, and that
sources. I also would work to improve our external and local
communication abilities. Since most people who work on Debian are
volunteers, it is important that we continue to make Debian fun to work
in. I think that encouraging teams to think more about how they plan to
work with other parts of Debian, and encouraging more turnover of
members between different teams, would reduce the frequency of
inter-team conflict and make working in Debian more enjoyable. With
greater rotation between teams, people would be more likely to retire
from roles while they are still having fun and doing a good job, not
only when they run out of time for them and get worn out, and then able
to transfer the benefit of their experience to other areas of the
project.
In my platform I list a few of the topics that I am especially
interested in pushing forward on as DPL. I would welcome people's
suggestions on how to improve on the ideas I describe there. For
example, I would like us to look for new ways to pull people into making
their first contributions to Debian -- even among people who have been
helping with DebConf, I have met many who are interested in making
technical contributions to Debian but who can't find somewhere good to
start. As another example, I think that we should look at how we can
build closer relationships with companies and other organisations who
can help us to improve Debian in ways that are useful to them, by making
contributions themselves or by funding Debian.
--
Moray
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