950641211 Good morning, afternoon and evening, everyone. :) 950641228 Welcome to the Y2K Debian Leadership Debates 950641245 I'm your moderator, Rob Levin, the head of operations of Open Projects 950641298 we've assembled you all so that we can have a public forum in which the candidates can talk about who they are, and what they can bring to the job of Debian Project Leader 950641327 as you'll note from the web site, this debate will be divided into two sections: formal question/answer and an informal q/a from the participants 950641343 to submit a question for the second half, email it to: dld2k@openprojects.net 950641378 please make your questions fairly anonymous; we'll try to prioritize them as best we can, but all of the questions will be posted without headers after the debate, so the candidates and others can look at them and consider them 950641415 we'll do that raw, so try to be nice, please :) question floods will probably have to be removed, so please don't go there 950641495 our candidates are Ben Collins, Wichert Akkerman, Joel Klecker and Matthew Vernon 950641542 tentatively, we'll provide 3 minutes per answer per candidate during the formal question period 950641579 we can provide more if necessary, but we want to allow questions for the audience 950641595 when you send informal questions to dld2k@openprojects.net, please make sure the header begins with QUESTION 950641597 thanks 950641601 on to our first question 950641619 In the past RMS has requested from Debian a distribution that does not include 950641630 any non-free software or references to non-free software. Many ideas have been 950641630 sugested to satisfy this request. What should Debian do, if anything? 950641648 we'll start with Matthew 950641683 one moment, please :) 950641713 AIUI, we already do this to a greater or lesser extent - main contains only free software, and anything that depends on non-free things is in contrib. The question of whether packages should Suggest: or Recommend: non-free things is different. 950641740 IMHO, it would be better if they didn't, but if there are no free alternatives, then it seems sensible to provide the relevant information 950641775 Matthew Vernon: do you have additional comments? 950641782 I can see RMS's point, but I think trying to hide the fact that is enhanced by won't gain us much 950641813 No. Would people rather I wrote everything at once, or one line at a time? 950641827 Matthew Vernon: just let us know when you are finished 950641831 everything at once, people can scroll if needed 950641857 may run into a line length problem though...but longer lines help 950641862 Off-topic, how do get rid of all these netsplits and so on? 950641864 we'll format 950641874 /ignore * crap 950641894 Matthew Vernon: off-topic, I'm looking for sockets programmers for a follow-on to ircd :) 950641901 okay, let's go to Ben Collins 950641904 Ben Collins: go ahead 950641933 ok...IMO, we are already starting to see this form. Like anything it takes time to change how things have been done for so long 950641962 wi re 9 950641966 (oops) 950641987 I do believe that we should not completely "hide" non-free, as this is against our current beliefs to support and acknoledge that non-free software exists 950642027 advancements in our archive management (package pools, etc..) and package tools (apt) will allow us to give the users a clear choice as to whether or not they want non-free software 950642035 educating is better then forcing 950642038 (done) 950642052 okay, next, Joel Klecker 950642055 Joel? 950642120 I think we may be missing Joel Klecker :) 950642152 he appeared to be alive earlier on 950642170 I'm not getting a ping response, but some clients eat pings 950642177 me either 950642182 lets go on to wichert for the moment then 950642188 * Rob Levin nods 950642190 Wichert? 950642196 that's me 950642205 the question is to you :) 950642221 I think people already know I support the idea; I've proposed doing this last year already, 950642237 but it got stranded on the fact that it's hard to split and we didn't really know how do it it 950642248 and pressure from other things that needed more immediate attention 950642285 The idea of having a distribution that only uses free software 950642301 and doesn't need anything else appeals to me, and if we can do it without 950642324 decreasing our support for non-free software I think we should definitely do it 950642358 It isn't so much as hiding non-free software, as well as proving that you can live quite well without it 950642372 We'll always have and support non-free software 950642421 (done) 950642436 okay....we're still having difficulties locating Joel Klecker 950642446 we can come back to him if need be 950642453 in the meantime, the next question will begin with Wichert 950642465 During your term the new-maintainer processes was closed by the 950642465 new-maintainer team. Many people considered their actions to be 950642467 inappropriate. How should inappropriate unilateral actions by 950642475 delegates/teams be treated by the project? 950642480 Wichert? 950642495 yes 950642514 New-maintainer might be a bad example of this actually 950642549 New-maintainer is a really important function in Debian 950642571 people in the committee have the power to make people developers 950642577 or remove their developer status. 950642586 I agree that new maintainer was closed for way too long 950642593 and something should have been done earlier. 950642639 However in this case the fact that a) it's a really important job where you can't easily replace people, and b) we had people in new-maintainer who were willing to continue provided there was a 950642657 good new structure for handling it, I was very hestitant in replacing them 950642679 I hope that this will prove to be the right decision in the end, but we'll have to see how it works out 950642684 More generally, 950642699 I don't think a delegate should be treated much differently in this respect then other maintainers 950642720 If someone isn't active, we should try to get them more involved and active again 950642740 If that really doesn't seem possible, we'll have to replace someone 950642753 okay.... 950642767 I'm going to cut this off at 4 minutes, and we'll give everyone 4 minutes for this question 950642767 I'll stop now to give other a chance to answer this :) 950642783 Joel Klecker, are you back? 950642794 apparently not 950642803 Matthew Vernon is next 950642807 I think it's something that has to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. In the case of nm - it seems like the problem could have been predicted before it happened. That notwithstanding, if a team decides that it's had enough, we can't (and shouldn't) force them to continue doing their task. I'm proposing to keep in contact with all such groups, so that I can monitor when things are getting tough, and take prophylactic action; prevention being 950642807 Matthew? 950642842 I'm not about to take pot-shots at people about how nm was handled, especially since it's very close to re-opening 950642861 The important thing now in that regard is to move forwards again. 950642887 Generally, better communication should prevent this sort of thing though - and I think that's very important. 950642891 (done) 950642910 okay.... 950642916 mind if I make a short statement here? 950642923 wichert: it's sort of out of order 950642938 your call 950642939 wichert: unless it does not pertain to the debate; clear announcements via /msg 950642951 k 950642952 Ben Collins? 950642960 ok 950642994 I think I differ in my assessment of the "new maintainer fallout" in that I think it deals more generally with some core issues in our structure... 950643031 after talking to a couple of people involved with new maintainer I was shown that they were basically asking for help quite a while before they decided to close 950643041 asking for help indirectly, but still, they asked 950643059 I don't think anyone can point fingers since no one was at fault 950643075 we were just not prepared structurally to deal with such as event 950643153 the future holds some very significant changes, in that we need a better structure to handle our core functionlity...things like ftp admin, system admin, new maintainer etc... 950643185 there is not a very well defined strucure insuring that these functions (aside from the people) will go on inthe event that another fallout occurs 950643200 this needs to be changed 950643202 (done) 950643216 . 950643222 ah, okay 950643235 I'm going to add Joel Klecker in on the first question 950643247 he hasn't been here, so I figure he doesn't get much advantage :) 950643256 repeating question one, and you'll have 3 minutes 950643259 Joel Klecker: are you with us? 950643269 yes 950643274 In the past RMS has requested from Debian a distribution that does not include 950643274 any non-free software or references to non-free software. Many ideas have been 950643275 sugested to satisfy this request. What should Debian do, if anything? 950643306 Joel: go ahead 950643376 we're experiencing problems 950643396 if necessary, we'll time his responses to each question and insert them into the record before we post the logs :) 950643403 no we're not, i just don't have an answer 950643420 Joel Klecker: ah, okay....when you're done, please signify with (done) 950643430 so, we'll go ahead and give you question 2, if that's okay? 950643461 During wichert's term the new-maintainer processes was closed by the 950643461 new-maintainer team. Many people considered their actions to be 950643461 inappropriate. How should inappropriate unilateral actions by 950643462 fine 950643463 delegates/teams be treated by the project? 950643468 Joel Klecker: go ahead 950643542 we can provide about 30 seconds more for Joel's answer to begin, and then we'll have to move on 950643593 okay, on to the next question 950643612 Matthew Vernon will take this question first 950643612 Debian's recent growth has been tremendous. The project has nearly doubled 950643613 its size in all areas. Is this growth maintainable? Should anything be done 950643614 to make Debian more scalable or to reduce the growth? 950643618 Matthew? 950643672 (Matthew is checking into his connection at the moment, apparentily he was just disconnected) 950643713 he needs to be op'd 950643715 or +v 950643725 I think this growth is a good thing, to a certain extent. I clearly could get to the point of being un-manageable, but it hasn't got to that point yet 950643738 (this is a 3-minute question again) 950643757 As I said in my opening speech, communication seems to be the key to maintaining growth. 950643818 The DPL needs to keep in touch with the various groups (ftp-admin, nw, qa, and so on) to ensure that they're happy and everything is going OK. Tasks that used to only need one or two people will need to be taken on by more people, and the DPL will have to co-ordinate that. 950643852 (done) I'll go and try and sort out my god-awful connectivity now 950643859 okay.... 950643869 Ben Collins? 950643893 ok, I hate to make direct comments on another candidates answer, but hey, this is a debate :) 950643903 Ben Collins: it's permitted 950643905 I disagree that were are in a manageable state right now 950643937 there are much needed tasks that are impossible to do at this point 950643966 removing the cruft from our archive in over 4000 packages and 7+ archs is next undoable by any means 950643977 we'll have to cut off at this point 950643984 ? 950643994 * Rob Levin checks his calculation, a bit over 3 minutes 950644007 hmm...seemed very short 950644011 (done) :) 950644016 let me double check 950644024 that was 3 min for the both of you I think 950644033 that sounds more accurate 950644044 okay, my goof, you have almost 2 minutes 950644046 please continue 950644048 ok 950644072 we will have to install better control over our archive... 950644125 communications is also not the single key answer...without a working basis on which to develop (well defined charters for each of the groups), we cannot not know who to talk to , or who needs to make the decisions vital to sustaining our growth 950644138 (done) 950644153 thank you ben, apologies for that moderator glitch :) 950644158 Wichert? 950644168 coming 950644175 So far we seem to be handling the growth pretty well, and I think it's done is 950644175 a lot of good as well. However it will mean we'll have to constantly look at 950644175 our organization and see if it needs to be changes. We already did this by 950644175 creating lists like debian-devel and debian-private, creating a new-maintainer 950644175 team, a constitution, etc. As I also already said in my openening speech we 950644175 will need to focus on areas such as quality control as well. 950644201 . 950644201 I think we have reached the point were a single person can't keep in touch with 950644201 everything that is happening in Debian anymore, and we'll need to see how 950644201 to that influences the project. I think that his year we'll have to figure out 950644201 how we should manage `projects' that focus more on specific areas of Debian, 950644202 such as boot-floppies, quality control, documentation, archive management, etc. 950644215 . 950644215 This will without doubt create some struggles, since it means it will be harder 950644215 for people to keep track of everything. Hopefully things like Debian Weekly News 950644215 will help us there. 950644238 (Done) 950644247 hehe, thank you for speeding the process along 8) 950644276 next question, and yes, candidates, please be aware pasting was not specifically excluded 950644303 okay, Joel was slated to take the next question first 950644306 encouraged, or we will run out of time :> 950644308 * Ben Collins prefers to wing it :) 950644336 * Matthew Vernon isn't running X or gpm :( 950644340 Matthew Vernon will go next 950644350 Matthew Vernon: it was a bit long, but he quit early 950644365 we'll exclude fast pasting for the rest of the debate 950644375 next question 950644381 Two sub-projects within Debian are aimed at developing ports of Debian to 950644381 the Hurd and BSD platforms. Some of the suggested plans would make these 950644383 ports considerably different from the Linux platform. How much leeway should 950644391 these ports have to deviate from the other platforms? Should Debian focus on 950644392 its core Linux distribution or try to spread to many OSs? 950644395 Matthew? 950644435 Well, as someone who works on -hurd, I may be a little biased in this regard, but I don't see a problem as such with non-Linux OSs being part of Debian 950644492 As long as those Oss are free, and they don't conflict with policy in too many ways (GNU/Hurd, for instance has shadowfs (or will do), which means it may not make a distinction between /bin and /usr/bin, for example) 950644547 I think it's a good thing, but clearly involves some problems that our current infrastructure doesn't deal with very well (Architecture: all becomes less accurate, and there are sometimes OS-specific bugs in packages, for instance). 950644578 If we can sort these issues out, then I think non-linux ports will make Debian more flexible, and more attractive to admins. 950644601 We should maintain our Linux focus for the forseeable future, however. 950644603 (done) 950644611 okay.... 950644654 Ben Collins? 950644661 ok 950644684 I think the entire idea of providing alternate OS's is part of Debian's heritage... 950644712 Linux was in this state when Debian first started, so it is not outside of our beliefs, so long as we adhere to the freeness issues, which BSD and Hurd do... 950644781 Obviously the groups handling such ports should hold the responsibility of devising structure and maintainence to allow their OS's to be side-by-side on our archive with Linux...at the same time other developers should be willing to accept these changes and help the groups whenever possible with ideas and feedback 950644806 i think one of th biggest hurdles is the focus on intel-linux specific views 950644831 bugs and changes that affect only non-intel archs, and even more so, non-linux ports, are not viewed with as much priority 950644849 this is starting to subside to a great extent, but these views need to snuffed completely 950644852 (done) 950644899 Wichert? 950644913 before Wichert responds, process notes 950644919 ? 950644930 (1) in each case, we provide the same amount of time for a given question to everyone, where possible 950644947 I've only goofed on that once :) 950644960 you don't have to use all your time, and you don't get credit for unused time 950644979 (2) Wichert specifically asked for guidance on pasting, and I've told him, paste at typing speed 950644983 it seems reasonable 950644995 (3) We're going to tuck in and do two more questions after this one 950644998 Wichert: go ahead? 950645028 This will differ per port; from what I know for the BSD port the strategy is to have a small BSD base system and use the FreeBSD Linux compatability support to run the normal GNU/Linux userland, which means we don't need to do a lot to support it. 950645049 For the HURD we will probably see that more HURD-specific packages will arrive, which shouldn't be a problem. 950645066 Some packages will be difficult though, since they will need major per-OS changes. 950645083 I don't think that at the moment we really know how we should deal with those, so I think we will have to wait and see where it goes. 950645097 As for infrastructure, as Matthew already said we will need to make some changes there. 950645114 At the moment for example we don't have a per-architecture binary-all trees, which will be needed at some point. 950645145 At the moment we're mostly Linux (and i386) focused, because that's what most of our developers use 950645169 That might change in the future though, but we really can't predict that 950645176 (Done) 950645181 okay 950645196 at this point in the debate, we'll preserve the original structure but tuck in a bit 950645213 we will ask two more formal questions, then have a 10 minute break, then ask a small selection of the informal questions 950645240 I'm going to skip ahead to a very popular question, and start with Wichert for this one 950645256 I want to end the last formal question with Matthew Vernon so Ben will ask that one 950645258 next question: 950645268 Do some people or group of people have influence or even power that is 950645268 outside the constitution? If so, is it good? bad? What should be 950645268 done about it, if anything? If these people don't exist, what do we do to 950645270 debunk the myth of the cabal? 950645294 Wichert? 950645300 I'm here 950645330 Of course nobody has any power that is outside the constitution. 950645364 The `cabal'-theory suggests that a small group of people have (almost) complete power over Debian 950645392 What actually happens is that a small group of people spent a *lot* of time on Debian 950645429 As a result this group knows eachother very well, and is active any many areas of the project 950645461 That doesn't mean that it's a closed group or that it is a powerhouse 950645502 Anybody is free to join any area of the project, and we actively encourage people to do that 950645530 okay, we have hit time limit 950645545 you mean my time is up? 950645554 yes, three minutes 950645556 (Done) then :) 950645559 kay :) 950645578 Matthew? 950645580 Inevitably in an organisation the size of Debian, there will be people who meet with the DPL socially, and so might seem to be able to wield influence over them. In practice, it's a maturity issue for the DPL. I don't doubt that any of the candidates are sufficiently good people in this regard. As to the cabal, there are certainly some people who spend a lot of time on Debian, and/or a lot of time on irc, so may well reach a concensus amongst t 950645603 These others may consider that a "cabal" is running Debian. 950645653 Whether these people have any authority or not seems debatable. I don't see how one would quash the rumours of a cabal, though - many of the larger groups I'm involved in have a legendary cabal of some sorts. 950645673 In a group the size of Debian, accusations of clique-ism or cabals will always be present. 950645690 As long as there isn't really a cabal, then that's not a problem, IMO. 950645692 (done) 950645703 Ben Collins? 950645740 I think we all sort of agree on this issue...the theories and accusations will probably not completely go away, no matter what is done 950645766 on one had, the real-time interaction between developers on IRC< or in real-life, is a good thing... 950645785 things get done rather quickly, and with little or no fuss...which feeds progress 950645800 bogging things down with "politics" is usually not prefered 950645821 however, the downside is that this gives an air of "closed-door" policies 950645828 people feel left out... 950645850 so the end result will probably involve some sort of medium... 950645870 and each case is different on what this medium is, and thus subject to opinions 950645890 to be honest, I don't know how to keep this from reoccurring, but if I am DPL, I will work to reduce it 950645908 (done) 950645914 okay 950645939 the last question will be a combination of the last two listed formal questions 950645950 then we will break for 10, and come back with a sampling of informal questions 950645962 Ben will lead 950645975 The recent run of IPOs and startups has made alot of capital available to 950645975 the free software world. How should this relate to Debian and its ideals 950645976 of being a free and technicaly excellent distribution? How much influence 950645989 should commercial entities (particularly those doing development on our base) 950645989 have in the project? 950645991 and: 950645997 The Project has enjoyed a successful past but Linux is now nearly mainstream. 950645997 How will Debian react to this, and where is it headed in the future, 1, 5 950645999 and 10 years from now? 950646012 so the question comes down to: how will Debian survive success? :) 950646015 Ben? 950646028 hmm..veryt broad question for 3 minutes :) 950646057 mainly I think we should just keep to our goals...provide a vast selection of software in the most stable format... 950646085 the minute we start to let commercial influences affect our decision making, is when Debian stops being Debian 950646130 we should simply recognize that we are more in the view of these entities, and not ignore them...just accept them as big groups of average users :) 950646139 (done) 950646149 okay.....Wichert? 950646160 #include "Ben Collins's comments" 950646165 * Rob Levin grins 950646170 we are already influenced by this 950646190 we have seen people that want to become a Debian maintainer for the sole reason of being able to participate in an IPO 950646215 We also benefit from it 950646234 Without this huge interesting in Linux and capital becoming available we wouldn't have the resources we have now.. 950646253 VA wouldn't hire 2 Debian developers fulltime for example 950646280 It also affects our developers, since some of then have benefited from their involvement in Linux or free software in general 950646295 I don't think it has influenced or will influence Debian itself though 950646307 we are still all about making a free operating system as an open project 950646311 and I don't see that changing us 950646321 (Done) 950646330 Matthew Vernon? 950646332 IMO, Debian will (and should) remain a volunteer organisation. That's the nature of what we are, and it's important. That way we can concentrate on making the best distribution, without worrying about commercial pressures. 950646378 To answer the question of how commercial entities should influence us - I don't think they should have more influence than normal users 950646437 I think the mainstream-ing (is that a word?) of Linux can only benefit us, in terms of attracting more competant developers (and hopefully money :) ) to the project 950646460 In 10 years time, I still see us as the best distribution in the World :) 950646465 (done) 950646471 fantastic 950646479 okay, we'll move on to the next stage 950646504 we break for up to 10 minutes 950647208 okay all....bearing in mind that at least one of our participants has time constraints (must leave in 15 minutes) 950647223 we're going to do two short time questions and then provide a brief summing-up 950647234 first, a KDE question: 950647243 Debian's current stance on KDE is to not include it. The KDE 950647243 programmers and other distributions have no problem with the license 950647243 the way it is currently. Should Debian change it's stance on the KD 950647246 licensing issue? 950647259 start with Matthew Vernon 950647266 That's a short question? :) 950647268 (1.5 minutes) 950647271 yes :) 950647277 try to be brief :) 950647291 Well, AIUI, the problem is that some KDE stuff includes GPL code, yet the QPL isn't GPL-compatible 950647306 There's been much discussion of this on -legal 950647353 ok, back 950647356 My stance is that if it's OK to include it, we should include it. If it's not, then we shouldn't. Simple as that. I leave the licence experts to decide which is the case. What other distros do isn't relevant - we must do what is right, IMHO 950647361 (done) 950647375 wonderful 950647384 Wichert? 950647395 I can't do anything but agree 950647415 any further comments? 950647427 Debian is all about free software, and we should not allow something like this to slip by 950647439 if possible we should help them resolve these issues so everyone will benefit 950647461 but it is a real problem at the moment 950647463 (Done) 950647470 Ben Collins? 950647511 I think this is a real legal issue..., one which can't be decided on opinion alone 950647552 I agree with matthew and wichert...but the solution isn't very clear 950647582 and I am no lawyer :) 950647584 (done) 950647605 okay....now, the last question (again, sorry to all about time constraints) is a combination of two people's questions 950647610 What will you do to accelerate Debian's release cycle? 950647613 and: 950647623 With debians growth and nearly 5000 packages it has become clear that it has 950647623 outgrown the current package system. Also with the slow release cycles it seems 950647623 that there are only "broken" and "obsolete" distributions. My question then, is 950647629 if you would like to instate package pools (described at 950647630 https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/1999/10/msg00052.html). And if not, what other 950647630 alternatives do you see fit? 950647645 we'll start with Matthew 950647660 (2 minute question) 950647752 I've not looked at package pools in great detail (and dont' have time to do so in 2 minutes). As to release cycles, I think we need to allow less time between one release and the next freeze - so we can then have more frequent releases, without shortening the freeze time 950647797 Shorter times 'tween release and next freeze would get less bugs into the distro. With more attention payed to QA, we could get many people working specifically on the release targets for the next release to. 950647871 And less new things in a release would mean less bugs too - we have to get a balence between very frequent releases with very little new things in (one extreme which CD vendors will hate), and infrequent releases (with the previous distro rather out-of-date). 950647884 okay 950647894 At the moment, the balence seems wrong to me, and I think a shorter release cycle would improve this. 950647896 (done) 950647911 Ben Collins? 950647954 I see the package pool structure as an enabling-technology (to coin a suit buzz-word, even though I hate them :), and faster releases as a result 950647975 how we achieve this is going to depend more on the inbetween, where we decide how to leverage this new structure 950648031 as most know, Guy decided that package-pool was the way to head, and Jason and I have been working on trying to implent it using LDAP as the core repository...so things are progrws (slowly because of the current release taking time) 950648054 after the pool is in place, we will need the ideas and work of other developers to leverage it 950648074 s/progrws/progressing/ 950648075 (done) 950648081 Wichert? 950648111 as ben said work is already in progress on package pools, which seem like a really good idea to make it easier to play around with the release process 950648148 our release manager already stated he would like to freeze quicker (iirc he mentioned 3 months after the release), which should help as well 950648197 hopefully the combination of the possibilities and flexibility that package pools provide and a faster release cycle should produce a better and more up to date distribution 950648225 not all the focus needs to go to packaging and package systems though.. 950648238 we need to shift the focus towards other areas such as active QA and documentation 950648255 those are becoming more and more important, esp. with our growing userbase 950648256 (Done) 950648277 okay....now, with the permission of our candidates, we'll do one minute summaries of everybody's broad goals and views 950648295 I'm going to just pick somebody to start, at this point it's hard to see that we've created any patterns :) 950648305 Ben Collins: 950648327 ok 950648359 I hope that I have gotten the point across that I am more interested in internal Debian workings, than on outward views on Debian by others... 950648383 I say that because I am a firm believer that you cannot change the way people view you by changing them, but more so by changing what you do... 950648398 if we concentrate on our work...it will pay off 950648417 and others will recognize what we have and will do 950648418 (done) 950648436 thank you Ben, and thanks for living through being the first :) 950648439 Wichert: 950648449 euh, okay 950648461 :) 950648490 Over the past year I've learned a lot about how Debian works, and where it needs some improvement 950648537 hmm 950648540 this is hard :) 950648558 I think we'll need to realize that nothing everything is about producing packages 950648569 and I'ld like to help Debian grow in other areas 950648583