Re: Q: Do you believe in Supercow?
On 2019/04/01 22:02, David Kalnischkies wrote:
> Hello DPL Candidates and fellow party-people,
Greeting to you, too.
> Debian's favorite package manager little sweet APT turned 21 today[0]
> and while looking into collecting stats for the 2019 update of the "APT
> for DPL Candidates"[1] article as stats about the prospective DPLs seem
> to be in demand[2] I had to wonder if the DPL candidates wanted to take
> the opportunity to "perhaps" "make" "nice" and "good" comments "maybe"
> about "absolutely" "valuable" "foss" "software" or on "ways" one "might"
> "focus" "work" on to "help" "make" "something" to "believe" in "easier".
I'm sorry but my little brain breaks after the 4th or 5th set of
airquotes already.
> You see, while researching for the update I noticed that you all have
> roughly the same standing as minor contributors¹ to apt which means that
> at the moment everything could happen in the election.
> In other words: Now is a good opportunity to sacrifice your Amulet of
> Yendor at the altar of Supercow to ascent to the DPL throne!
> Assuming you are believing in our almighty Supercow of course.
Yes, I have observed our special moo today
(https://twitter.com/highvoltage/status/1112705587417096193) and have
consumed shaken milky beverage as an apt tribute to cow.
> Mindless sweet talk might be boring through, so let me get some (wordy)
> questions you can dwell on as much as you like (to improve stats[2]):
Speaking of stats, my favourite word at the moment is "malleable". Sadly
I don't use it enough so it doesn't show up in my stats :(
> 1. I said you all mostly qualify as minor contributors, but that is
> based mostly on contributing in bugreports more than a decade ago.
> You are in good company through: I am the newbie in the fellowship of
> the cow even through I am only a few weeks away from my 10 year
> anniversary! Do you have any opinion on why it might be that way?
> Or better yet, an idea on how to change that?
I wouldn't worry so much about time if I were you. Time and space is
much more malleable than we realise. To prove this, I'm going nearly a
decade back in time and follow you all around and ask you everything I
can about APT and cow, brb...
Ok done, you should now have full memories of those events as they happened.
> 2. There are glimmers of dissatisfaction hidden between "bikesheds",
> "curl|sudo bash" and mentions of heretic tools like npm/yarn/cargo/….
> Given a timemachine, infinite funds and unquestioned management powers,
> what would you have made APT developers do one/two/five/ten/twenty years
> ago to make you happy now?
Well, at least I didn't mention Docker in my last post
([🔎] d9f47db0-0f4f-95fb-4769-53392f064e14@debian.org">https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/[🔎] d9f47db0-0f4f-95fb-4769-53392f064e14@debian.org).
I wouldn't "make" (yay I can use airquotes too) APT developers do
something per sé, I don't think it's the DPL's place to make anyone do
anything.
Infinite funds... hmm, is this a trick question to lead me back to
opinions about paid positions in Debian? Nice try ;)
There's been several discussions amongst Debianites at DebConfs that
have evolved (and maybe at times even devolved) over the years that
concern communes. I can't remember the first time I got introduced to
the idea but I think the actual first conversation I had with someone on
the topic was when Zlatan said that he wanted to build a house or
something where Debianites will always be welcome. Since then I've
fantasized about buying a large piece of cheap land somewhere not *too*
remote and building some structures on there that we can use to have a
debcamp of sorts any time we like. When we have that infinite funds at
our disposal, we can just go ahead and set up a global network of Debian
centers like this, hackspaces with accomodation and blistering fast
Internet in every country in the world with automated access control so
that any Debian Member can just show up and make use of the place. With
our fantastic working conditions, and infinite funds to pay for travel
and fine food at all our locations, we will attract the very best
volunteers to our project that will eagerly do your bidding.
If I *could* go back 20 years in time, I guess I might ask the APT
overlords to have considered Python instead of Perl, but my time machine
only goes back 10 years and we had that conversation back then already
so I won't get into it now again since it's only been minutes for me
since we had that conversation.
> 3. The package managers of the day of the languages of the day always
> seem to have a billion active contributors, hundreds of "nether knew
> I couldn't live without them before" features and are all around just
> great. Expect that they have this annoying problem solved by apt
> years ago, but all the advocates haven't realized it (yet). What is it?
No idea, I don't have an aptitude for riddles.
> 4. There is always the lingering question if Debian might become more or
> less important in the future, but asking you that seems unfair as most
> of you will not have a crystal ball. So my more realistic and totally
> technically objective question is: Do you believe APT will be more or
> less important (within Debian) in the future?
I hope it will continue to be as important as it is now. Additionally, I
hope it expands in scope to replace some of the fads that are gaining
lots of attention right now but not much traction. I'm not really sure
how the APT maintainers see that, so I'm going to throw it right at you
and ask... what do you think APT can do in the future? Do you think that
the things I mentioned in my mail referenced above is even possible
and/or useful?
> 5. Using the timemachine from before we move all past, present & future
> APT team members to a room on the 1st April 2040. How large do we need
> to make that bikeshed and what color will it have? And while we are
> talking bikeshed: What will be the major discussion points there?
On that date, APT will be exactly 42 years old, so it will contain the
answers to life, the universe and everything. I will be 58 and sleep on
beds made out of money that I made from the 2K38 bug. Among our network
of communes, we will have sheds in every colour that you can present in
a 24 bit hex code.
Again on bikesheds, I probably care more on your opinion on this than
you care about mine. There does seem to be clear separation between
scope and consequences of bikesheds and APT... or do you see a
connection and timeline that I don't?
> 6. Have you mooed today?
> (or as I am asking about the 1st: Have you smashed some milk today?)
Already duly answered along with evidence.
> 7. I would have liked to give you 21 questions, but a ⅓ of that seems
> fine & I don't want to take too much of your time – and Supercow and
> I have some partying to do, so perhaps you have (half of) an answer
> already prepared you want to share with us but nobody has managed to
> ask the right question yet (so that the next apt release will be
> a botnet calculating the question)?
Questions are very malleable so I tend to shape them so that I can cover
a lot of important bases.
> [I am of course 100% serious and expect as much in return given that
> it will show your voters how well you are equipped to deal with poor
> attempts at humor and uninspired interview questions from the press]
I can assure you that I will never take you anything less than 100%
seriously.
> Moo Moo Moo,
And three fine moos to you too, sir.
-Jonathan
> ¹ the jury is still out on Mr. Carter given there is not a single record
> of him on deity@, but he made a video about APT and talked to a high-
> priest of Supercow at DebConfs so he might still get a hall pass.
Juries are very malleable too.
--
⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ Jonathan Carter (highvoltage) <jcc>
⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ This email contains no easter eggs.
⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋ https://debian.org | https://jonathancarter.org
⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀ http://people.ubuntu.com/~jonathan/moo/
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