Re: I intend to stand for the project leadership
> On Sun, 28 Sep 1997, joost witteveen wrote:
>
> > >
> > > Do you consider it troublesome to answer questions put to you?
> > >
> > > You intend, as you say, to come forward as a project leader; well, suppose
> > > I were to take hold of you as you were about to ascend the platform,
> > > and were to ask you: "Ian, if you were in a battle, in whose army
> > > would you rather participate, in a company with a wise general, or with
> > > a foolish one? And if you were ill, would you rather have as a wise
> > > physician, or an an ignorant one? It should easy to answer.
> >
> > Was this piece of prosa intended for for debian-devel or
> > shakespear-discussion? For it seems to me, thou talkest
> > rather strangely.
>
> It has been my feeling that Ioannis is not a native speaker of English.
That was my first impression too, then I checked his adres/location
at the bottom, and saw he came from florida. I didn't realise that
didn't mean anything, and if he indeed isn't a native speaker, I
guess I should apologise (Although I'm not a native speaker eighter:).
> It also seems clear that his groundings are scholastic. One might infer (or
> is that imply, I can never keep them straight) that his command of English
> was accomplished through reading the "classics", yielding his wandering
> prose style.
I for one didn't lear english through classics -- and I doubt many
non native speakers did (though I'm sure there are some, probably
elderly people from russia or so (I have known some)).
> As one might have guessed, I like it. It's a nice change of pace from the
> common e-mail with its mis-spelled, not to mention missing, words, and
> choppy, minimalist style.
Oh, I like those misspellings! They make me feel at home!
> I must admit that at times the flowery language
> tends to obscure the point, but we each have our own obfuscation
> techniques and I'm willing to let Ioannis have his ;-)
I guess I should do the same. Sorry.
> > I think important qualities for a debian leader are
> >
> > - "Getting" the free software ideal.
> > - Having support of a large majority of the debian developpers.
> > - Being able to make well-informed desicions about what
> > routes debian should follow.
> >
> > In neighter of those points, I see any importance whatsoever in
> > having had good teachers, having administered many companies or
> > whatever. Please, understand that there is a difference between
> > companies and debian: with companies, it's all about competition,
> > trying to pay your employees as little as possible while making
> > them still feel happy about their work. None of the skills involved
> > in doing that have any value when you are a leader of Debian.
> >
> While I agree that Debian is not run like a corporation, (and should not
> be) there are many advantages to having a clear understanding of how
> corporations work. As to competition, there is a difference as well. While
> in a corporation you tend to compete with your fellow employees for your
> position within the company, within Free Software projects like Debian the
> competition is to make our product better than what has been available
> before. We, as a group, compete with the rest of the software world for
> our "position" in the world, while amongst ourselves the competition is to
> see how each of us can best support that effort. (such competition is
> usually called cooperation)
OK, some competition. And yes, some administrive qualities are good,
but I think the most important qualities are in software enginering,
not with administration.
[..]
> I don't agree with Ioannis here. I _do_ think that software engineering
> competence is an important quality in a leader for the Debian Project.
[..]
> At the same time I can't agree with Joost's comments completely either.
> This concept of "getting" Free Software, while I understand the idiom, I
> don't see the point. This seems to me to be a somewhat "religious"
> attitude (Only true believers may participate) that is no more condusive
> to the goals of Free Software than the insistance that no money be made
> from it is. (sorry for the twisty turny sentance)
Yes, it probably is somewhat religious. But one of the very good
things I think Bruce has done was guide the DFSG development.
I don't think anyone who doesn't "get" the free software ideal
would be able to do such things (i.e., the non-believers:
John 10:26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep,
as I said unto you.).
> While I agree, that folks who don't "get" it are less likely to be
> elected, I don't agree that we should reject these people outright from
> even running! (Not that we have seen an "objectionable" candidates yet)
Well, I'm not advocating that. All I'm saying is that I wouldn't vote
for those that I think don't "get" it. But surely there is no foolproof
way to check if somebody "gets" it or not, so it can never be a
requirement.
--
joost witteveen, joostje@debian.org
#!/usr/bin/perl -sp0777i<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<j]dsj
$/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1
lK[d2%Sa2/d0$^Ixp"|dc`;s/\W//g;$_=pack('H*',/((..)*)$/)
#what's this? see http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/
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