Re: Question to all candidates: In eight years...
On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 07:27:55PM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote:
this is the echo of a question asked two years ago in the 2010 campaign.
http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2010/03/msg00057.html
“In ten^Weight years I'd like Debian...”:
- to be backed by a massively diverse community, even more than today,
with all kinds of contributions (packaging, Debian-specific sw
development, sysadm-ing, porting, documentation, translating,
communication, marketing, user support, ...) balanced in terms of
available contributors
- to be recognized as THE distribution who care the most about software
freedom, by all Free Software actors, be them technical or more
political entities
- to have an ecosystem similar to that of the Linux kernel today, in the
following senses:
1. have downstream vendors (derivatives distros, hw vendors, and
whatnot) compete to have their changes integrated where they
belong, i.e. either in Debian or further upstream
2. have both volunteers and companies participating into Debian
development, with both kinds of actors equally submitted to Debian
customs (peer review, RC bug fixing duties, NMUs, etc.)
3. as a corollary of (2), have a healthy, visible, and transparent
ecosystem of Debian-related jobs that allow those who can't afford
contributing to Debian as volunteers, to do so nonetheless
- to be more uniform in package maintenance practices, in terms of used
VCS and packaging helpers, in order to minimize the barriers to
package contributions and automate more easily our packaging
work-flows
- to have 1/ all packages maintained in VCSs, and 2/ commit access to
those VCSs open _by default_ to all DDs
- to have, in addition to stable releases, a new Debian product ---
which I should call rolling for the lack of fantasy --- that is
suited for the needs of software developers and bleeding edge users
than the current mixture of stable/testing/unstable
- to have at least 5 year security support for stable releases
- to have (at least) one non-Linux port up to par with Linux ports
In addition, do you see major changes happening in the recent or next
years, and how do you think Debian should react to them ?
I've mentioned this in various interviews, and I'm still convinced that
one of the most important changes for Free Software is the advent of the
so called cloud, in its various incarnations. As a result of them,
more and more of user-relevant computations are moving away from user
computers to remote servers that are not under user controls. If the
trend continues, we risk to see Free Software succeeding on user owned
computers, whereas they would have become nothing more than dumb
terminals back in the days of mainframes.
Debian should react first of all by ensuring that public cloud
providers deploy Free Software distros, possibly Debian, on their
infrastructures. Then, we should encourage upstream who produce
distributed / federated network services and make them trivial to deploy
on Debian as more old school server software used to be. Finally we
should make technically easy to deploy Debian-based private clouds,
because they tend to be way more close to user control than public ones.
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} . o .
Maître de conférences .. http://upsilon.cc/zack .. . . o
Debian Project Leader... @zack on identi.ca ...o o o
« the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »
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Re: Raising money for Debian
On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 10:26:28PM +0200, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
2/ To all: are there other ways to raise money that we have not yet
explored and that we should try?
At the risk of flogging a dead horse, I haven't felt good at the idea of
raising more money up to now, because I don't think we were being
transparent enough on how we use those money. This is changing now (see
my platform for some references) and I'm finally starting to feel a bit
more confident with the idea. Also, it looks like we're going to need
some money in the future, at least if we want to implement some
ambitious hardware replacement plans [1], as I think we should.
[1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2012/03/msg00032.html
All that considered, I think the single most effective way of raising
money for a project like Debian is to knock at companies doors, make
them realize that Debian *is* important for them, engage then in some
yearly donation plans, and acknowledge that with some level-like badge
on the Debian website. As discussed in one of the first thread of this
campaign, we're already doing that, but only for DebConf. We just need
to make that fund-raising effort a bit more structured and general.
All other ways to fund-raise (including the DuckDuckGo example) are good
to have, but I don't think we need to plan ahead for them or anything
such. I believe handling them on a case by case basis is good enough.
3/ To all: The commercial world is full of such win-win opportunities.
Some are more obnoxious than other. Are there some that would be
acceptable in the Debian context according to you? Where would you draw
the limit?
If you need some examples: an hosting company could give back x% of the
monthly fee paid by customers running Debian servers and would likely
appreciate some promotion of this offer on the Debian side. There is
a book editor who is giving $1 for each sold copy of their Debian book.
Etc. Most of those offers are created for marketing reasons in the hope to
get noticed/promoted within the Debian community. Shall we promote those?
Can we just inform people about their existence without promoting them?
We've discussed this a couple of times this year on -publicity, IIRC. My
opinion on the matter is unchanged. I think we should inform our users
of resources that are useful to them as Debian users, but not _because_
those resources will result in Debian donations. Otherwise stated, the
goal of Debian should be that of making user interests directly, *not*
indirectly due to arguments like it will benefit users in the long term
because we'll use money to make Debian better.
This is a general principle that can be instantiated to various
examples:
- if, independently from donations, we decide to index on www.d.o
hosting companies that offer Debian as an option, we should do that
for all hosting companies we're aware of
- if, independently from donations, we index books about Debian (as we
do), we should do that for all books we're aware of
- if, independently from donations, we index shops that sell Debian
merchandise (as we do), we should do that for all shops we're aware of
Regarding promotion vs information, I think information like the above
is just fine, as long as the resource is useful per se, independently
from donations. I also think it's fine, and even a duty, to inform users
of how much Debian receives from the various options (e.g. percentages
of sell prices). That, for me, is not promotion but information, even
though I do realize it might influence user choices.
I think we should stay away from more promotion than the above
(e.g. -news items announcing: here is the new thing, buy it and you'll
contribute $100 to Debian), because it'll be very hard to be fair to
all vendors.
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} . o .
Maître de conférences .. http://upsilon.cc/zack .. . . o
Debian Project Leader... @zack on identi.ca ...o o o
« the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »
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Re: About debian-companies
On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 10:00:14PM +0200, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
Stefano, will you continue to try to build that discussion place if you're
not re-elected ? If yes, how do you expect to do it ? (AFAIK you're not a
representative of such a company and as such you will no longer be able to
stay subscribed to this list)
As DPL, I've been listening to the problems of various companies (too
few, unfortunately) who have a strategic interest in Debian and try to
be good Free Software citizens. With that I mean, in particular,
companies that not only try to make a living out of Debian-based
services, but also try to contribute code back to Debian and hire people
to do so. Especially medium-sides companies that fit that bill have to
face problems that usually volunteers do not want to have to deal with,
e.g. how to convince $proprietary_sw_vendor to certify their solutions
for Debian, set up network of like-minded companies so that they could
look more trustworthy in big call for tenders, etc.
While I've got interested in the above topics as DPL, I think it's
important for Debian to help companies solve those problems, and I
suspect my interest in it won't vanish if I won't be re-elected. If
that happens, what I would do is approach the new DPL and volunteer to
help out with the initiative.
It is worth pointing out that I think the role of Debian as a Project in
it should be marginal and limited to stuff like welcoming the
initiative, communicating about it, and offering a meeting place. As a
Project, we don't have the expertise to do much more than that --- nor
probably the willingness. If the experiment is to succeed, it should
really be up to the companies and their representatives to single out
the problems they're facing and propose solutions that are compatible
with the way Debian works.
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} . o .
Maître de conférences .. http://upsilon.cc/zack .. . . o
Debian Project Leader... @zack on identi.ca ...o o o
« the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »
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Re: About debian-companies
Raphael Hertzog hert...@debian.org writes: you might have read that Stefano is trying to organize discussions/collaboration between companies that have a strategic interest in Debian: http://lists.debian.org/debian-companies/ Wouter and Gergely, what do you think of this project ? Would you continue to promote it if elected ? To be honest, I'm a little bit torn on this. Not because I have anything against companies being interested in Debian, especially not if they're contributing to Debian one way or the other. The only issue I have, is that the list is not open. I suppose there are good reasons for that (and off the top of my head, I can think of a few), but to be able to fully support, and continue to promote this effort, I'd need to be convinced that these reasons really are good. That said, I think the effort is a useful one, I'm just not entirely sure this would be the best way to do it. -- |8] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/874nt431wj@luthien.mhp
Re: Raising money for Debian
Raphael Hertzog hert...@debian.org writes: there's a discussion going on on debian-project about entering an agreement with DuckDuckGo to get some sort of affiliate commission from the money that DuckDuckGo would earn from traffic tagged as coming from Debian. 1/ To Wouter and Gergely: this discussion touches several sensitive topics but you have not taken position... what do you think of the project? I'm afraid I can't answer just yet: I haven't finished reading the thread yet. After a quick glimpse through the thread, I think there are certainly good arguments to accept the offer, but, as others expressed in the thread, there are valid concerns too. Unfortunately, without reading the whole thing, I'd rather not take a position, and catching up on the thread may take a day or two more. 2/ To all: are there other ways to raise money that we have not yet explored and that we should try? One idea that comes to my mind, is that we seem to focus a wee-bit too much on raising money at times. While I agree that we do need money, for hardware, travel and sprint sponsorships and a whole lot of other things I have little insight into, there are alternative ways. The problem I see with 'raising money' is that those who donate have little control over how that money is used. While that works for many, it might very well stop others (especially companies) from donating. Transparency helps here, and Stefano's work on this front is very important. But it's not enough, in my opinion. We already seek sponsors for DebConf, and have had events hosted or sponsored by various entities. This kind of donation is something we should focus more in, I believe. Perhaps it's not (entirely) monetary, and is tied to a specific event, but it's still useful, and as far as I can imagine, it might be easier to find sponsors for specific tasks, than to raise money that can be spent in any number of ways. People, especially commercial companies, do like to retain some level of control on what their money is used for. While this is not neccessarily a good thing in every case, it's something we could explore and experiment with more. 3/ To all: The commercial world is full of such win-win opportunities. Some are more obnoxious than other. Are there some that would be acceptable in the Debian context according to you? Where would you draw the limit? This one's a tough question. I do not think we should promote either of the examples you gave. Recognise? Yes. But not promote. There's a very thin line between the two, and I admit I have no idea how this could be accomplished. I believe each of these opportunities should be carefully evaluated. As for where to draw the line? I don't know. I have no problem with listing companies as sponsors for DebConf, for example, nor listing sponsors for sprints and BSPs and the like. I would have a problem with a www.debian.org/sponsors page, though. In general, though, I'd draw the line slightly above where the general consensus within the project does. -- |8] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87zkaw1lgd@luthien.mhp
Re: Wouter and Gergely: software monopoly vs diversity
Eugene V. Lyubimkin jac...@debian.org writes: What is your vision about how many different software pieces can be supported by Debian as a project for each part of the software stack, would it be architectures, kernels, init systems, high-level package managers, desktop environments or something else? In short: as many as there are enough people to support them with. Exceptions do exist, as always. In other words, would you want Debian: a) concentrate more on the things people use most; b) or give more choices; A little bit of both, as these choices do not always conflict. What people use most, should be the defaults in most cases. But that does not prevent us from offering a choice, either. However, defaults MUST be consistent, and if choosing a new default would kill off the ability to choose, then I would advise against that change, as freedom of choice is in my opinion one of the great strenghts of Debian. However, too much choice is just as bad as none at all: one gets lost in the maze, and it's a pain to maintain such a diverse system in the long run, both for debian developers, and for up- and downstreams alike. Ideally, we should have a balance of choice and maintainability. Where that balance lies, depends on a lot of factors, ranging from the quality of the choices, to the available manpower needed to keep all of them in good shape, and so on and so forth. There is no silver bullet: monopoly is just as bad as too many possible choices. Ideally, we would need to strike a good balance, and have a little bit of both. -- |8] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87vclk1kqu@luthien.mhp
Re: Debian's trademarks and logos, and their terms of use.
Charles Plessy ple...@debian.org writes: In contrast with what we require for the software we distribute, we are forbidding to use some of our logos for profit. While there are some clear differences between software and carriers of visual identity, I feel that there is a strong mismatch between what we ask and what we give, if we reduce a software on one side, and Debian's reputation on the other side, to the fruit of the efforts of their makers. Said differently, I see a contradiction between forbidding people making money by printing our name on T-shirts, and requiring that all the software we distribute can be used for profit. There is a huge difference between copyright and trademark. While I like to see my software under a free license, I would not neccessarily want my name to be used by or associated with some of the places where they are used. I would like to know your position or vision on our trademarks and logos, and, if you indend to work on that question as a DPL, what would be the key points of your action. I think all three of us have a similar position, and vision. Allow me to not echo back what Stefano and Wouter have written already: Stefano explained it well what steps we should take, and what work is already being done to update Debian's trademark policy, and Wouter also expressed his concerns, and the dangers of a policy too weak. If elected, I'd ask Stefano to supervise the work he started, and bring it to completion. -- |8] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87obrc1jyi@luthien.mhp
Debian Project Leader Elections 2012: Call for votes
Hi, This is the first call for votes for the Debian Project Leader Elections 2012. Voting period starts 00:00:00 UTC on Sunday, April 1st, 2012 Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC on Saturday, April 14th, 2012 This vote is being conducted as required by the Debian Constitution. You may see the constitution at http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution. For voting questions or problems contact secret...@debian.org. The details of the candidate platform can be found at: http://www.debian.org/vote/2012/platforms/ Also, note that you can get a fresh ballot any time before the end of the vote by sending a signed mail to bal...@vote.debian.org with the subject leader2012. HOW TO VOTE First, read the full text of the platform. To cast a vote, it is necessary to send this ballot filled out to a dedicated e-mail address, in a signed message, as described below. The dedicated email address this ballot should be sent to is: leader2...@vote.debian.org The form you need to fill out is contained at the bottom of this message, marked with two lines containing the characters '-=-=-=-=-=-'. Do not erase anything between those lines, and do not change the choice names. There are 4 choices in the form, which you may rank with numbers between 1 and 4. In the brackets next to your preferred choice, place a 1. Place a 2 in the brackets next to your next choice. Continue until you reach your last choice. Do not enter a number smaller than 1 or larger than 4. You may skip numbers, leave some choices unranked, and rank options equally. Unranked choices are considered equally the least desired choices, and ranked below all ranked choices. To vote no, no matter what, rank None Of The Above as more desirable than the unacceptable choices, or you may rank the None Of The Above choice and leave choices you consider unacceptable blank. (Note: if the None Of The Above choice is unranked, then it is equal to all other unranked choices, if any -- no special consideration is given to the None Of The Above choice by the voting software). Finally, mail the filled out ballot to: leader2...@vote.debian.org. Don't worry about spacing of the columns or any quote characters () that your reply inserts. NOTE: The vote must be GPG signed (or PGP signed) with your key that is in the Debian keyring. You may, if you wish, choose to send a signed, encrypted ballot: use the vote key appended below for encryption. The voting software (Devotee) accepts mail that either contains only an unmangled OpenPGP message (RFC 2440 compliant), or a PGP/MIME mail (RFC 3156 compliant). To avoid problems I suggest you use PGP/MIME. - - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- da569edd-e41f-4ecd-b0d5-ce2848a777f9 [ ] Choice 1: Wouter Verhelst [ ] Choice 2: Gergely Nagy [ ] Choice 3: Stefano Zacchiroli [ ] Choice 4: None Of The Above - - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -- ponses to a valid vote shall be signed by the vote key created for this vote. The public key for the vote, signed by the Project secretary, is appended below. -BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK- Version: GnuPG v1.4.12 (GNU/Linux) mQINBE93XhgBEAChIKhRwi7drrN36XqVesKmqW4UoKGeacS/6HBbZPHfm7Hw7gCm niomrpWcWOgrVLw+z+UTB9YGUSoiKF5yVZTcpQg+snaFAcWFgg4MOY1NrAGTdA95 eNt6ZKwE9AajZVimmOEeG9bnYF3ZJuCvPAJFsm28mA42Fbzo6K+f/J51zJCKapA/ npjI4cAd2Gb6R9pbUS7OooBqYXlG5xe3p3TepyWLBKUMwrR0+q0yacs2ubVps0IS XgWySgZ/T7LB78NmqMGYN05bgOPL/y2n5Dq9h24TEKxT3i+0jxFKHnnEvEvbKZ4E ixxGs8U/D82NWTQLbXGjFpCZmIZj1v724SWRiCunqepGMS7SpIKSI8XFp37YJhU5 wWfMm6Pho6pXf3MdTV7x9bJPKgRr7UoKVRUl3AxHM5M+JDTbCva6l23ga7plxY+E vx9UMwj9TbJgprMAoLP59q2djkUOK6FM3x4Elj8SBsCHHFpg3rNuqUPxERszzIex 1/NxUQA8n/RuVuZ+sCL4PThR4g387SyRx+9cj7MHP+GAOrMpibY4qK92lXtetA09 YxbsIhBAESLRhbmMEQL6WzpxMmhynU2uk34dATBfocH425MDvWd5Qsqrsc/AIBla ziyHwl1KqmjBl25CzF+hM4gKtsaxg8paphKwiTP6a1D0FDqIaF1HJKCoiQARAQAB tCpEUEwgdm90ZSAyMDEyIDxsZWFkZXIyMDEyQHZvdGUuZGViaWFuLm9yZz6JAj4E EwECACgFAk93XhgCGwMFCQAaXgAGCwkIBwMCBhUIAgkKCwQWAgMBAh4BAheAAAoJ EJ0M4QzEI7mhVSAP/0p3k20icRBe4a9qpK6QrjzXpcOfi8fMzJukmzj3xflbOMw9 XMx6GCMQ9wBoRNxb07mlBCD7qaol5bMW3LyEB7NRxSK0Qil2615/N6cUa2Je1lgr xxX1HmE3PX0of2TDVaKatk0OxsA9zmWQ5n5+YBxuVS3dL2Ej7eNR28rJ4lkRPTiK 3C3AD1EQ15GD6Gg3jR1st0PsJif5JA3jkIV1HZo72HePgPsLGVtVJZ9EAlHku+cY 3doTpGVcKP2f6WfmD0ONalzaHTKvqAPb5N52gX4QTPC1HmDj/p36c7rbt8YRDbg7 5wD8HQxCn/vRQRQmQRvaZuBor/KVuTcqoAKesqeeDHZft13s1sGdIgNss26erzPy jSTdPw48g44ND3BJzwR92G4IWgrnZw/h4O8S17ZmUjCI8nqV4twS6IiSa8POddtf zjjSpl5YJRimaWtVt7ogABRDfgKZpCfPUn3vH1O05R7yuA6RWegx7chRmhSRSE8F C4slcmd3hQqzLpELVo/EnQMfao+0qpnRfirGmUwy4hZQGLWOfVuYDoE4v7C/zDQH /2TJVFDRPjGfT2HFu8tjzKoE7ASoUI1fjd4S3h+Ggd7/3YegMzzFzwx982UEDoDt YQTiSOM7Qt87qYk6SDRwZQVjL/N13rNLGYZ1g5/s8opi/5A68Pue9gZQuK6FiEYE ExEKAAYFAk93X9cACgkQQdwckHJElwsVOQCaAhCnPJUMows+HRM0QL+ONsuqV+IA n3o+LVuTENNqZDqDvIJJFjGo+0twuQINBE93XhgBEADKIk2dg81w+yaQDfJYgO+0
