What do you expect from the DPL?
Hi,
Lucas sent an email asking people to encourage their 'dream DPL' [1].
I have already encouraged a few people in the last weeks, but when discussing
with them, they all tell me very different things about the DPL role. When
I asked: "What are you expecting the DPL to do?", I got a bunch of different
replies:
- Set technical goals for the project
- Mediation regarding social and technical problems
- Be aware of everything that goes on with Debian. E.g. I have the feeling some
people expect the DPL to read all the Debian mailing lists.
- As a continuation of the above point, take action in mailing list threads when
they go bad/wrong.
- Debian representation: give talks on behalf of Debian in important conferences
or congresses. Also give interviews.
- Handle the relationship with the open source ecosystem
- Handle complex issues: e.g. new licenses in the archive, trademark, etc.
- Handle Debian money and oversee the Debian Trusted Organisations.
- Make sure delegations are updated and and teams keep functioning properly.
- Publicity and advertisement for Debian. E.g. mention *everything important*
that's going on in the bits from DPL or equivalent.
This is, globally, people are expecting the DPL to do all of the above and maybe
more. I think it's clear this is NOT humanly possible. What are the alternatives?
Should we redefine the role of the DPL? Should we maybe split the role of the
DPL in a few elected roles? Should we discuss (again) the possibility of
replacing the DPL for a board? Sometimes I have felt like the DPL election was
a popularity contest, and that's probably not what it should be.
For the record, I'm not interested in running for DPL. I would like to be able
to encourage people to run without the feeling I'm asking them to throw
themselves under a never ending shitload of work.
Ana
[1]: https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2015/02/msg00001.html
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