Re: Thinking about organizing a special women-oriented event
On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 02:26:34PM +0200, Miriam Ruiz wrote: > At some point I don't think that this has nothing to do with Debian > exclusively, but with the way women are socialized and brought up, in > fear and low self esteem in many ways. Unfortunately some women do > need some encouragement before being able to talk assertively in a > public mailing list. Maybe a middle ground would be to prominently publish the email addresses of a couple of d-w women who say they are happy to be mailed privately for initial contact, but will try to steer those newcomers to the d-w list (or some other women-only list if appropriate)? Michael -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-women-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: "Debian women may leave due to 'sexist' post"
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 12:59:51PM -0700, Monique Y. Mudama wrote: > The article linked to the mail message, which baffled me. More than > anything, isn't the message simply off topic? I don't know, maybe I > live in a fantasy land, but given the response on other technical > lists to off topic messages, I simply can't fathom why a developer > would post a message like that. He apologized for that later on. > Mostly, I feel sorry for the guy who posted this joke, because I don't > think it was meant to be offensive -- it seems more likely to me that > the developer is perhaps a little socially inept and misguaged his > audience. Of course, something can be offensive even when the author > has no such intent. Hear, hear. > If anything, I think it's a poorly done joke, and a waste of time on > -devel. The message was sent to -devel-announce, not -devel. > But I don't know if the message needs to be taken in context > with many other messages. It was a more or less direct parody at the previous message, http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2008/11/msg4.html I think most people believe that the sender of the message disapproved with the previous message being on -devel-announce (a list only meant for important announcements), and tried some parody on it. > Maybe this one message is weird and not so great, but taken in the > context of other messages I don't know about, the whole of it comes > across as unwelcoming? The problem is that -devel-announce is far more widely read and noticed than -devel (and only Debian Developers can send messages or sponsor message to be sent there), so inappropriate and off-topic messages on there are much more of a problem to the outside appearance Debian than inappropriate messages on -devel. Inappropriate messages on -devel are a big problem for the internal working of Debian, though. Michael -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-women-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Re: Debian's Freenode IRC channels
Ronin, On Sat, Jan 12, 2008 at 06:23:56PM -0400, Pebcak wrote: > So one person complains with a lot of misquoting and taking things out > of context and you guys cave in and move the channel? Man, I'm sending > you some logs after I misquote and take things out of context too. I was > offended too by things being said. It was three people complaining to Freenode's group contact, and the group contact discussed the matter, and people agreed to move. Nothing really spectactular going on, channels move/rename all the time. cheers, Michael -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Freenode IRC channels
On Sat, Jan 12, 2008 at 07:51:43PM +, Benjamin A'Lee wrote: > While I see your point, the fact that the channel has "debian" in the > name suggests that the channel has something to do with the Debian > Project. If I set up a website at debian-offtopic.com and filled it with > sexist jokes, Nazi propaganda, or anything of the sort, people would > rightly be offended. > > While many/most people here may know that Freenode is not the official > Debian IRC network, who's to say that a newcomer will realise that > (after all, there's a #debian etc. there too)? While I realise that it's > not possible to police every single network, Freenode is a very large > and popular one, and I think Debian would be completely justified in > preventing people using its name. The behaviour in the channel, from > what I've heard, is not something that should be associated with Debian. It has been decided to rename the current #debian-offtopic channel to ##debian-offtopic and keep #debian-offtopic around for people being off-topic in #debian to be directed there. So this is hopefully the end of this episode, Michael -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Freenode IRC channels
On Sat, Jan 12, 2008 at 03:34:40AM -0800, Erinn Clark wrote: > * Michael Banck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2008:01:12 12:15 +0100]: > > On Sat, Jan 12, 2008 at 02:08:16AM -0800, Erinn Clark wrote: > > > Anyway, time passed, we changed our official servers, and a lot of users > > > did not follow from freenode. > > > > Well, it should be said that also most of the operators decided to care > > for both channels or stay on freenode. > > Yeah, I knew a lot of the ops stuck around on freenode. I always > wondered what kind of coverage it got. (Just to be clear, I don't expect > you to stick around and monitor all of these channels all the time!) I think #debian on freenode is doing just fine. Usually, when I'm remotely monitoring IRC and see somebody called the !ops factoid in #debian, the abuse would've been klined already by one of the staffers who hang around there. > > > So that's the history, but since you're concerned with the present and > > > future... I don't know what to tell you. As Vid says, anyone can create > > > channels for anything there -- they are not officially sanctioned in any > > > way, they are not officially supported, and very few official Debian > > > types hang around there. > > > > Well, out of the 40 people on #debian-offtopic, around 10% are DDs, and > > another 10-20% are known members of the Debian community. So maybe the > > problem is that having those people around there gives the channel some > > sort of credibility it should not have (given that most of those people > > in there just idle). > > Huh, I didn't know that. I agree that their presence is possibly giving > it some credibility (or at least makes it difficult/impossible for us to > wash our hands of the situation and declare no relation to it). So > what's up? Are any other #d-o patrons? Why y'all misbehavin'? Well, there are Debian people, #debian regulars, former #debian regulars and other people in #debian-offtopic. As I said before, I don't really follow the channel, so I cannot say a lot, but I think most of the misbehaving is from some of the former or current #debian regulars or recent additions. > Michael, do you think we need more (new) ops on freenode? It's been a > while since we appointed new people... As I said above, I think #debian on freenode is fine currently. If somebody wants to tame #debian-offtopic we could support them, but it might be neither easy nor worth it. Michael -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Freenode IRC channels
On Sat, Jan 12, 2008 at 02:08:16AM -0800, Erinn Clark wrote: > Anyway, time passed, we changed our official servers, and a lot of users > did not follow from freenode. Well, it should be said that also most of the operators decided to care for both channels or stay on freenode. > So that's the history, but since you're concerned with the present and > future... I don't know what to tell you. As Vid says, anyone can create > channels for anything there -- they are not officially sanctioned in any > way, they are not officially supported, and very few official Debian > types hang around there. Well, out of the 40 people on #debian-offtopic, around 10% are DDs, and another 10-20% are known members of the Debian community. So maybe the problem is that having those people around there gives the channel some sort of credibility it should not have (given that most of those people in there just idle). Michael -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Freenode IRC channels
On Sat, Jan 12, 2008 at 06:04:16PM +1100, Melissa Draper wrote: > I'm primarily an Ubuntu user, but I've run Debian in various places on my > home network for over a year, and what is currently my home server has been > exclusively Debian for about a year now. > > As part of my NY Resolutions, I decided it was time to get more involved in > Debian, which involves hanging out in Debian channels more. Note that #debian is a support channel, not a community or development channel. >> Apart from rejoining the OFTC Debian channels, I also joined the >> Freenode ones > since they are still the more populous. The channels I joined included > #debian-offtopic - a 'secret' channel which they freely redirect > offtopic conversation to if they are asked for an offtopic channel. > > I am starting to wish I had not. > > Aside from the channels in general being more hostile which I knew to > expect, I find a complete disregard for decency towards women. From just a > week in #debian on freenode, greps for 'girl' and 'women have some really > degrading comments: http://pastebin.ca/LfFsZYkV (encrypted post, password: > debian) > > I've only been in the offtopic channel since the 8th, but already I have > collected: http://pastebin.ca/RiF2KwdQ (encrypted post, password: offtopic) So I'm hanging around #debian-offtopic without really monitoring the channel much, but I can immediately see how it might not be a very nice channel. I am mostly in there because we tell people who are constantly off-topic in #debian to go there, and it makes for a bit more authority if you're idling in a chan you tell people to use. The above problem involves quite some historics and this is my personal take on it, others might disagree slightly or completely: Some years ago some (if not a lot) of the people in #debian-offtopic used to talk sort of like that in #debian, giving #debian quite a bad reputation. Over time we managed to keep these kinds of conversations (general off-topic blabber, talking about drug abuse, being denigrating to women or gay people, etc.) out of the channel by either warning, ban/kicking the offenders or (in the general off-topic case) telling them to go to #debian-offtopic. So while #debian slowly became a nicer and more useful place, #debian-offtopic became the opposite. In a way, it's a place were the regulars can vent of steam if they are too frustrated with doing support in #debian. If we'd close down #debian-offtopic or otherwise regulate it, we'd have to find them another chan probably. I agree that this is a problem, but personally, I am not willing to spend more of my Debian time to tame #debian-offtopic as well, a huge chunk of the time I invest for Debian goes into having #debian on both networks be sensible. One solution would be to officially declare that #debian is the only official Debian channel on irc.freenode.net. > The bottom 3 lines in the offtopic pastebin are pertaining to a > conversation I tried to have just before (http://pastebin.ca/BewJbhLq > encrypted, password: convo), after seeing > > @be $1 barbie is W! $1 is too HARD! let's go shopping! > simonrvn: okay > w00t > @be ssh barbie > W! ssh is too HARD! let's go shopping! Ok, this is an issue with the original #debian bot as well, which should probably by removed. > As an active Ubuntu-Women member, I've many times been told to come to > Debian and the Debian-Women project whenever someone in Ubuntu slips up, > because D-W have had more success with the overall Debian community. Quite > frankly, I'm at a loss for what to think, because I'm not really seeing it > :( See above for a potential solution. Not sure what this would mean for all the local non-english language channels still on irc.freenode.net though, we did not really yet put any QA into them (but we hear about trouble from time to time). Well, that's a more general question anyway. sorry for your experience, Michael -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[Newsforge] Rachel App: Linux music geek
Hi, just read an article on Newsforge about Rachel App: "Rachel App is a renaissance woman whose interests are shared mostly by men and not other women. She's an independent label singer, songwriter, musician, and Linux geek who uses a variety of open source applications to record and enhance her music." "App wasn't sure whether she'd like Linux, so she kept a Windows 98 partition. By November, she was sold on open source, so the friend who'd introduced her to Linux helped her install from a Knoppix CD and then upgrade to Debian unstable. "I decided to go with unstable, not testing, because music applications were quite new at the time and I thought many of them wouldn't be available as packages in Debian testing yet," App says. "My friend didn't install any of the music stuff, so I worked my way around ALSA on my own, using the Internet for info and help." http://software.newsforge.com/software/05/08/04/2014227.shtml?tid=75 cheers, Michael -- Michael Banck Debian Developer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.advogato.org/person/mbanck/diary.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possible d-w project: handling/help DWN editor
On Wed, Jul 20, 2005 at 08:13:37PM +0200, Martin Zobel-Helas wrote: > Before i work on a new submission i usually check out the latest version > of the weeks DWN from CVS[1] I usually just check the state of affairs on the webcvs interface at infodrom.org, which gives you the html of the current work-in-progress DWN. As I never remember the location of it, I click through from 'contribute' to 'Joey's private Website' and all the way down to the current issue. No need to use CVS for this if you only contribute once in a while. Michael -- Michael Banck Debian Developer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.advogato.org/person/mbanck/diary.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Video from Erinn and Magni's talk "Debian Women and Women in Free Software" at Debconf5 (URL)
On Thu, Jul 21, 2005 at 05:39:24PM +0200, Herman Robak wrote: > I would like those videos to "just work" for a > very wide audience, so I take any reports about > playback problems seriously. :-) BTW, is it planned to provide these videos in OGG/Theora format eventually? I think it would be really neat to have those available in a truely Free codec, and word is that OGG/Theora might even be better quality/compression wise. thanks, Michael -- Michael Banck Debian Developer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.advogato.org/person/mbanck/diary.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: DW quotes
On Fri, Jun 17, 2005 at 02:35:28PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > Bull. People who don't have to cope with all that are people who > aren't involved in Debian, or any other free software development > project. How come the GNOME project is such a nice and friendly place overall then? But hey, they got regular releases, company backing and ISVs using their product to build on, so they must be on the wrong track, right? Michael -- Michael Banck Debian Developer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.advogato.org/person/mbanck/diary.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: DW-Map
On Mon, Jun 13, 2005 at 04:50:01PM +0200, martin f krafft wrote: > whatever you do will be insignificant, > but it is very important that you do it. Yeah, right. Michael -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: gnu autotools
On Sat, May 14, 2005 at 02:48:18PM +1000, Sonia Hamilton wrote: > In my quest to become at one with Debian :-) I'm trying to learn to use > the GNU Autotools, but I'm seem to be going around in circles... There's > lots of documentation out there (see below), but it's either out of date > eg [1], contradictory, just gives "magic recipes", or may as well be > written in "Chef" (bork, bork): > [1] http://sourceware.org/autobook/ "The Goat Book" I think this one should still apply to most things. Some of the details might be handled more elegantly these days, though. (The autoconf-doc package is in non-free btw, so you might have missed it. It gives good advice on which macros are available and do what) Michael -- Michael Banck Debian Developer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.advogato.org/person/mbanck/diary.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Bug#298755: www.debian.org: Unable to find Women@Debian project
On Sun, May 08, 2005 at 12:56:55PM +0200, Luk Claes wrote: > I think a link under the Projects section is a first step. If we want > to integrate http://women.alioth.debian.org, the best place would be > http://w.d.o/devel/debian-women IMO. I think it would be better to have a www.debian.org/projects page where all the sub-projects (like doc, d-i, CDDs, ports etc.) are introduced with a small paragraph and a link to their page (wherever that may be). debian-women could be one of them. It is pretty non-intuitive to have all those projects listed under devel/. Michael -- Michael Banck Debian Developer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.advogato.org/person/mbanck/diary.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: errors building a .deb
On Mon, May 02, 2005 at 11:01:57AM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote: > And all of these problems can be averted by doing the right thing, and > using a real revision control system and then shipping a regular ol' > "everyone knows how this works" debhelper-based .diff.gz. Eh, and how does this help QA? If I see a .diff.gz with 20 patches nicely intertwined into each other, I just rm -r the source tree and go for the next package. Unless I really have to hack on it, at which point I shake my fist in anger. Michael -- Michael Banck Debian Developer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.advogato.org/person/mbanck/diary.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: errors building a .deb
On Sat, Apr 30, 2005 at 04:03:42PM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote: > Nah, you can range all over the place and change things. It all gets > recorded in the .diff.gz file in the end. However, best practise is to include your changes as patches in debian/pathces and use a patch-system like dpatch, quilt or cdbs' simple-patchsys. Michael -- Michael Banck Debian Developer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.advogato.org/person/mbanck/diary.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debconf5 accommodation
On Sun, May 01, 2005 at 11:13:48PM +0200, martin f krafft wrote: > Debian Women, not Debian women? Well, that includes all of us, and > I am tempted to beg for space, since you won't snore, and them male > geeks will. :) Haha. Michael -- Michael Banck Debian Developer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.advogato.org/person/mbanck/diary.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: ITA - Basics
On Fri, Feb 18, 2005 at 11:56:21AM -0600, Hugo Vanwoerkom wrote: > There are several packages (at least one?) that I would like to adopt: > recently I saw fvwm-shell is orphaned and I am a devotee of fvwm. So I > know how to update the package, package it, attempt the ITA (never done > thát before), but where does the new package go after I do all that? You need to find a sponsor who uploads your package to ftp.debian.org, just like with any other package you would maintain. Maybe I misunderstood your issue, sorry for that then. Michael -- seb128: did I mention I love the look in your eyes when you upload packages? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Tangential topic -- Was: Re: Sexist Behaviour in Debian Women
On Thu, Dec 16, 2004 at 02:23:17AM -0500, Erinn Clark wrote: > How accepting should we be, exactly? For example, one of my concerns is > that the list and IRC channel will be "overrun" (for lack of a better > word) by well-meaning men. Good point, which is also the cause why I did not join #d-w earlier and will try to stay idle (mostly joined to not miss the meeting again) there, mostly. Michael -- Michael Banck Debian Developer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.advogato.org/person/mbanck/diary.html
Re: The prevailing Debian culture
On Sat, Aug 21, 2004 at 02:23:43PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > What you will encounter in Debian, and free software development in > general, is nothing like you will encounter in the mundane > world. There will be an endless stream of accusations and > recriminations from other Debian developers, from upstream developers, > and from users, who will turn out to be the single most stupid and > ungrateful group of people you will ever encounter. Your experience does not match the experience of the rest of us. > Nobody cares when you do something right; it's expected. Everybody > cares when you do something wrong, or too late, or not at all, and > they will make sure that everybody is aware of this. They will also > complain about how you are doing it to them. > They do not care about you, your habits, or your problems, and they > never will. All they care about is the result. They are intelligent > and analytical and they will notice everything, sooner or later. "They" == Andrew Suffield :) Michael
Re: The prevailing Debian culture
On Sat, Aug 21, 2004 at 02:40:14PM +0200, Miriam Ruiz wrote: > Andrew Suffield wrote: > > You don't have to like it, you have to put up with it, and deal with > > it in a rational manner *regardless* of how much you do or do not > > like it. > We HAVE to put up and deal with that every day in our lifes, I mean > IRL (in real life), outside of the Internet. Don't mind, we're already > used to it, it won't kill us. > The problem is that IRL we have no chice, whether we like it or we > don't, while for a volunteer thing like this is up to us to decide if > it's worth it or not. I've not clear my mind yet in that aspect, I'm > still evaluating pros and cons, so no conclusions yet. > I think it's rational enough to put in a balance what you give and > what you get and take your decision from that. I mean, if all I'm > getting is fightings, trolls, sexism, competitiveness, aggressiveness, > politics and things like that, well, I don't really have fun with all > those things. But if I get some support, friendship, cooperativeness, > something to be proud off, then it's probably worth it. Well said. > Maybe I don't have the appropiate personality to join Debian (to be > honest it's one of the things I'm considering, it's not a complain). > I'll keep thinking on that. And maybe I'm not the only one standing in > that point. Maybe you just have a real life and do not need to emulate one on the internet. This does not rule out being part of the Debian community in any way. Michael
Re: unwritten "messages" was: On debian lists, we cc if asked
Hi, MJ, all On Sun, Aug 15, 2004 at 07:47:27PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote: > Ye gods, that title is in a fairly common neutral academic style! > (Well, I subbed "we" for "one" because it looked odd, but still...) 1. If you want to participate more than once in a Debian sub-community, it is appropriate to subscribe to that list. -women really isn't that high traffic. 2. Your subject did look odd to me at least. 3. You could have easily just mailed the individuals who violated your wishes privately and ask them to get CC'ed the next time. Instead, you decided to bring this up for the whole list, to discuss. 4. This is sort of a newbie-oriented list. I believe it is important to tolerate formal errors up to a bit higher threshold than on other lists (and really, other Debian lists are not a beacon of netiquette either), in order to get the initial momentum going. Everybody is doing errors and only few are intentional. 5. It's always better to ask nicely and not to request. cheers, Michael
Re: We want your stories!
On Sun, Aug 15, 2004 at 09:15:43AM +0100, Helen Faulkner wrote: > If I understdand what Matt is meaning, they're posted on the > debian-newmaint mailing list. They are also reposted to debian-project at the time the people become Debian Developers, with a higher S/N ratio for this particular need. http://www.google.de/search?q=site:lists.debian.org+debian-project+%22Subject:+New+Maintainers%22&hl=de&lr=&ie=UTF-8&filter=0 Seems to catch a lot of them. Michael
Re: How to volunteer for something on debian's todo list?
On Wed, Aug 11, 2004 at 10:52:35AM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote: > You'll also note at the bottom of that page that it says "To add or > remove items in this list, or to inform you have taken over a task, > please contact Josselin Mouette". Josselin is not online until early next week, btw. Michael
Re: What do you want to learn?
On Sun, Aug 08, 2004 at 05:45:12PM +0200, Brigitte Huebner wrote: > here ist a link I find really helpfull as an introduction to packaging: > http://www.schlittermann.de/deb-intern/dpkg/ > I's in German, but I wanted to share it with you anyway and I think > there are a few German-speaking people here. The first 50-60% are very informative, I don't know whether such a nice overview exists in english. However, while the general policy and the internal structure of the Debian packages have not changed much, the last third or so talks about the actual packaging, which has seen dramatic improvements since 1997 with the introduction of e.g. debconf, debhelper, patch systems and cdbs. Further, the article is talking about obsolete standards at the end (FSSTND instead of FHS). Just as a word of warning. Michael
Re: Debian, lists and discrimination
On Fri, Aug 06, 2004 at 01:09:23PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote: > I hope that people won't feed the trolls I hope so, too. End of Discussion. Michael -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: List/IRC climate issues
On Wed, Aug 04, 2004 at 12:01:15PM +0100, Helen Faulkner wrote: > Well, for what it's worth, I signed up to start the NM process yesterday. > > Anyway, this is where I'm at, for people who are interested: [...] Sounds like you did about everything right :) Michael
Re: What do you want to learn?
Heya, On Tue, Aug 03, 2004 at 06:35:41PM -0700, Carla Schroder wrote: > Akkana and I are not the only ones who have the impression that the NM > process is difficult. If it's not all that bad, then there appears to > be a bit of a perception problem. Because this isn't something that I > just picked up out of the blue, I've heard many rants from people > going through it. There are four things here I guess. 1. The New-Maintainer (NM) process is quite easy *WHEN* you are already part of the (technical) Debian community. I.e., if you have packaged stuff for quite a while, followed the discussions about the important technical issues and read the relevant documentation. It is not a good idea to apply first and then try to learn everything on-the-fly. 2. Different Application Managers (AMs) have different expectations of their NMs. Some ask just a couple of questions, some ask really huge amounts of questions, or require other stuff the NM should do. This is somewhat of a general problem of the NM process. However, complains about this are really rare until now. 3. Quite a number of people think that the final approval step is taking unjustified amounts of time where the applicant is left in some sort of limbo, not knowing what to do. All I can say here is that patience is definetely needed at some points of the process. The involved people are all doing other stuff for Debian as well, which is frequently even more important than the NM process. However, recently, there has been an additional step introduced, namely the approval by the front desk. The front desk is quite overworked as well, but usually gets around doing NM work more often than the Debian Account Manager (DAM), who does the final approval. This basically means that if you have been approved by your AM and the Frontdesk, chances are about 98% that you are going to be approved by the DAM as well, the only uncertainty is 'when'. Most of the frustration comes from people who are unsure about their status and fear the DAM might have silently dropped/rejected them without letting them know, resulting in rants and flame-wars on public lists. So my advice here is to i) be patient and help the project along while you're waiting and ii) send requests to the front-desk and NOT to the DAM directly and especially not to public mailing lists. While the DAM has repeatedly stated that he is not treating people who ask about their status in any other way, the *project* suffers from that because either one of its most important participants has to answer unneeded mail or considerable amounts of people are engaged in public flame wars. 4. There are a handful (literally) of people who have been rejected and there are some others who refuse to start the NM process becaus of 'the DAM being the person James Troup, who is a kid-eating monster'. Those people are quite vocal in certain communication channels but do not reflect the opinion of the project (or represent the NM process) in any way. Do not listen to them. > I don't remember the details now, but a couple folks posted here that > the most difficult part was waiting several weeks or more for a > decision. Indeed. If you are not prepared to wait for several months (sic!) for the creation of your account, you should reconsider your application. That said, you can still do very useful work during that time. Usually, you would have a regular sponsor who trusts you so far as that they[1] just upload your packages without large delays. The 'collaborative maintainership program' Debian is loosely doing for a while now allows for easily maintaining packages without having an account. For example, there are numerous non-DDs part of the Debian-GNOME team on alioth.debian.org (check out the '*-guest' accounts at http://alioth.debian.org/project/memberlist.php?group_id=30194). The usual procedure (AFAIK) here is that all the 'debian' parts of the GNOME packages are in a central cvs/svn repository at alioth.debian.org where all the team-members can commit to (every package still has one or two primary maintainers though). The 'guests' just commits their changes/updates to the repository and of the many DDs then uploads the package. The debian-women community could also prove very helpful in helping female NMs getting their packages sponsored. I don't know whether it would be helpful to use alioth.debian.org in a similar fashion, i.e. female NMs (or DDs) import the debian/ directories of their packages there and other DDs then upload them. > It might be helpful to write up the experiences of one or two NMs who > have recently gone through it. http://lists.debian.org/debian-women/2004/07/msg00320.html already has such testimony :) One thing I would like to add at the end: Please do not advocate people just because they are women and you would like to see them in the project. I'm very glad that so many women have stated their intent to participate in Debian, but joining the NM process unprepared might le
