Re: DPL: friction in Debian?
Dear Lars,
Firstly, my sincere apologies for the delay in getting back to you
on this. It kept bubbling up to the top of my TODO only to be replaced
by other concerns, not least of which included some sleep.
I hope others are not deterred from writing to -vote based on the
tardiness of this reply!
> given that the dpl doesn't actually lead the technical developoment
> work of debian, i'd be most interested in non-technical sources of
> friction. for example, processes, organisational structure, an
> resource congenstion.
That's a very deep question with no possible short reply. :)
I wouldn't deny that there are some processes that could be improved or
otherwise streamlined (NEW, some specific team interactions,
reimbursements, etc.) but I wouldn't agree with Rousseau that «man is
born free but everywhere in chains»... at least in the context of
Debian.
I am very interested in (and read a lot about) the psychological and
social aspects of software development and on wider topics of
"productivity" in general.
This has led me to believe that most of the "congestion" you refer to
probably happens in people's own minds and is not necessarily imposed
by some outside structure.
For example, I see a lot of Developers are "shy" about putting themselves
forward on the (stated) grounds that they don't believe they are qualified,
a particular project "belongs" to someone else, or even that "they are not
100% certain it is a bug" yet so they don't end up filing anything in the
BTS. This is often quite tragic and a little painful for me to watch from
a distance.
Moving the culture so that people feel freer to make more mistakes — even
non-reversible ones! — would not only would encourage more contributions
in a purely numerical sense, it would also make Debian development more
welcoming and, frankly, more fun for all.
We already know how to do this, such as not biting each other's heads off
of appearing to gloat in others' blunders, we just need to be more careful
in our own interactions and — perhaps — gently nudging others when they
cross over the line in their admonishments.
Again, that's not to say some parts of the organisation could do with
tidying up. Indeed, often the situation could be dramatically improved
simply by communicating *why* there is some rule or process in place,
otherwise it can be viewed as just a tedious process or even interpreted
as a deliberate attempt to centralise power.
Just as one example, the NEW queue process certainly has some of these
"Chesterton's Fences" [0] at the moment, and making it more transparent
and descriptive in places would — even without changing any underlying
process at all, which I do note is also being discussed — would vastly
improve the sentiment about that.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton's_fence
Best wishes,
--
,''`.
: :' : Chris Lamb
`. `'` lamby@debian.org / chris-lamb.co.uk
`-
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