Re: Question for DPL candidates: delegation
Hi Ian,
On 21/03/2017 12:10, Ian Jackson wrote:
> The DPL role is generally thought to be rather large and does seem to
> be subject to burnout. But, the DPL can delegate whole areas of
I do not think the DPL role is still subject to burnout. It certainly
requires some commitment but it is in no case something that requires
extraordinary powers or superhuman energy. At least, not anymore.
> responsibility. At the moment DPL delegates are mostly longstanding
> core teams such as ftpmaster and DAM. We have also had the
> semi-formal "DPL helpers" but they didn't have delegated authority.
>
> Do you intend to make more use of delegation ? In what areas of DPL
> responsibility ? Do you envisage delegating individual issues on an
> ad-hoc basis, or whole areas to new or existing teams ? Do you
> envisage sending out public calls for volunteers ?
>
I am all in favor of avoiding concentration of powers as I think it may
cause harm to our project to solely focus powers and expectations on a
single person. It is also even more important to avoid such situations
when we know DPL terms last only for 1 year. Some subjects require
stability and ability to plan for more than a year. So keeping the DPL
as sole decision-make on such subjects is not a smart decision.
As of now, DPL has been in charge of approving expenses. I am not
convinced we should keep doing that in the long term. My idea would be to
develop a few specific teams in charge of approving and dealing with specific
kind of expenditures and another team to collect donations. I can imagine
a team formed with representatives of the following teams:
- DSA (hardware and hosting part and everything needed to run Debian's
infrastructure like domain names and SSL certificates, if still necessary)
- DebConf Committee (to specify DebConf needs)
- Outreach team (for Debian's participation in outreach programs)
- Partners team (for collecting donations for Debian)
- Roadmap team (to request a budget for sprints related to the roadmap and
possibly general sprints).
Each team can be autonomous on its perimeter. The DPL could allocate shares
(or specific budget lines) for each team. They will be delegated to handle
expenses on their respective area of activity. A few times every year (e.g. 3 or
4), we can make a financial review. This will help us to produce more easily
a financial report at the end of the year.
So, in general, yes, I am in favor of making more delegations when contribution
of the DPL is not required or not the best fit for the task.
> Would you look favourably on unsolicited requests from a contributor,
> to have limited powers delegated to them to deal with a matter that
> contributor wants to try to see fixed ?
>
I am certainly in favor of enabling people to do more stuff, especially
when their work benefits to the project at large. So I could delegate
them temporarily (or not, depending on the task) with specific powers to
make their subject move forward. But, motivation is not enough. They
also have to show ability to work with the rest of the project w/o raising
much concern from their fellow DDs and the delegation must not be covered
by the work of another team/delegation/role. So I guess some situations
would require mediation and discussion. Delegations can be powerful but they
are not a magical tool to solve all problems.
Regards,
--
Mehdi
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