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Debconf5: Structural Evolution
Debconf5, the sixth annual
Debian Conference, recently descended upon the Helsinki University of
Technology (HUT) in Espoo, Finland. LWN reporter Rebecca Sobol was
privileged to attend this year's event.
Hundreds of Debian developers, maintainers, translators, users and fans joined together for an overflowing week's worth of talks, BOFs, hacking and partying. Debian GNU/Linux is the largest distribution project in many ways; lots of developers (around 200 Debian Developers plus scores of package maintainers, documentation authors and translators), support for more architectures, lots of packages (nearly 15,000 binary packages are available), more derived distributions using it as a base, and soon even a choice between Linux and Hurd kernels. The Debian community is massive and scattered around the globe.
Debian is large, and it is all volunteer. A few people have found or created jobs for themselves where they can be paid to work on Debian, at least part of the time, but they are in the minority. The organization is guided by a social contract and maintains a strong commitment to software freedom. Bdale Garbee, long time Debian developer and former Debian Project Leader gave a talk on Debian's Structural Evolution, subtitled Musings on Debian, Today and Tomorrow. He has serious concerns that Debian has grown too large for its infrastructure. For example, each year Debian developers elect a Project Leader. For nine weeks each year a few prominent Debian developers cease working as a team to compete for a job that has grown too complex for a single person. Only Debian developers are allowed to vote, leaving hundreds, or more likely thousands of Debian volunteers and users with no say whatsoever. Some of Debian's infrastructure is ably provided by Software in the Public Interest (SPI). However too few Debian developers are involved in SPI, which oversees many other projects. Also it not in SPI's mandate to provide technical guidance, that is the role of the Technical Committee. Bdale finds the committee, as currently defined, is not particularly satisfying. The committee could use a periodic review and refresh, which is currently not happening. The current DPL, Branden Robinson started Project SCUD as an attempt to address some of these issues while working within the constraints of the Debian constitution. However Bdale (a member of SCUD) finds that the relationship between the DPL and the project is not clear. The team is self-selected and does not include a representative sampling of Debian project participants. Perhaps it is time to replace the DPL and Technical Committee with an elected leadership board. Candidates would be motivated to campaign on their teamwork skills and more people would be willing to be involved in Debian's leadership. Perhaps a way could be found to allow the greater Debian community a voice in this process. Perhaps this would make Debian even stronger. (Log in to post comments)
Debconf5: Structural Evolution Posted Jul 21, 2005 7:38 UTC (Thu) by cate (subscriber, #1359) [Link] 200 Debian Developers?
I thinks there are more as 1200 DD. (see http://www.debian.org/devel/people)
Debconf5: Structural Evolution Posted Jul 21, 2005 14:01 UTC (Thu) by broonie (subscriber, #7078) [Link] It depends how you count developers. The number of active developers is closer to 200 than to 1,200.
Debconf5: Structural Evolution Posted Jul 21, 2005 17:40 UTC (Thu) by syntaxis (subscriber, #18897) [Link] "It depends how you count developers."
Agreed, but this is just stating the blatantly obvious. It would be awesome if either (or preferably both) of you guys could provide the metrics *you* use so that this discussion actually has some substance...
What a wrong choice of name... Posted Jul 21, 2005 8:37 UTC (Thu) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link] Project SCUDScud, like the missiles used in the Gulf War?
What a wrong choice of name... Posted Jul 21, 2005 11:52 UTC (Thu) by jayavarman (guest, #19600) [Link] Actually I guess it is Scud like the name of Sid's dog in the original Pixar's animated movie Toy Story.
What a wrong choice of name... Posted Jul 21, 2005 19:15 UTC (Thu) by AJWM (guest, #15888) [Link] No doubt your're right. But given Sid's (the Toy Story character) personality, the dog was probably named after the missile. (And technically, "Scud" is the NATO code name for the missile, originally the Soviet R-11. All NATO code names for surface-to-surface missiles start with the letter S.)
What a wrong choice of name... Posted Jul 21, 2005 23:26 UTC (Thu) by bignose (subscriber, #40) [Link] From the message announcing Project Scud:
"In reference to the dog of Sid from toystory, actually this was just
http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2005/03/msg00035.html
Debconf5: Structural Evolution Posted Jul 21, 2005 18:51 UTC (Thu) by syntaxis (subscriber, #18897) [Link] "Perhaps it is time to replace the DPL and Technical Committee with an elected leadership board."
This was indeed the main thrust of Bdale's speech (http://dc5video.debian.net/2005-07-12/08-Securing_the_Tes...) but it's a shame that this LWN piece fails to cover the ensuing discussion that the proposition sparked.
Below is my attempt at a transcript of one of the more interesting dialogues, where the DPL highlights something that he sees as a major obstacle to institutional reform within the project:
---
<Bdale Garbee>: So there're a couple of fundamental things that come to mind when we start talking about this. One is that I think organisational structure - good organisational structure - very rarely does anything to guarantee success, but if you get the wrong struture it really can impede progress and success. That's sort of one idea. And the other one is that - it's been my observation that, every time I personally have ended up in the situation where I've started to think I was indispensable (and believe me, it's happened at various times in my history) - when something finally forced me to realise that that wasn't true, things in general sort of picked up pace and moved better as a result. And so there is this sort of trade-off, I think, between motivating participation and how you actually sort of keep from getting stuck in a rut or something. So... I don't know that I have any more brilliant ideas than that.
Anyway, it's good food for thought, I think...
Debconf5: Videos Posted Jul 22, 2005 20:28 UTC (Fri) by emj (guest, #14307) [Link] The Debconf5 videos has their own wiki page, so you can choose which one to watch. Almost all the talks are there, and they are still being uploaded.We were going to make them better quality, but there wasn't enough time sadly. Talks I liked:
Most of the talks are worth while, but these are the ones I liked.
Debconf5: Structural Evolution Posted Jul 24, 2005 18:09 UTC (Sun) by branden (subscriber, #7029) [Link] The current DPL, Branden Robinson started Project SCUD as an attempt to address some of these issues while working within the constraints of the Debian constitution. Actually, that's not true. Project Scud was started by Jeroen van Wolffelaar. He and Andreas Schuldei were already part of it when I joined; Enrico Zini and Steve Langasek may also have been, but I don't remember clearly at this point. Jeroen (jvw) could probably tell you for sure.
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