On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 01:31:08PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: > For example, I would question whether one could do the role of DPL with a > conventional full-time job in IT, at least if you want to keep any other > hobbies outside of those two jobs. The amount of media and expected > travel to represent Debian is rather intimidating (particularly to an > introvert), as are the number of things that are relatively > time-sensitive and require a lot of effort. Thanks for providing the background for a question I wanted to ask! I totally agree with you and I'm worried about that. I've been lucky in having the flexibility needed to be DPL and I wish the same flexibility to the next DPL. But, in terms of Debian sustainability, I'm worried that we de facto rely on people having that kind of flexibility to be good DPLs. I believe we are losing, via preemptive self-selection, many good candidates (from IT or other fields) for precisely that reason. The ground shaking question to all candidates is then: what do you think of providing a DPL salary using Debian funds? I know it is a touchy topic, and I propose it on purpose :-P ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Some further thoughts to foster the discussion: - obviously, this is not something that a DPL could propose for him/herself, due to conflict of interest. If it has to happen, it should be as a project initiative, to be applied starting to the next term, opt-out, etc. - some of the "dunc-tank objections" do not apply to this case, because the DPL is the sole elected role in the project. As such it is already "different" from other volunteers, the difference will not be created by the salary, only acknowledged to make the job sustainable and more appealing. It is also a role that de facto demands to take significant time off your day to day job (on that front, however, it is not the only one --- DSA and security come to mind due to the need of handling emergencies, and there are others) - several other, volunteer driven, independent organizations are paying their "leaders" using donated money since quite a while: both GNOME and the FSF pay their executive directors, and there are other examples - invariably, the salaries paid in those settings are significantly lower than IT market salaries; but they still allow to be in that role full-time, although surely not for greed when compared to alternatives - deciding to pay the DPL is likely a one-way step, from which it will be hard to get back (there are studies showing that in volunteer communities the motivation for doing something for free will be irremediably lost once you offer remuneration) - we do have money, but paying a salary on a yearly basis is something that could make a significant dent in our reserves and, more importantly, in our fund-raising efforts to make it sustainable - paying DPL in different parts of the world over time will be tricky and might be very hard to do (properly) in specific countries due to embargoes and the like ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I'll happily take bets on the size of this sub-thread. Cheers. -- Stefano Zacchiroli . . . . . . . zack@upsilon.cc . . . . o . . . o . o Maître de conférences . . . . . http://upsilon.cc/zack . . . o . . . o o Debian Project Leader . . . . . . @zack on identi.ca . . o o o . . . o . « the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »
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