RE: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Fuentes, Adolfo]

Well, then the problem I think is that people don't get to know what we all 
already know: That Debian is perhaps the best distro (in general terms). As 
Paul Wise commented, we need more promotion and more people creating 
screenshots. At least this would be the easiest and cheapest way to start with 
helping users discover these features.

Sincerely, Adolfo

---
Department of Chemistry -- Surface Science Research Centre
University of Liverpool
Crown Street
Liverpool, L69 7ZD
United Kingdom

"Treat the Earth well. It was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned 
to you by your children." (Ancient native American Indian proverb)

From: paul.is.w...@gmail.com [paul.is.w...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Paul Wise 
[p...@debian.org]
Sent: 22 July 2010 07:09
To: debian-devel@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number  
of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 1:38 AM, Hans-J. Ullrich  wrote:

> Group 1 can be interested, either when there are Debian (and I mean really
> Debian, not derivates like Ubuntu) preinstalled Computers available. These
> should be easily configurable. A graphical interface (for example in the style
> of webmin) is absolutely necessary. There are a lot of people outside, which
> are NOT gamers, but like internet surfing, need office, e-mail and other 
> stuff.

A couple of netbook models ship with Debian:

http://wiki.debian.org/Hardware/ShippingWithDebian

> Group 2 IMO can only be motivated, if it will be possible, to prove customers
> and distributors, that a fine installed debian is running much faster than a
> windows system. I imagine, that preconfigured "gaming images" or "-packages"
> might help them.

The Debian games team created goplay to help users discover games in
Debian. Perhaps this needs more promotion and more people creating
screenshots and probably a rewrite to look more flashy.

--
bye,
pabs

http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise


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Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Paul Wise]

On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 1:38 AM, Hans-J. Ullrich  wrote:

> Group 1 can be interested, either when there are Debian (and I mean really
> Debian, not derivates like Ubuntu) preinstalled Computers available. These
> should be easily configurable. A graphical interface (for example in the style
> of webmin) is absolutely necessary. There are a lot of people outside, which
> are NOT gamers, but like internet surfing, need office, e-mail and other 
> stuff.

A couple of netbook models ship with Debian:

http://wiki.debian.org/Hardware/ShippingWithDebian

> Group 2 IMO can only be motivated, if it will be possible, to prove customers
> and distributors, that a fine installed debian is running much faster than a
> windows system. I imagine, that preconfigured "gaming images" or "-packages"
> might help them.

The Debian games team created goplay to help users discover games in
Debian. Perhaps this needs more promotion and more people creating
screenshots and probably a rewrite to look more flashy.

-- 
bye,
pabs

http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise


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Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users

[Ben Finney]

Russ Allbery  writes:

> This one [claim of Debian's libraries being out-of-date] always
> boggles me and makes me wonder if we should present Debian unstable or
> testing as the "typical" installation. Debian testing (and often
> Debian unstable) is more stable than the distributions with equivalent
> up-to-date libraries, and those distributions generally never offer
> anything remotely like Debian stable. (RHEL is considerably more
> unstable than Debian stable *and* has even older software, for
> example.)

Which of the above uses of “stable” refers to stability (“slow rate of
change”), and which refers to reliability (“high likelihood of working
when needed”)? Too many conversations conflate the two, and in this case
I think the distinction is important.

-- 
 \ “To save the world requires faith and courage: faith in reason, |
  `\and courage to proclaim what reason shows to be true.” |
_o__)—Bertrand Russell |
Ben Finney


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Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Lucas Nussbaum]

On 22/07/10 at 14:22 +1000, Russell Coker wrote:
> On Thu, 22 Jul 2010, Lucas Nussbaum  wrote:
> > > That's an interesting idea.  But where is the money going to come from?
> > 
> > This idea is likely to get so much people against it that it's not worth
> > discussing.
> 
> Involvement of Debian funds would cause problems, but there are other options.
> 
> We could have Debian maintain a list of consultants and companies that 
> provide 
> phone and Jabber support.  Also a mapping of consultants to areas of 
> expertise 
> would be good (EG if someone happens to need some paid expert advice on 
> Debian 
> SE Linux ;).

We currently have 827 consultants in 64 countries listed on
http://www.debian.org/consultants/, which is pretty easy to find. It's
true that this listing could be improved, but still, it's there (also,
you are not listed).

> Maybe we could have an IRC channel where people could post questions like "I 
> want to pay $50 per hour to have someone fix a bug in my Perl code on 
> Debian/Lenny".  If such a channel was available then I'd occasionally use it 
> for my clients, early last year one DD got a small series of $US100 contracts 
> through me that probably took him about 30 mins each to complete - that's a 
> rate of $US200 per hour and the client was totally happy!
> 
> With some of these jobs the faster the response is the more the client is 
> willing to pay.  If you can fix something within the next hour the client 
> will 
> often pay twice what they would pay to have it fixed tomorrow.  In the past 
> I've had ongoing requirements for rapid expert advice on Perl in Debian/Lenny 
> and PHP with libraries backported to Lenny from Squeeze which I couldn't find 
> adequate resources in a small enough amount of time.

So what you are proposing is that an entity would setup a service where
users would post support requests (or development requests), and
developers would, sometimes, pick up the offers and get paid for that.

While I would be totally against using Debian funds to set up such a
service, there's nothing preventing someone from investigating the idea
of creating a company that would provide that service without the
official endorsement of Debian. However, there are several problems:
- are there enough potential clients? If they are willing to pay, why
  would they choose this instead of one of the 827 consultants we
  already have listed?
- is it legally possible/easy to do? this would potentially involve
  developers from many countries with different regulations.
- are there enough interested developers?

This doesn't seem very different from bounty-sponsored development. It
has been tried before. Why did it fail?

L.


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Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Russ Allbery]

Will  writes:
> 1, 2010 at 10:36 PM, Russ Allbery  wrote:

>> This one always boggles me and makes me wonder if we should present
>> Debian unstable or testing as the "typical" installation.  Debian
>> testing (and often Debian unstable) is more stable than the
>> distributions with equivalent up-to-date libraries, and those
>> distributions generally never offer anything remotely like Debian
>> stable.  (RHEL is considerably more unstable than Debian stable *and*
>> has even older software, for example.)

> Are you serious?

Yes.

> What about the stability Debian is known for? IMHO, this totally ruins
> the point of Debian. Back when I first started using Linux, I always
> heard that Debian == Stability. And now as a server admin, I like how
> little Debian changes, and how you can expect almost no breakages when
> upgrading stable. I can't get that from most other distros; that's why I
> pick Debian as my server Linux of choice.

That's the point.  You have a distribution that works like all the rest
with the latest and greatest software (often even faster than other
distributions in some places) AND if you want you can get a wonderfully
stable distribution that's unlike anything else.

People who say they don't run Debian because the software it provides is
too old have no idea what Debian is actually like, and we don't do a very
good job of educating them.  It's both a better fast-changing distribution
like Fedora than Fedora and a better stable distribution like Red Hat
Enterprise than Red Hat Enterprise.  You can pick and still be running
Debian.

-- 
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org)   


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Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Josef Spillner]

In data giovedì, 22. di luglio 2010 02:07:16, Raphael Geissert ha scritto:
> The problem with HTTP submissions is that there must be able to connect to
> the server when the cronjob is run.

Or, alternatively, use any of the thousand message queuing systems which are 
shipping with Debian which support transaction safety through retransmission 
attempts.

Josef


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Re: Anyone collected historical data for popcons of derivative(s)?

[Ansgar Burchardt]

Hi,

Yaroslav Halchenko  writes:

> On Wed, 21 Jul 2010, Ansgar Burchardt wrote:
>> I grabbed the data since December 2009 (the file linked as "was
>> popularity-contest results" on http://popcon.ubuntu.com/).  If that is
>> enough for your purposes, I can make it available.  I also filed a bug
>> on Launchpad [1] to make graphs and historic data available, but got
>> no response so far.
> I saw your post and website when was "researching" the situation --
> thanks!  I think it would be great for my current purpose -- please
> share.  I will also inquire webmas...@u.c and will CC you for the
> reference.  Thanks again

They are available on http://ubuntu-popcon.43-1.org/data/.

Regards,
Ansgar


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Re: Upstream Tracker

[Raphael Geissert]

Paul Wise wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 7:09 PM, Andrey Ponomarenko 
> wrote:
> 
>> Suggestions for libraries inclusion and feature/bug requests are very
>> welcome. Thanks!
> 
> I'd suggest looking at each library in Debian and seeing which
> libraries you are missing that have very high numbers of reverse
> dependencies and which have very high numbers of recursive reverse
> dependencies. You could also search the BTS for bugs about ABI issues
> and include any libraries affected by those.

Ideally, why not include every single library in Debian?

Some months ago I saw Andrey's announcement[1] of the API sanity check tool 
in Gentoo's QA mailing list and started working on it in an attempt to check 
every library in Debian. I didn't go far with it, but it was mostly a matter 
of lack of time. "Upstream Tracker" is more complete and we should really 
try to use it and integrate it in our processes.

I don't know what's the capacity and support for the idea of checking all of 
Debian's libraries that the Linux Verification Center is willing to give, 
but I'm sure we could find a .d.o machine to host a copy of the tool if 
needed.

[1]http://mid.gmane.org/4b7ad30b.8040...@ispras.ru

Cheers,
-- 
Raphael Geissert - Debian Developer
www.debian.org - get.debian.net


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Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Manoj Srivastava]

On Wed, Jul 21 2010, Will wrote:

> Also I imagine that it helps that they have some kind of commercial
> support behind their projects, whereas Debian has little/none of that.

One of the  issues I have faced in trying to get Debian
 introduced in big companies is the percieved lack of a coherent
 copyright; and company lawyers being uncomfortable with the concept
 that most licesnse pass the dfsg, but we can't guarantee that, please
 go read several thoudand individual license docs to figure out what you
 are getting.

manoj
-- 
Knowing that one is dear to oneself, one should guard oneself well. For
one out of the three watches of the night a wise man should keep watch.
Manoj Srivastava    
4096R/C5779A1C E37E 5EC5 2A01 DA25 AD20  05B6 CF48 9438 C577 9A1C


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Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Russell Coker]

On Thu, 22 Jul 2010, Lucas Nussbaum  wrote:
> > That's an interesting idea.  But where is the money going to come from?
> 
> This idea is likely to get so much people against it that it's not worth
> discussing.

Involvement of Debian funds would cause problems, but there are other options.

We could have Debian maintain a list of consultants and companies that provide 
phone and Jabber support.  Also a mapping of consultants to areas of expertise 
would be good (EG if someone happens to need some paid expert advice on Debian 
SE Linux ;).

Maybe we could have an IRC channel where people could post questions like "I 
want to pay $50 per hour to have someone fix a bug in my Perl code on 
Debian/Lenny".  If such a channel was available then I'd occasionally use it 
for my clients, early last year one DD got a small series of $US100 contracts 
through me that probably took him about 30 mins each to complete - that's a 
rate of $US200 per hour and the client was totally happy!

With some of these jobs the faster the response is the more the client is 
willing to pay.  If you can fix something within the next hour the client will 
often pay twice what they would pay to have it fixed tomorrow.  In the past 
I've had ongoing requirements for rapid expert advice on Perl in Debian/Lenny 
and PHP with libraries backported to Lenny from Squeeze which I couldn't find 
adequate resources in a small enough amount of time.

-- 
russ...@coker.com.au
http://etbe.coker.com.au/  My Main Blog
http://doc.coker.com.au/   My Documents Blog


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Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Will]

1, 2010 at 10:36 PM, Russ Allbery  wrote:
> "Fuentes, Adolfo"  writes:
>
>> - If the user is experienced, they argue that the libraries are somehow
>> old compared to other distros, with cutting-edge software. Here it
>> depends on individuals, since I prefer the solid-rock stability of
>> Debian to the problem of upgrading systems regularly.
>
> This one always boggles me and makes me wonder if we should present Debian
> unstable or testing as the "typical" installation.  Debian testing (and
> often Debian unstable) is more stable than the distributions with
> equivalent up-to-date libraries, and those distributions generally never
> offer anything remotely like Debian stable.  (RHEL is considerably more
> unstable than Debian stable *and* has even older software, for example.)
>
> --
> Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org)               
>
>
> --
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>
>

Are you serious? What about the stability Debian is known for? IMHO,
this totally ruins the point of Debian. Back when I first started
using Linux, I always heard that Debian == Stability. And now as a
server admin, I like how little Debian changes, and how you can expect
almost no breakages when upgrading stable. I can't get that from most
other distros; that's why I pick Debian as my server Linux of choice.

If people think this is a problem with Debian, rather than a feature,
then Debian just isn't for them, and I don't think Debian should try
and meet every single use case out there. Granted my opinion really
doesn't count in the long run, but I choose Debian stable for servers
because of its stability. Testing and unstable just don't cut it for
servers in my book.

-- 
-Will Orr


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Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Russ Allbery]

"Fuentes, Adolfo"  writes:

> - If the user is experienced, they argue that the libraries are somehow
> old compared to other distros, with cutting-edge software. Here it
> depends on individuals, since I prefer the solid-rock stability of
> Debian to the problem of upgrading systems regularly.

This one always boggles me and makes me wonder if we should present Debian
unstable or testing as the "typical" installation.  Debian testing (and
often Debian unstable) is more stable than the distributions with
equivalent up-to-date libraries, and those distributions generally never
offer anything remotely like Debian stable.  (RHEL is considerably more
unstable than Debian stable *and* has even older software, for example.)

-- 
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org)   


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RE: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[j jj]

hi, all

>From point of software developer,  people who use computer can be divided into 
>3 groups:

1.  just user. 

 They just want to use computer, not anything else.  Maybe all the 4 groups 
mentioned by hans.ullrich can be put here. For those people, debian is 
obviously not the first/best choise. 

2. normal software developer.

 This group includes 90% software developers and 90% commercial software 
companies. To reduce the development cost, they must limit the development time 
and limit the packages used in developping.  For example, a lot of coders use 
only gtk/qt, nothing else. For those people, debian is also not the first/best 
choise. 

3. advanced software developer.

    This is the only group who benefit from the rich of debian package. 
Unfortunately it is very few.


regards,
j






> From: hans.ullr...@loop.de
> To: debian-devel@lists.debian.org
> Subject: Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The 
> number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling
> Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 19:38:02 +0200
>
> Hi community,
>
> well, I think, the main problem is, WHO are the persons, you want to
> actiuvate.
>
> During my meanwhile 15 years activity in my it-job, I met mostly several main
> groups of people:
>
> Group 1: people, who are not interested, whatever OS they are using, as long
> as it is working. They do not care of costs or freedom. They never change
> anything on their computers and they even do not know, what they are doing at
> all. This is the biggest group.
>
> Group 2. Gamers - they use their computer just for games, and they do also not
> care of the OS, as long as the games are running on their computers. Sadly
> most of the games are running only in windows (sigh).
>
> Group 3: Systemadmins - Yes, there are a lot of sysadmins out there, who are
> not able to see the difference between Linux and Windows server systems. IMO
> these people will bring the most power into debian, if you can motivate them.
>
> Group 4: People, who decide in business, which OS to use.
>
>
> There are some smaller groups, too, but let me just suggest, how these biggest
> groups could be interested.
>
> Group 1 can be interested, either when there are Debian (and I mean really
> Debian, not derivates like Ubuntu) preinstalled Computers available. These
> should be easily configurable. A graphical interface (for example in the style
> of webmin) is absolutely necessary. There are a lot of people outside, which
> are NOT gamers, but like internet surfing, need office, e-mail and other 
> stuff.
>
>
> Group 2 IMO can only be motivated, if it will be possible, to prove customers
> and distributors, that a fine installed debian is running much faster than a
> windows system. I imagine, that preconfigured "gaming images" or "-packages"
> might help them.
>
> Group 3: I think, there can be nothing done, than to develop clickable
> interfaces, as windows sysadmins are used to this style of administration.
> Sorry, please be not angry, but 90 percent windows sysadmins I met in my life,
> were lazy, did never read manuals and expected everything to be worked by a
> mouse click (sigh!).
>
> Group 4: Business deciders are a big problem. They only see money! But I
> think, if you want to convince them, then you need a web prensentation or a
> presentation at all, who makes the idea of debian clear: save costs through
> the work of a community , development will be guaranteed in the future, use of
> real standards, more power for less money, no license problems and some other
> things I forgot. For those people, a presentation should be developed by
> people, who create professionell advertisements.
>
>
> Well, those are IMO the biggest groups of computer users. I estimate all
> together about 80 percent. If you can win only 1/3 of them, then it will be a
> big step.
>
> But the question is: Is that really, what you want?
>
>
> Best regards
>
> Hans-J. Ullrich
>
>
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Re: Upstream Tracker

[Paul Wise]

On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 7:09 PM, Andrey Ponomarenko  wrote:

> Suggestions for libraries inclusion and feature/bug requests are very
> welcome. Thanks!

I'd suggest looking at each library in Debian and seeing which
libraries you are missing that have very high numbers of reverse
dependencies and which have very high numbers of recursive reverse
dependencies. You could also search the BTS for bugs about ABI issues
and include any libraries affected by those.

-- 
bye,
pabs

http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise


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RE: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Fuentes, Adolfo]

Well, whille trying to convince people to use Debian instead of Ubuntu, Fedora 
or OpenSuse, I always encounter one of these two questions:

- If the user is inexperienced, they argue that Debian is "complicated to use". 
Perhaps this is due to a marketing campaign that other distros have claiming 
that is "Linux for human beings" and related.

- If the user is experienced, they argue that the libraries are somehow old 
compared to other distros, with cutting-edge software. Here it depends on 
individuals, since I prefer the solid-rock stability of Debian to the problem 
of upgrading systems regularly.

I hope this is of any use.

Sincerely, Adolfo

---
Department of Chemistry -- Surface Science Research Centre
University of Liverpool
Crown Street
Liverpool, L69 7ZD
United Kingdom

"Treat the Earth well. It was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned 
to you by your children." (Ancient native American Indian proverb)

From: Will [ay1...@gmail.com]
Sent: 22 July 2010 01:12
To: Jesús M. Navarro
Cc: debian-devel@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number  
of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

2010/7/21 Jesús M. Navarro :
> Hi, Hans:
>
> On Wednesday 21 July 2010 19:38:02 Hans-J. Ullrich wrote:
>> Hi community,
>>
>> well, I think, the main problem is, WHO are the persons, you want to
>> actiuvate.
>
> [...]
>
>> Group 4: People, who decide in business, which OS to use.
>
> [...]
>
>> Group 4: Business deciders are a big problem. They only see money!
>
> There's nothing inherently wrong with that, specially when Debian can help on
> this front too.
>
>> But I
>> think, if you want to convince them, then you need a web prensentation or a
>> presentation at all, who makes the idea of debian clear: save costs through
>> the work of a community , development will be guaranteed in the future, use
>> of real standards, more power for less money, no license problems and some
>> other things I forgot. For those people, a presentation should be developed
>> by people, who create professionell advertisements.
>
> That's an old rant of mine.  Not exactly "colorful shiny brochures" but, yes,
> being able to make a discourse to reach their ears in a language that they
> are able to understand.  On this, I think DPL can say and do a lot.
>
> I always asked myself (rethoric question, since I have my own answer) why is
> it the case that hardware and even proprietary software vendors (Dell, IBM,
> HP, Oracle, SAP...) don't use Debian as their base platform of choice given
> its obvious monetary and strategic advantages to them and go instead with,
> say, Red Hat or SUSE.
>
> With Debian there's no risk for them to be stabbed in the back if wind
> changes; there's no need for signing "early access" programs for them to know
> what will happen on the next release or going into a market tit-for-tat,
> heck, with only a little of fair play and time they can even have an obvious
> direct impact being the very driving force that makes Debian advance in the
> direction that better suits them (anyone can be a DD and anyone can make a
> difference with its own work; this is basically a meritocracy, after all)
> without need of dealing with CxOs of other companies with different agendas
> and even competing goals.
>
> With this in mind *why* IBM, Oracle, Dell... are not literally rushing for
> Debian -on the premise that *I* would benefit from that in the form of more
> man hours even for boring things, better hardware support or
> more "enterprise-grade" tools?
>
> My opinion is that happens because IBM, Oracle, Dell... big boys go playing
> golf with Red Hat or SUSE big guys but they don't know a Debian big boy to
> talk to and because of this they don't know the message Debian could bring to
> them (since they don't listen to "minions", they only listen to their pairs).
>
> That's where the DPL can help a lot: by acting to those big guys as one of
> them.  Somehow in their minds, Ellison, Dell, Zacchiroli... should resound
> as "birds of a feather" as much as possible.
>
> Is Ubuntu any better platform for Oracle to run their Database or for Dell to
> certify their hardware than Debian?  I don't think so.  How is it then that
> they do with this relatively new kid in the block what they haven't done with
> Debian in more than a decade?  My answer is that Ubuntu has a Shuttleworth to
> talk to them, face to face, in their same language but Debian do not.
>
> Cheers.
>
>
> --
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>

Also I imagine that it helps that they have some kind of commercial
support behind their projects, whereas Debian has little/none of that.

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Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Will]

2010/7/21 Jesús M. Navarro :
> Hi, Hans:
>
> On Wednesday 21 July 2010 19:38:02 Hans-J. Ullrich wrote:
>> Hi community,
>>
>> well, I think, the main problem is, WHO are the persons, you want to
>> actiuvate.
>
> [...]
>
>> Group 4: People, who decide in business, which OS to use.
>
> [...]
>
>> Group 4: Business deciders are a big problem. They only see money!
>
> There's nothing inherently wrong with that, specially when Debian can help on
> this front too.
>
>> But I
>> think, if you want to convince them, then you need a web prensentation or a
>> presentation at all, who makes the idea of debian clear: save costs through
>> the work of a community , development will be guaranteed in the future, use
>> of real standards, more power for less money, no license problems and some
>> other things I forgot. For those people, a presentation should be developed
>> by people, who create professionell advertisements.
>
> That's an old rant of mine.  Not exactly "colorful shiny brochures" but, yes,
> being able to make a discourse to reach their ears in a language that they
> are able to understand.  On this, I think DPL can say and do a lot.
>
> I always asked myself (rethoric question, since I have my own answer) why is
> it the case that hardware and even proprietary software vendors (Dell, IBM,
> HP, Oracle, SAP...) don't use Debian as their base platform of choice given
> its obvious monetary and strategic advantages to them and go instead with,
> say, Red Hat or SUSE.
>
> With Debian there's no risk for them to be stabbed in the back if wind
> changes; there's no need for signing "early access" programs for them to know
> what will happen on the next release or going into a market tit-for-tat,
> heck, with only a little of fair play and time they can even have an obvious
> direct impact being the very driving force that makes Debian advance in the
> direction that better suits them (anyone can be a DD and anyone can make a
> difference with its own work; this is basically a meritocracy, after all)
> without need of dealing with CxOs of other companies with different agendas
> and even competing goals.
>
> With this in mind *why* IBM, Oracle, Dell... are not literally rushing for
> Debian -on the premise that *I* would benefit from that in the form of more
> man hours even for boring things, better hardware support or
> more "enterprise-grade" tools?
>
> My opinion is that happens because IBM, Oracle, Dell... big boys go playing
> golf with Red Hat or SUSE big guys but they don't know a Debian big boy to
> talk to and because of this they don't know the message Debian could bring to
> them (since they don't listen to "minions", they only listen to their pairs).
>
> That's where the DPL can help a lot: by acting to those big guys as one of
> them.  Somehow in their minds, Ellison, Dell, Zacchiroli... should resound
> as "birds of a feather" as much as possible.
>
> Is Ubuntu any better platform for Oracle to run their Database or for Dell to
> certify their hardware than Debian?  I don't think so.  How is it then that
> they do with this relatively new kid in the block what they haven't done with
> Debian in more than a decade?  My answer is that Ubuntu has a Shuttleworth to
> talk to them, face to face, in their same language but Debian do not.
>
> Cheers.
>
>
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> Archive: 
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>
>

Also I imagine that it helps that they have some kind of commercial
support behind their projects, whereas Debian has little/none of that.

-- 
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Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Russ Allbery]

Raphael Geissert  writes:

> Something similar can be seen from
> http://lists.debian.org/stats/debian-news.png

> But it still can't be compared to:
> http://lists.debian.org/stats/debian-announce.png

Those graphs look suspiciously like we weren't purging bouncing addresses
from the mailing lists and then started doing so.  The sudden drop at the
start of the flattening of the curve in particular looks a lot like a
one-time address purge followed by ongoing application of a stricter
bounce policy.

That doesn't explain all of the change, but it does make it seem less
dire.

-- 
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org)   


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Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Raphael Geissert]

Petter Reinholdtsen wrote:
> This is mostly caused by a fall in the number of Lenny installations,
> as can be seen from
> http://popcon.debian.org/stat/release-1year.png >.

Something similar can be seen from
http://lists.debian.org/stats/debian-news.png

But it still can't be compared to:
http://lists.debian.org/stats/debian-announce.png

Cheers,
-- 
Raphael Geissert - Debian Developer
www.debian.org - get.debian.net


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Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Raphael Geissert]

Petter Reinholdtsen wrote:

> [Stephen Powell]
>> I haven't been following this thread closely; so if this idea has been
>> mentioned before, please excuse the duplicate.  I actually tried to
>> enable popcon on my servers, but IIRC it requires an MTA
>> configured for external e-mail in order to work.  The MTA (exim4) on all
>> my machines is configured for local mail only.  If the delivery mechanism
>> were, say, a "batch" ftp transfer, I could probably enable popcon.
> 
> Support for using HTTP to submit reports were added in
> popularty-contest version 1.30 uploaded 2005-07-07.

The problem with HTTP submissions is that there must be able to connect to 
the server when the cronjob is run. On a laptop, it is possible that there's 
no connection, which makes popcon fall back to email submission.
That's actually annoying and had to set MAILTO to an empty value to 
workaround it.

Cheers,
-- 
Raphael Geissert - Debian Developer
www.debian.org - get.debian.net


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Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Jesús M. Navarro]

Hi, Hans:

On Wednesday 21 July 2010 19:38:02 Hans-J. Ullrich wrote:
> Hi community,
>
> well, I think, the main problem is, WHO are the persons, you want to
> actiuvate.

[...]

> Group 4: People, who decide in business, which OS to use.

[...]

> Group 4: Business deciders are a big problem. They only see money!

There's nothing inherently wrong with that, specially when Debian can help on 
this front too.

> But I 
> think, if you want to convince them, then you need a web prensentation or a
> presentation at all, who makes the idea of debian clear: save costs through
> the work of a community , development will be guaranteed in the future, use
> of real standards, more power for less money, no license problems and some
> other things I forgot. For those people, a presentation should be developed
> by people, who create professionell advertisements.

That's an old rant of mine.  Not exactly "colorful shiny brochures" but, yes, 
being able to make a discourse to reach their ears in a language that they 
are able to understand.  On this, I think DPL can say and do a lot.

I always asked myself (rethoric question, since I have my own answer) why is 
it the case that hardware and even proprietary software vendors (Dell, IBM, 
HP, Oracle, SAP...) don't use Debian as their base platform of choice given 
its obvious monetary and strategic advantages to them and go instead with, 
say, Red Hat or SUSE.

With Debian there's no risk for them to be stabbed in the back if wind 
changes; there's no need for signing "early access" programs for them to know 
what will happen on the next release or going into a market tit-for-tat, 
heck, with only a little of fair play and time they can even have an obvious 
direct impact being the very driving force that makes Debian advance in the 
direction that better suits them (anyone can be a DD and anyone can make a 
difference with its own work; this is basically a meritocracy, after all) 
without need of dealing with CxOs of other companies with different agendas 
and even competing goals.

With this in mind *why* IBM, Oracle, Dell... are not literally rushing for 
Debian -on the premise that *I* would benefit from that in the form of more 
man hours even for boring things, better hardware support or 
more "enterprise-grade" tools?

My opinion is that happens because IBM, Oracle, Dell... big boys go playing 
golf with Red Hat or SUSE big guys but they don't know a Debian big boy to 
talk to and because of this they don't know the message Debian could bring to 
them (since they don't listen to "minions", they only listen to their pairs).

That's where the DPL can help a lot: by acting to those big guys as one of 
them.  Somehow in their minds, Ellison, Dell, Zacchiroli... should resound 
as "birds of a feather" as much as possible.

Is Ubuntu any better platform for Oracle to run their Database or for Dell to 
certify their hardware than Debian?  I don't think so.  How is it then that 
they do with this relatively new kid in the block what they haven't done with 
Debian in more than a decade?  My answer is that Ubuntu has a Shuttleworth to 
talk to them, face to face, in their same language but Debian do not.

Cheers.


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Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Patrick Matthäi]

Am 21.07.2010 23:04, schrieb Ron Johnson:
> On 07/21/2010 06:50 AM, Patrick Matthäi wrote:
> [snip]
>>
>> Or a better idea:
>>
>> * Provide semi-official images with non-free enabled (on
>> cdimage.debian.org) of our releases. This is one big reason, why users
>> decide to use Ubuntu instead of Debian.
>>
> 
> That's why I installed Ubuntu on my wife/kids' PC: the stuff they care
> about (no-fuss audio and video on an old PC) Just Work on Ubuntu but
> were a struggle on Sid.
> 

Thanks.

I think with our next release, we will have got less users. Why?
We stripped out all binary only firmware images from Linux and put them
mostly into the non-free linux-firmware image.

What is the consense?
I can not install any newer Desktop PC, Notebook and now ALSO HP
Proliant servers (current generations) without activating non-free
manualy, which eats time. No PXE boot, automagic installed updates after
netinstall etc...

Don't understand me wrong, I am completly happy with our DFSG, we should
follow this way, but I also think we should provide images with non-free
enabled to allow a simple and fast installation of Debian for our
Desktop and Business users.

-- 
/*
Mit freundlichem Gruß / With kind regards,
 Patrick Matthäi
 GNU/Linux Debian Developer

E-Mail: pmatth...@debian.org
patr...@linux-dev.org

Comment:
Always if we think we are right,
we were maybe wrong.
*/



signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Ron Johnson]

On 07/21/2010 06:50 AM, Patrick Matthäi wrote:
[snip]


Or a better idea:

* Provide semi-official images with non-free enabled (on
cdimage.debian.org) of our releases. This is one big reason, why users
decide to use Ubuntu instead of Debian.



That's why I installed Ubuntu on my wife/kids' PC: the stuff they 
care about (no-fuss audio and video on an old PC) Just Work on 
Ubuntu but were a struggle on Sid.


--
Seek truth from facts.


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Re: question: startscripts

[Hans-J. Ullrich]

Hi James,

thank you for pointing me to these bugreports. I did not know them until now, 
but they are describing exactly my problem! Really thanks for it, great!!

I will now take a look for the problem in the next days, maybe I will find 
something out.

Cheers

Hans


> If you have an nVidia card, it may be that KDM is not waiting long
> enough for the video card to be initialized[0][1].
> 
> [0]: http://bugs.debian.org/583312
> [1]: http://bugs.debian.org/583336


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Bug#589877: ITP: python-qrencode -- Python bindings for the Qrencode QR Code generator library

[Daniel Kahn Gillmor]

Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist
Owner: Daniel Kahn Gillmor 

* Package name: python-qrencode
  Version : 1.01
  Upstream Author : Nick Johnson 
* URL : http://pypi.python.org/pypi/qrencode
* License : Apache 2.0
  Programming Lang: Python
  Description : Python bindings for the Qrencode QR Code generator library

 This package contains modules that allow you to use the Qrencode QR
 Code generator library in Python programs.



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Re: question: startscripts

[James Vega]

On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 4:12 PM, Hans-J. Ullrich  wrote:
> Am Mittwoch, 21. Juli 2010 schrieb Yaroslav Halchenko:
>> I am sorry, probably I am missing the point but isn't it RTFM issue in how
>> to use sysv-rc to be able to revert back easily... e.g.:
>>
> Hi Yaroslaw,
>
> sorry, I described it not quite clear. It is not the problem of sysv-rc, as
> after the change to sysv-rc everything worked well for months.
>
> But after an update some time ago, I got some problems with some starting
> timings. To specify: kdm/gdm/xdm is not staring at boot (and only at boot).
> When the computer is started, the command "/etc/init.d/kdm restart" let kdm
> startr like a charm.

If you have an nVidia card, it may be that KDM is not waiting long
enough for the video card to be initialized[0][1].

[0]: http://bugs.debian.org/583312
[1]: http://bugs.debian.org/583336
-- 
James
GPG Key: 1024D/61326D40 2003-09-02 James Vega 


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Re: question: startscripts

[Hans-J. Ullrich]

Am Mittwoch, 21. Juli 2010 schrieb Yaroslav Halchenko:
> I am sorry, probably I am missing the point but isn't it RTFM issue in how
> to use sysv-rc to be able to revert back easily... e.g.:
> 
Hi Yaroslaw, 

sorry, I described it not quite clear. It is not the problem of sysv-rc, as 
after the change to sysv-rc everything worked well for months. 

But after an update some time ago, I got some problems with some starting 
timings. To specify: kdm/gdm/xdm is not staring at boot (and only at boot). 
When the computer is started, the command "/etc/init.d/kdm restart" let kdm 
startr like a charm.

So, I suppose, one of the scripts might be set wrong. Thus I wanted just to  
renewal them all. I mentioned sysv-rc, because I thought, it might be 
important to know for it. Again: There is no bug in sysv-rc!

Thanks for the response anyway. :)


Cheers

Hans



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Re: question: startscripts

[Yaroslav Halchenko]

I am sorry, probably I am missing the point but isn't it RTFM issue in how to
use sysv-rc to be able to revert back easily... e.g.:

$> sudo sysv-rc-conf --list ssh 
ssh  2:on   3:on4:on5:on
$> sudo sysv-rc-conf ssh off   
$> sudo sysv-rc-conf --list ssh
ssh  2:off  3:off   4:off   5:off
$> sudo sysv-rc-conf ssh on
$> sudo sysv-rc-conf --list ssh
ssh  2:on   3:on4:on5:on

or actually more 'evolved':
$> sudo sysv-rc-conf --list exim4  
exim40:off  1:off   2:on3:on4:on5:on6:off
$> sudo sysv-rc-conf exim4 off   
$> sudo sysv-rc-conf --list exim4
exim40:off  1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off
$> sudo sysv-rc-conf exim4 on
$> sudo sysv-rc-conf --list exim4
exim40:off  1:off   2:on3:on4:on5:on6:off

for 'all' would be a bash 1 liner I guess...

On Wed, 21 Jul 2010, Hans-J. Ullrich wrote:
> is there an easy way, to recreate all start- and stopscripts with theire 
> symlinks ? Hint: Some weeks ago, during an upgrade I changed to sysv-rc as 
> requested.
-- 
  .-.
=--   /v\  =
Keep in touch// \\ (yoh@|www.)onerussian.com
Yaroslav Halchenko  /(   )\   ICQ#: 60653192
   Linux User^^-^^[17]



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Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Russ Allbery]

Chris Jackson  writes:

> I might ask, however, how are you serving *nix admins? A lot easier
> bunch to please with Linux I think. I for one have delisted (for the
> moment anyway) Debian for our server installations after Lenny, because
> I don't like the way it's headed, and I know a number of people who
> agree with me.

Could you summarize or point me at the specific concerns that you had
which led to this decision?

> But take a look back at what happens if a system admin complains about
> something. There's a lot of "it ain't going to happen" "you'll have to
> maintain that yourself". It's not exactly welcoming to make one's
> opinion known.

A standard problem with open source projects, unfortunately, but I do try
not to say that in bug reports while still giving an accurate estimate of
the likelihood of a particular issue being fixed in the near future
without some sort of other resources being brought to bear.

-- 
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org)   


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Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Chris Jackson]

Wow. This is depressing.

Hans-J. Ullrich wrote:


Group 3: Systemadmins - Yes, there are a lot of sysadmins out there,
who are not able to see the difference between Linux and Windows
server systems. IMO these people will bring the most power into
debian, if you can motivate them.



Without wishing to cast aspersions on your 15 years' experience, I can
tell you that there are a lot of system admins out there who want a
*nix, and I am one, and so are many of our clients. To give you an
example, a recent client ran around 50 fairly chunky servers, with a
file hit rate peaking at 2000 per second. Yes, second. I mention the hit
rate because I want to show they were, and still are, a major site
though I can't mention the name. This was all under linux and needed to
be so, and it was all adminned - as is common, at least amongst the
people we deal with -  by editing files.

Whilst I do not doubt there are many more windows admins to whom a hard
task is finding which box to type the broadcast into - if they even
understand the idea of using a non-default broadcast - you do point out
this class of users could be a tough nut to crack.

I might ask, however, how are you serving *nix admins? A lot easier
bunch to please with Linux I think. I for one have delisted (for the
moment anyway) Debian for our server installations after Lenny, because
I don't like the way it's headed, and I know a number of people who
agree with me. But take a look back at what happens if a system admin
complains about something. There's a lot of "it ain't going to happen"
"you'll have to maintain that yourself". It's not exactly welcoming to
make one's opinion known.

If Debian is serious about attracting new users, I wonder if listening
to the current ones might be a point to start.

Frankly, to my - admittedly cynical - eye, the direction I see Debian
taking is that of Ubuntu. Good for "ooh, shiny" and "by developers, for
developers". Weak on supplying a well-known, well understood
administrative interface. Using files which we can edit over an ssh
session, since our servers are in a colo centre half a day's drive away.

It's all very well wondering about attracting new users, but a
fundamental point to be addressed here is, are those working "at the
coalface" going to "buy in"? (sorry, been talking to mamagement again)
If the response to requests to keep functionality active or to add to it
is going to be "the devs aren't interested, do it yourself" it's
pointless, since most users in the classes you name, and - yes - even
old skool *nix admins like me, aren't capable of programming everything
on their system in every language used by themselves, even if they had
the time. That doesn't mean they don't have opinions about what should
be "in the box" nor that those opinions are worthless.

As has often been pointed out, no-one has the right to attempt to force
what someone does in their spare time, and quite rightly so; but if the
devs are only interested in developing to their own needs, well,
inevitably people will drift to systems they consider more suitable to,
in turn, their needs.

Thanks for bearing with me, especially if you disagree, and HTH.

--
Chris Jackson
Shadowcat Systems Ltd.


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question: startscripts

[Hans-J. Ullrich]

Hi all, 

is there an easy way, to recreate all start- and stopscripts with theire 
symlinks ? Hint: Some weeks ago, during an upgrade I changed to sysv-rc as 
requested.


Regards

Hans


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Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Hans-J. Ullrich]

Hi community, 

well, I think, the main problem is, WHO are the persons, you want to 
actiuvate.

During my meanwhile 15 years activity in my it-job, I met mostly several main 
groups of people:

Group 1: people, who are not interested, whatever OS they are using, as long 
as it is working. They do not care of costs or freedom. They never change 
anything on their computers and they even do not know, what they are doing at 
all. This is the biggest group.

Group 2. Gamers - they use their computer just for games, and they do also not 
care of the OS, as long as the games are running on their computers. Sadly 
most of the games are running only in windows (sigh).

Group 3: Systemadmins - Yes, there are a lot of sysadmins out there, who are 
not able to see the difference between Linux and Windows server systems. IMO 
these people will bring the most power into debian, if you can motivate them.

Group 4: People, who decide in business, which OS to use. 


There are some smaller groups, too, but let me just suggest, how these biggest 
groups could be interested.

Group 1 can be interested, either when there are Debian (and I mean really 
Debian, not derivates like Ubuntu) preinstalled Computers available. These 
should be easily configurable. A graphical interface (for example in the style 
of webmin) is absolutely necessary. There are a lot of people outside, which 
are NOT gamers, but like internet surfing, need office, e-mail and other stuff.


Group 2 IMO can only be motivated, if it will be possible, to prove customers 
and distributors, that a fine installed debian is running much faster than a 
windows system. I imagine, that preconfigured "gaming images" or "-packages" 
might help them.

Group 3: I think, there can be nothing done, than to develop clickable 
interfaces, as windows sysadmins are used to this style of administration. 
Sorry, please be not angry, but 90 percent windows sysadmins I met in my life, 
were lazy, did never read manuals and expected everything to be worked by a 
mouse click (sigh!).

Group 4: Business deciders are a big problem. They only see money! But I 
think, if you want to convince them, then you need a web prensentation or a 
presentation at all, who makes the idea of debian clear: save costs through 
the work of a community , development will be guaranteed in the future, use of 
real standards, more power for less money, no license problems and some other 
things I forgot. For those people, a presentation should be developed by 
people, who create professionell advertisements.


Well, those are IMO the biggest groups of computer users. I estimate all 
together about 80 percent. If you can win only 1/3 of them, then it will be a 
big step. 

But the question is: Is that really, what you want? 


Best regards

Hans-J. Ullrich 


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Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Yaroslav Halchenko]

On Wed, 21 Jul 2010, Steffen Möller wrote:
> * Metaphorical speaking: we should give Debian a phone number.

and friendlier face, i.e. entry point to Debian world (www.debian.org)
should suggest the visitor that Debian is "for you" -- now current or
suggested site faces are just overloaded with jumps into hyperspace
without providing clear idea on why Debian is the best OS for everyone
needs.

As a part of the effort toward better users' appeal I've suggested
"Better targeting of the audience at front page" [1] reusing currently
successful blends/tasks approach.  Unfortunately noone cared to follow
up.

http://lists.debian.org/debian-www/2010/07/msg00048.html
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Re: Anyone collected historical data for popcons of derivative(s)?

[Yaroslav Halchenko]

On Wed, 21 Jul 2010, Tollef Fog Heen wrote:
> ]] Yaroslav Halchenko
> | Ubuntu popcon historical data being available, so decided to check
> | with you guys first before asking in the derivatives land.

> Have you tried asking them?  Mailing webmas...@ubuntu.com should get you
> a reply, I'd imagine.
Thank you for the suggestion, have submitted request now ;-)  I will
update the thread if I obtain any response. 

Cheers
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Re: Anyone collected historical data for popcons of derivative(s)?

[Yaroslav Halchenko]

On Wed, 21 Jul 2010, Ansgar Burchardt wrote:
> I grabbed the data since December 2009 (the file linked as "was
> popularity-contest results" on http://popcon.ubuntu.com/).  If that is
> enough for your purposes, I can make it available.  I also filed a bug
> on Launchpad [1] to make graphs and historic data available, but got
> no response so far.
I saw your post and website when was "researching" the situation --
thanks!  I think it would be great for my current purpose -- please
share.  I will also inquire webmas...@u.c and will CC you for the
reference.  Thanks again

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Re: Upstream Tracker

[Andrey Ponomarenko]

Hello!

On 07/20/2010 06:58 AM, Jay Berkenbilt wrote:
> Andrey Ponomarenko  wrote:
>
>   
>> - "Upstream Tracker". It may be helpful for analyzing risks of libraries
>> updating in the Debian Linux. The service includes more than 100
>> libraries at the moment: OpenSSL, ALSA, glib, cairo, libssh, fontconfig etc.
>> 
> I'd like to throw my voice in among those who think this is an excellent
> idea.  I've often thought about implementing something like this as a
> checker for code I've worked with in a commercial environment, but
> somehow this idea never occurred to me.  I hope it catches on.
>
>   
>> Suggestions for libraries inclusion and feature/bug requests are very
>> welcome. Thanks!
>> 
> The tiff library has been notorious about introducing accidental ABI
> changes.  I've sort of taken on the role as ABI police in recent years.
> Actually, I got my start as a Debian developer by managing a libtiff
> soname bump that was required as a result of an accidental ABI change.
> Analyzing the ICU library would also be interesting

Added to:
http://linuxtesting.org/upstream-tracker/versions/icu4c.html
and
http://linuxtesting.org/upstream-tracker/versions/libtiff.html

> though less useful
> since they bump the soname to match the version number (not generally
> good practice, of course).  They make an effort to keep most of their
> ABI stable, though there are interfaces marked "experimental" that
> change.  I don't see how a tool like this could track that since it's
> just indicated in comments, though there are certainly possibilities
> that come to mind (like special markers, etc.).
>
> tiff: http://libtiff.maptools.org
> ICU: http://www.icu-project.org
>   


-- 
Andrey Ponomarenko

Linux Verification Center, ISPRAS
 web:http://www.linuxtesting.org
 mail:   upstream-trac...@linuxtesting.org


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Re: Upstream Tracker

[Andrey Ponomarenko]

Hello!

On 07/16/2010 02:28 PM, Guus Sliepen wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 03:09:59PM +0400, Andrey Ponomarenko wrote:
>
>   
>> The new service for tracking ABI changes in various C/C++ libraries is
>> now available for Linux distribution maintainers and upstream developers
>> 
> [...]
>   
>> Suggestions for libraries inclusion and feature/bug requests are very
>> welcome. Thanks!
>> 
> It looks very nice already! A few suggestions:
>
> - Allow overrides to be defined (like how lintian does this), so that you can
>   remove selected warnings. For example, I see a lot of warnings when a 
> library
>   #defines its version number.
>
> - Check whether the soname is bumped or not, because changes to the ABI are
>   allowed then. Perhaps the different versions of a library could be grouped 
> by
>   the sonames used.
>   

Done. Thank you for an idea.
The example is here:
http://linuxtesting.org/upstream-tracker/versions/libjpeg.html

> - Can you subscribe and get emails when a new version of a certain library has
>   been checked? That would be most helpful for both upstream and downstream
>   developers.
>   

If you want to subscribe to the Upstream Tracker news then send a
message to mailto:upstream-trac...@linuxtesting.org with the subject
"subscribe".

> And I agree with Paul Wise that an article on LWN about this would be a good 
> thing :)
>
>   


-- 
Andrey Ponomarenko

Linux Verification Center, ISPRAS
 web:http://www.linuxtesting.org
 mail:   upstream-trac...@linuxtesting.org


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Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Steffen Möller]

> I wrote:
>> * Metaphorical speaking: we should give Debian a phone number. And I
>> mean full-time or at least half-time employees. With so many people
>> unemployed these days, I even feel we have the duty to think about
>> creating jobs.
>> 
>   
On 07/21/2010 03:46 PM, Stephen Powell wrote:
> That's an interesting idea.  But where is the money going to come from?
>   
On 07/21/2010 02:06 PM, Paul Wise wrote:
> That is probably part of the DPL's role? Could clarify what you are
> proposing here?
On 07/21/2010 04:30 PM, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> This idea is likely to get so much people against it that it's not worth 
> discussing.
>   


Dear Paul, dear Stephen, dear Lucas,

I thought that we should see where the discussion about it goes. If we are
becoming serious about using Debian money to hire people, then by some
magic we'd need to find a way to circumvent the past Dunc Tank outrage.
So we would need a way to
 * keeping doing what we do now
 * do not see someone else paid for something you would want to do with
your packages

Solutions to the above that I see
 * whoever is paid should not work on packaging
 * whoever is paid shall listen and try to establish teams of
maintainers to solve issues
 * whoever is paid shall do whatever the person can to help where help
is needed
 * whoever is paid shall involve established Debian consultants as much
as possible

About where the money could come from
 * the phone number would not be free
 * donations
 * we'll see after a year if this works, so we'd need money for two
years or so and
   then see what happens
 * We could start small, maybe by collecting 3-5 students at some
university who share a single mobile, taking notes about their efforts
and a(n unpaid not in his daytime job too much disturbed) DD as their
supervisor. Such a concept might possibly scale rather nicely across
cultures and time zones, i.e. we all want to support our students
somehow. How much is that? 5000 $/€/10yuan/100yen/whatever per anno?

Is this the DPLs job? I see it more as a Dr Watson to the DPL, i.e.
someone you like
talking to with no non-technical power. I am also with Lucas, but I did
not want to
self-censor me too much. If such is not accepted in our community, then
we will
learn this very quickly :)

Steffen


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Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Lucas Nussbaum]

On 21/07/10 at 09:46 -0400, Stephen Powell wrote:
> > * Metaphorical speaking: we should give Debian a phone number. And I
> > mean full-time or at least half-time employees. With so many people
> > unemployed these days, I even feel we have the duty to think about
> > creating jobs.
> 
> That's an interesting idea.  But where is the money going to come from?

This idea is likely to get so much people against it that it's not worth
discussing.

- Lucas


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Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Rene Engelhard]

Hi,

On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 01:05:27PM +0100, Ian Jackson wrote:
> We certainly shouldn't stop targetting desktop systems just because
> people prefer to install a Debian derivative.  Debian itself is always
> going to have more rough edges than a dedicated end-user-oriented
> distro, because Debian is trying to be all things to all people.  I'm
> constantly amazed and impressed by how well we have succeeded in that
> traditionally impossible goal.

Actually, seeing how much "quality" some packages in *released* Ubuntus
(and I speak only about main) have, that in the meanwhile actually is
the opposite.

Grüße/Regards,

René
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Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Stephen Powell]

On Wed, 21 Jul 2010 07:42:51 -0400 (EDT), Steffen Möller wrote:
> 
> The computing world have become such complex, that we are all mere users
> somewhere. So yes, we should think more about our users.

I suspect that the primary reasons desktop users choose another distribution
over Debian is threefold:

  o Ease of installation
  o Ease of configuration
  o Automatic inclusion of popular non-free software, such as
proprietary hardware drivers, Adobe flash, Sun Java, etc.

The Debian installer has made great strides over the years, and Debian
is now fairly easy to install.  But the other two points are where
the other distros have the advantage.  For the third point, I don't
see how we can compete without a fundamental redefinition of who we are
and what our principles are.  Debian isn't for everyone.  If our
primary goal is to get as big as possible, we may as well joint M$.

> * Metaphorical speaking: we should give Debian a phone number. And I
> mean full-time or at least half-time employees. With so many people
> unemployed these days, I even feel we have the duty to think about
> creating jobs.

That's an interesting idea.  But where is the money going to come from?

-- 
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 : :'  :
 `. `'`
   `-


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Bug#589831: ITP: libmoosex-followpbp-perl -- Moose extension to name your accessors get_foo() and set_foo()

[Ansgar Burchardt]

Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist
Owner: Ansgar Burchardt 

* Package name: libmoosex-followpbp-perl
  Version : 
  Upstream Author : Dave Rolsky 
* URL : http://search.cpan.org/dist/MooseX-FollowPBP/
* License : Artistic-2.0
  Programming Lang: Perl
  Description : Moose extension to name your accessors get_foo() and 
set_foo()

  MooseX::FollowPBP does not provide any methods. Simply loading it changes the
  default naming policy for the loading class so that accessors are separated
  into get and set methods. The get methods are prefixed with "get_" as the
  accessor, while set methods are prefixed with "set_". This is the naming
  style recommended by Damian Conway in Perl Best Practices.

This package will be required by liblatex-table-perl (#589824) to get rid of
libmoose-policy-perl (#583460: no longer maintained upstream, RC-buggy).



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Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Stephen Powell]

On Wed, 21 Jul 2010 09:10:56 -0400 (EDT), Petter Reinholdtsen wrote:
> Stephen Powell wrote:
>> I haven't been following this thread closely; so if this idea has been
>> mentioned before, please excuse the duplicate.  I actually tried to
>> enable popcon on my servers, but IIRC it requires an MTA
>> configured for external e-mail in order to work.  The MTA (exim4) on all
>> my machines is configured for local mail only.  If the delivery mechanism
>> were, say, a "batch" ftp transfer, I could probably enable popcon.
> 
> Support for using HTTP to submit reports were added in
> popularty-contest version 1.30 uploaded 2005-07-07.
> 
> So, you can safely enable popcon. :)

Apparently this is not the default behavior.  But I will check that
out.  Thanks!

-- 
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Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Petter Reinholdtsen]

[Stephen Powell]
> I haven't been following this thread closely; so if this idea has been
> mentioned before, please excuse the duplicate.  I actually tried to
> enable popcon on my servers, but IIRC it requires an MTA
> configured for external e-mail in order to work.  The MTA (exim4) on all
> my machines is configured for local mail only.  If the delivery mechanism
> were, say, a "batch" ftp transfer, I could probably enable popcon.

Support for using HTTP to submit reports were added in
popularty-contest version 1.30 uploaded 2005-07-07.

So, you can safely enable popcon. :)

Happy hacking,
-- 
Petter Reinholdtsen


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Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Stephen Powell]

On Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:56:29 -0400 (EDT), Christian PERRIER wrote:
> 
> There is nothing more we can do to have as many popcon submissions as
> possible, really. If the number is decrasing, this is because the
> number of Debian users who choose to install popcon is
> decreasing. Very probably because the number of people who use Debian
> is decreasing. Period.

I haven't been following this thread closely; so if this idea has been
mentioned before, please excuse the duplicate.  I actually tried to
enable popcon on my servers, but IIRC it requires an MTA
configured for external e-mail in order to work.  The MTA (exim4) on all
my machines is configured for local mail only.  If the delivery mechanism
were, say, a "batch" ftp transfer, I could probably enable popcon.

-- 
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 : :'  :
 `. `'`
   `-


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Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Ian Jackson]

Paul Wise writes ("Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: 
The number  of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling"):
> binNMU style backports where a maintainer requests an auto-backport
> and the backports team schedules it? That would be nice.

That would be fantastic and deal with a large proportion of the
problem - the part where currently are doing needless manual work of
one kind or another (whether it's doing a private rebuild, or a manual
backports upload).

What about security support for backports ?  The approach used in
testing is mostly "just run faster" and won't do for backports.

> Automatically rebuild packages from testing that don't have their
> dependencies satisfied in stable but do have their build-dependencies
> satisfied? That might be useful, probably that is dependent on
> integrating backports.org closer. I would wonder how many packages
> would fail due to improper or missing versioning information though.

Also, the dependencies in testing are often overly strict in that they
suggest the package won't build on stable even though in fact it
will.  You can sometimes even leave out whole libraries and the
upstream build system will leave out those features.

> Having d-i add backports.org to sources.list (and set good pinning)
> could be another thing to look at.

I think the key thing is not to upgrade packages to the backports
version without the user initiating it for each package (and perhaps
its dependencies).  Since they won't be as well-tested.

> > * Metaphorical speaking: we should give Debian a phone number. And I
> > mean full-time or at least half-time employees. With so many people
> > unemployed these days, I even feel we have the duty to think about
> > creating jobs.
> 
> That is probably part of the DPL's role? Could clarify what you are
> proposing here?

This should be a separate thread.

Ian.


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Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Andreas Tille]

On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 08:06:56PM +0800, Paul Wise wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 7:42 PM, Steffen Möller  
> wrote:
> > * I know a few who love lenny with backports, so yet, we should somehow
> > integrate that with the blends concept. Could there be a flag in
> > debian/control in some way for anything with a compatible debhelper
> > version to be auto-backported?
> 
> Having d-i add backports.org to sources.list (and set good pinning)
> could be another thing to look at.

IMHO, this could be done with a question defaulting to "no" and this is
probably completely unrelated to the Blends effort (at least I do not
see any connection).

>From a Blends perspective I would rather enable pinning to very
*specific* versions from snapshot.debian.org because this is something
people are asking about from time to time.  Considering a scientific
software which was used to create a certain result and other versions
might have a somehow different result.  IMHO this would be a Blend
specific thing which requires actual knowledge in this field - but
considering backports.org as sources.list entry might be a general users
wish as well (you might like it or not from a maintenance point of view).

Kind regards

 Andreas.

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Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Ian Jackson]

Christian PERRIER writes ("Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is 
falling"):
> That number is decreasing. Is that *really* a surprise for anyone?
> These days, in 2010, who is really seriously thinking that, apart from
> a few hardcore geeks, someone who is considering to install a
> Linux-based operating system on a personal machine will even include
> Debian in his|her first choices?

A much larger number will consider, and perhaps install, a Debian
derivative.  I think we should regard those users as a part of our
success, and not too badly bemoan the loss of them as direct users.

> So, our market are now server-style machines...or maybe still very
> large installation of desktop systems based on Debian (Extremadura,
> Munich, probably dozens of schools|universities...). [...]

We certainly shouldn't stop targetting desktop systems just because
people prefer to install a Debian derivative.  Debian itself is always
going to have more rough edges than a dedicated end-user-oriented
distro, because Debian is trying to be all things to all people.  I'm
constantly amazed and impressed by how well we have succeeded in that
traditionally impossible goal.

Ian.


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Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Bernhard R. Link]

* Andreas Tille  [100721 09:13]:
> On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 05:18:13PM -0400, Holger Levsen wrote:
> > > I think there should be a popcon mode where it only reports the
> > > installed packages.
> >
> > and it should be the default.
>
> Why?  IMHO the number of packages which are *really* used is much more
> interesting than all the packages which might be installed for dome
> testing and just forgotten to purge.

I think even for that something like having three formats,
chosen on user-settings and noatime options, one being

 RECENT-CTIME|VOTE|OLD|NO-FILES

one for people with /usr noatime:

 RECENT-CTIME|NO-ATIME|NO-FILES

and the last one for the paranoid exhibitionists:

 INSTALLED

would make it much more easy to enable it at more places.
(and might also make the graphs more interesting, as one never
knows which of the olds are just people with noatime).

The current format like

1279713663 1245067125 mutt /usr/bin/mutt

is just creepy from a privacy viewpoint. Sending all information
you have might have been nice when one did not yet know if the
OLD and RECENT-CTIMES stuff has choosen the right time frame.
But collecting all this information when all we do with them is
those graphs it not needed at all.

Bernhard R. Link


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Re: dkms needs a pre-depends entry (Policy 3.5)

[Ian Jackson]

Russ Allbery writes ("Re: dkms needs a pre-depends entry (Policy 3.5)"):
> Bernd Zeimetz  writes:
> > It should as you can't assume that your dependencies are configured when
> > your own package is being configured (Debian Policy 3.5).
> 
> That's not correct.  You can assume that your dependencies are configured
> before you're configured unless there are circular dependencies involved.

Right.  The difficulty here is that if you both depend on a package
and trigger it in your postinst, when your postinst starts the package
is configured, but when you trigger it, it stops being configured but
your postinst is still running.  

You have to deal with that case yourself somehow.  The package you're
triggering and depending on should provide a synchronous way for you
to force your addons to that package to be ready for use by you right
now, as well as just the trigger (which is a way to make sure they'll
be ready for other people).

Ian.


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Re: dkms needs a pre-depends entry (Policy 3.5)

[Ian Jackson]

Russ Allbery writes ("Re: dkms needs a pre-depends entry (Policy 3.5)"):
> This implies to me that the following information in the python-support
> documentation is partially incorrect:

Yes, I think so.

> I believe the only case where you would need to explicitly run
> update-python-modules -p in your postinst is if the postinst's package
> itself installs a Python namespace package and needs that namespace
> package to be configured before running that action in the postinst.  In
> other words, the daemon package itself, if it also contains the namespace
> module, may need to do this.  But if the namespace module is in a
> dependency, this should never be needed.
> 
> Is that correct?

I think so, although the manpage for update-python-modules I have here
doesn't document the -p option so I'm going partially on guesswork.

Ian.


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Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Paul Wise]

On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 7:42 PM, Steffen Möller  wrote:

> * I know a few who love lenny with backports, so yet, we should somehow
> integrate that with the blends concept. Could there be a flag in
> debian/control in some way for anything with a compatible debhelper
> version to be auto-backported?

What do you mean by auto-backported?

binNMU style backports where a maintainer requests an auto-backport
and the backports team schedules it? That would be nice.

Include existing binary packages from testing that have their
dependencies satisfied in stable in stable-backports? Probably a waste
of time since people can already install such packages from testing on
stable and have them auto-upgraded within testing (with the right
pinning).

Automatically rebuild packages from testing that don't have their
dependencies satisfied in stable but do have their build-dependencies
satisfied? That might be useful, probably that is dependent on
integrating backports.org closer. I would wonder how many packages
would fail due to improper or missing versioning information though.

Automatically rebuild all packages from testing and teleport magical
imps from rainbow fairy land to test and fix everything?

Having d-i add backports.org to sources.list (and set good pinning)
could be another thing to look at.

> * Metaphorical speaking: we should give Debian a phone number. And I
> mean full-time or at least half-time employees. With so many people
> unemployed these days, I even feel we have the duty to think about
> creating jobs.

That is probably part of the DPL's role? Could clarify what you are
proposing here?

-- 
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pabs

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Re: dkms needs a pre-depends entry (Policy 3.5)

[Ian Jackson]

Steve Langasek writes ("Re: dkms needs a pre-depends entry (Policy 3.5)"):
> As Ian has described it, yes:  lsb-release is not "installed" until after
> the python-support trigger is run, so dpkg will run that trigger before
> trying to move up the stack and configure dkms.  And since dkms is not yet
> configured, nvidia-kernel-dkms won't be configured either.
> 
> The only exceptions would be a bug in dpkg trigger support, or a bug in a
> higher level package manager passing --force-depends to dpkg.

Exactly.

Ian.


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Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Patrick Matthäi]

> This should probably then move to Debian-Project?
>
> On 07/21/2010 11:31 AM, Andreas Tille wrote:
>> On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 05:34:27PM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I think that what we need is Debian Blends that include official
>>> backports.
>>> This, no other distribution proposes yet.
>>>
>> IMHO this is worth another thread how to make Debian more attractive for
>> users ...
>>
> The computing world have become such complex, that we are all mere users
> somewhere. So yes, we should think more about our users.
>
> * I know a few who love lenny with backports, so yet, we should somehow
> integrate that with the blends concept. Could there be a flag in
> debian/control in some way for anything with a compatible debhelper
> version to be auto-backported?
>
> * Metaphorical speaking: we should give Debian a phone number. And I
> mean full-time or at least half-time employees. With so many people
> unemployed these days, I even feel we have the duty to think about
> creating jobs.

Or a better idea:

* Provide semi-official images with non-free enabled (on
cdimage.debian.org) of our releases. This is one big reason, why users
decide to use Ubuntu instead of Debian.


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How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Steffen Möller]

This should probably then move to Debian-Project?

On 07/21/2010 11:31 AM, Andreas Tille wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 05:34:27PM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote:
>   
>
>> I think that what we need is Debian Blends that include official backports.
>> This, no other distribution proposes yet.
>> 
> IMHO this is worth another thread how to make Debian more attractive for
> users ...
>   
The computing world have become such complex, that we are all mere users
somewhere. So yes, we should think more about our users.

* I know a few who love lenny with backports, so yet, we should somehow
integrate that with the blends concept. Could there be a flag in
debian/control in some way for anything with a compatible debhelper
version to be auto-backported?

* Metaphorical speaking: we should give Debian a phone number. And I
mean full-time or at least half-time employees. With so many people
unemployed these days, I even feel we have the duty to think about
creating jobs.

Best,

Steffen


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Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Petter Reinholdtsen]

[Goswin von Brederlow]
> Does Ubuntus popcon report to popcon.d.o?

No.  It report to popcon.ubuntu.com.

Happy hacking,
-- 
Petter Reinholdtsen


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Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Andreas Tille]

On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 05:34:27PM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote:
> the number of popcon users unfortunately has not changed much when Lenny was
> released.

Really?  From a quick view (not much time to investigate into this
currently) on the graph I have seen some "jumps" and I think I remember
that those where related to releases.  If there is no evidence for this
at a deeper investigation I will take back my argument.
 
> I think that what we need is Debian Blends that include official backports.
> This, no other distribution proposes yet.

IMHO this is worth another thread how to make Debian more attractive for
users ...

Kind regards

   Andreas. 

-- 
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Re: Anyone collected historical data for popcons of derivative(s)?

[Ansgar Burchardt]

Hi,

Yaroslav Halchenko  writes:

> I wonder if anyone cron-ed fetching of popcons for derivative
> distributions (e.g. Ubuntu).  ubuntu exposes only current status
> http://popcon.ubuntu.com/ and I've not found if there is any way obtain
> historical data (like we have one available for DDs).

I grabbed the data since December 2009 (the file linked as "was
popularity-contest results" on http://popcon.ubuntu.com/).  If that is
enough for your purposes, I can make it available.

I also filed a bug on Launchpad [1] to make graphs and historic data
available, but got no response so far.

Regards,
Ansgar

[1] 


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Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Steffen Möller]

On 07/21/2010 09:12 AM, Andreas Tille wrote:
> If you ask me, the decreasing number of popcons is because people are
> bored by a system with old versions of programs and are seeking for
> alternatives and we will see a further decrease until Squeeze will be
> released.  So probably the best idea to increase popcon numbers is to
> fix some RC bugs to get Squeeze in shape.
>   
we could argue that those packages that have lost the most over the
last months are the ones that are most responsible for the decline
of submitters. Would be interesting to know ...

Steffen (writing from a 10.10 Ubuntu machine - Dell's fault)


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Re: Anyone collected historical data for popcons of derivative(s)?

[Tollef Fog Heen]

]] Yaroslav Halchenko 

| I am asking because we thought to plot few plots for our debconf talk. 
| UDD also seems to store only current status for popcons of both ubuntu
| and Debian... So I thought that may be someone already did set up some
| cron job to fetch Ubuntu popcons?

Have you tried asking them?  Mailing webmas...@ubuntu.com should get you
a reply, I'd imagine.

-- 
Tollef Fog Heen
UNIX is user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are


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Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Charles Plessy]

Le Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 09:12:59AM +0200, Andreas Tille a écrit :
> 
> If you ask me, the decreasing number of popcons is because people are
> bored by a system with old versions of programs and are seeking for
> alternatives and we will see a further decrease until Squeeze will be
> released.

Hi Andreas,

the number of popcon users unfortunately has not changed much when Lenny was
released.

I think that what we need is Debian Blends that include official backports.
This, no other distribution proposes yet.

Have a nice day,

-- 
Charles


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Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Paul Wise]

On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 4:14 PM, Goswin von Brederlow  wrote:

> Does Ubuntus popcon report to popcon.d.o?

No, just to popcon.u.c:

http://patches.ubuntu.com/p/popularity-contest/popularity-contest_1.48ubuntu1.patch
http://popcon.ubuntu.com/

They also currently have almost 20 times as many popcon submissions as
Debian and continuing growth:

http://popcon.ubuntu.com/
http://popcon.ubuntu.com/stat/sub-i386.png

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pabs

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Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Goswin von Brederlow]

Petter Reinholdtsen  writes:

> [Jesús M. Navarro]
>> 1) Current reduction from April onwards is statisticallly
>> non-significant with a main trend steadly growing since Aug, 2007.
>
> Could be.  Hard to predict the future. :)
>
> I suspect it is a significant reduction, but I do not know the cause.
> Perhaps Debian have a reduced user base, people moving to other
> distributions.  Perhaps the popcon.debian.org server is overloaded and
> unable to handle more requests (unlikely, only ~14k submissions via
> http every day.  Perhaps some strange rumor have spread that popcon do
> not work on laptops, and more and more laptops are being deployed in
> the Debian community.  Or perhaps something completely different.  I
> do not know, but hope that bringing it up here might get more eyes to
> look at the issue and perhaps find a way to get more popcon
> submissions. :)

Does Ubuntus popcon report to popcon.d.o?

MfG
Goswin


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Re: [RFC] removing xserver-xorg-video-nv from squeeze

[Vincent Lefevre]

On 2010-07-12 19:33:15 +0100, Julien Cristau wrote:
> We don't have nvidia hardware, so maybe our perception is flawed.  If
> people think we should keep that driver, please explain why.  If the
> reason is "nouveau doesn't work for me", we'll ignore your reply unless
> it comes with a bugs.freedesktop.org (or bugs.debian.org, if the bug is
> fixed in experimental but not in squeeze) bug number.

nouveau doesn't work for me and I've reported the bug two months ago:

  http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=581830
  https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=28140

No feedback from the developers. :(

-- 
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100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: 
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Arénaire project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)


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Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Giacomo A. Catenazzi]

On 20.07.2010 17:26, Petter Reinholdtsen wrote:

The popularity-contest package also work fine with relatime.

Thanks for bringing this up.  I guess we should look at the FAQ or
something to make it clear on this point.  Where did you get the idea
that popcon don't work with noatime?



I don't remember exactly. Possibly was a wrong extrapolation of
information in LWN: discussiong noatime/relatime it listed
few applications (popcon and few mail and backup programs) which
"required" atime functionality.

But I think I read also something in debian-devel or in an other
debian resource (years a go).

> Is there some documentation we
> could update to avoid others getting the same idea?


Personally a good post in planet about popcon (call of volunteers, 
privacy and noatime) would help. But to reach sysadmin I think

we must create a wiki page, links it to the planet article and
let waiting the spreading of the "news".

ciao
cate


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Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling

[Andreas Tille]

On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 05:18:13PM -0400, Holger Levsen wrote:
> > I think there should be a popcon mode where it only reports the
> > installed packages. 
> 
> and it should be the default.

Why?  IMHO the number of packages which are *really* used is much more
interesting than all the packages which might be installed for dome
testing and just forgotten to purge.

And back to the topic: IMHO the relation between Debian users who are
using popcon and those who don't remains quite constant - at least I do
not see any reason why people should deinstall popcon if they previosely
decided to install it and there is no obvious sign why new installations
should get less acceptance for agreeing with popcon that this was
before.

If you ask me, the decreasing number of popcons is because people are
bored by a system with old versions of programs and are seeking for
alternatives and we will see a further decrease until Squeeze will be
released.  So probably the best idea to increase popcon numbers is to
fix some RC bugs to get Squeeze in shape.

Kind regards

Andreas.

-- 
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