Re: quantity of DPL candidates?

[Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

Paul Wise writes ("quantity of DPL candidates?"):
> Any thoughts on the low amount of DPL candidates this year? The only
> year we have had a sole candidate was when zack ran for second-term
> re-election in 2011, which is a quite different situation to this one,
> where the previous DPL is not running for re-election.
> 
> How do you think this situation reflects on the health of the Debian project?

I think it reflects the fact that being the DPL is an unfortunately
large commitment for a single person.

There have been various proposals to replace the single DPL with a
board, which I think are a good idea.  But I worry that decisionmaking
would be too slow if everything had to be done by committee.  Perhaps
we could have a board which granted each board member broad authority
(which they would be expected to exercise for urgent or
uncontroversial matters) and left within-board voting to dealing with
controversies or big decisions.

Ian.