On Sep 25, Gorkem Cetin wrote > I'm not sure if this is the right mailing list, if not flame me :)
It is (more or less). > We've (the turkish linux user group) been working on a turkish linux > distribution for some time. Its main purpose is to help users whose native > lang is not english.. It attracted many people here, and everything goes > fine by now . We're in the stage of discussing of packages and menu > systems. If you're considering using Debian as a basis for it, you might want to join the debian-i18n list, which deals with internationalization issues in Debian. > I want to ask to old debian gurus how they did the scheduling, timing, > motivating people, updating the packages, leading the project, etc. . > Thought it'd be time saving to learn about mistakes and difficulties > you've made during the development stage of debian .. I think that one could write a whole book about the management side of freeware development. I don't feel like writing that now. So, I'll keep it short here. My opinion about what Debian did and still does right is: open development. Aspects of openness: public mailing lists and public bugtracking system provide both strongly structured and less strongly structured forms of communicating among developers and between developers and users; users can easily become developers etc. See e.g. http://www.ccil.org/~esr/writings/cathedral.html Aspects of development: clear technical responsibilities (one maintainer per package; other aspects (ftp, www, docs) also have one person as head), but with an open attitude (no "territorialism": maintainers welcome feedback; non-maintainer releases can be done when needed); good communication with "upstream" developers (through the bugtracking system). Emphasis on doing things (technically) right, rather than give in to pressures like "the rest of the world does <something> <this way>, why doesn't Debian?" HTH, Ray -- POPULATION EXPLOSION Unique in human experience, an event which happened yesterday but which everyone swears won't happen until tomorrow. - The Hipcrime Vocab by Chad C. Mulligan -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
