Distributions

News and Editorials

Debian Project Leader Election Quiet This Year

This year, the election of the Debian Project Leader (DPL) is proving more sedate than in previous years. The change, perhaps, reflects the diminished importance of the distribution, or the efforts over the last few years to increase civility within the project. Or possibly the change is due to the fact that only two candidates are running — Stefano Zacchiroli and incumbent Steve McIntyre, two long time project members who respect one another. But, for whatever reason, this years DPL election is noteworthy mainly for its civility. Zacchiroli and McIntyre share many views, and, on many others, differ mainly in emphasis. The result is that the election will likely be decided mainly on personality and management style rather than issues.

As outlined in the Debian Constitution, the DPL is elected each year. The election begins with a week long nomination period, followed by a three week campaign period and a two week voting period. Only official Debian Developers can vote, and results are tallied by the Project Secretary using a Condorcet method, in which the winner is the candidate who would beat each of the other candidates in a run-off election (although, this year, the results will be the same as a simple majority vote, since there are only two candidates). This year, voting began on March 29, and is scheduled to end on April 11, a second before midnight UTC.

The Candidates: Steve McIntyre

Steve McIntyre, the current DPL, has been a Debian Developer since 1996. According to his election platform, his main contribution to Debian is as a member of the CD Team, "both developing the debian-cd software itself and using that same software to create the official CDs." In addition, McIntyre hosts servers on Debian's autobuilder network for building packages for multiple hardware architectures, and helps to administer the project's Summer of Code program.

McIntyre ran largely on his record in his present term. In his platform, he emphasized how, in the past year, he organized a review of how various Debian teams were performing. To try to improve inefficient teams, he has tried to recruit new members and suggest new work methods. He also emphasized communication, saying that he has helped resolve disputes within the project, and represented Debian at trade fairs, as well as to the press and other free software groups. He listed "communications within the project. The Debian community tends to discuss everything publicly and at great lengths, but, this year, debian-vote seems subdued compared to previous years." as his first goal in a new term, followed by finding ways to improve processes within the project, such as the one by which new maintainers join the project.

However, McIntyre did not specify how he would approach these goals. Instead, he simply said, "I want to see improvements made where they are clearly needed. There are cases where communications are lacking, or people and teams might not be working as effectively as they want to or need to. In those cases, I want to help and encourage the people involved to make those improvements. If that is not enough, then we may need stronger actions."

Rather than focusing on details, McIntyre urged people to vote for him on the basis of his experience, his organizational work, and his personality. "I'm a programmer, which means I have strong opinions on many subjects (*grin*). Despite that, I believe I am honest, generally approachable and easy to work with. I am a good communicator and negotiator, and I have made many friends in the Debian and wider Free Software Community over the years."

The Candidates: Stefano Zacchiroli

Stefano Zacchiroli, better known as "Zack," has been a Debian developer since 2001. He maintains a number of packages related to OCaml and Vim as well as "tools for mathematics in XML, [and] Python libraries for dealing with XML," according to his platform.

In contrast to McIntyre's statement, Zacchiroli's statement was much more organized and concrete. Even so, it is at least twice as long, listing key points in bullet lists and listing specific actions he wants to take. These key point range from a promise to be "transparent and present," responsible for setting the project agenda, and active in communicating his activities to the rest of the project to encouraging consensus and the control of "vocal minorities" in discussions, and finding new ways in which new developers and non-programmers can become more active more quickly. He also promised to encourage face-to-face meetings, to see that core teams within the project consist of at least three members, and to encourage members of inactive or poorly organized teams to find a replacement and "something to work on that is more fun for them."

While Zacchiroli's platform included such concrete ideas as methods for continuing to improve the levels of politeness on mailing lists and redesigning the web site, a large part of it centered on the role of the DPL. In Zacchiroli's view, the DPL is responsible for conflict resolution within the project. He explained that, while he will not be a "'post-in-every-thread' DPL" that he "will try to be present in 'hot' discussions . . . which concern the organization and the big picture of the project. I will also encourage seeking the DPL opinion on specific topics by pinging me explicitly. The DPL['s] opinion can also be a reasonable first attempt to solve a conflict; if it fails, we do have other mechanisms to settle it." He suggested that these proposals will be aided by his personality: "I am thoughtful, listen to others, and open to be convinced by good arguments."

Campaign Issues

For those who want details about the campaigning, Zacchiroli provides a convenient summary of most of the questions raised on the debian-vote mailing list during the campaign period.

However, for those hoping to differentiate the candidates by their stands on the issues, debian-vote offers little help. McIntyre and Zacchiroli are in broad agreement on many — even most — subjects, including the use of non-sexist language in standard project documents. Both agree that collaborative package management is desirable, particularly as a way to help new maintainers gain experience, and that important packages should usually have core teams to maintain them. Similarly, the two candidates are in broad agreement that Debian's reserve funds of some $125,000 could be greatly reduced, although McIntyre suggests that they be halved, and Zacchiroli suggests that they could be reduced to $50,000.

One small difference that emerges on debian-vote is the role of the DPL in discussions of policies and actions: Zacchiroli sees the DPL as the leader of discussions who sets the agenda, while McIntyre favors a less direct approach of encouraging sensible people to voice their opinions whenever possible. However, this is a difference in approach, not a dispute over whether anything needs to be done.

Even McIntyre's announcement of Luk Claes, another long-time Debian Developer, as a running mate has not been much of issue. The idea that the DPL needs trusted assistants is not a new one; for instance, in 2005, Branden Robinson and Andreas Schuldei ran, promising that if either was elected, he would be assisted by "Project SCUD" — a group of half a dozen long-time Debian contributors. However, while Project SCUD was controversial in its day, nobody has publicly expressed a comparable level of concern that McIntyre proposed a kind of partnership that the Debian Constitution does not explicitly provide for, explaining that he and Claes are "planning on splitting the workload between us, depending on what fits and who has the time at any given point. My plan is for both of us to receive leader@mail."

Most likely, the proposal is uncontroversial because Zacchiroli's position is not far from McIntyre's. Although Zacchiroli said in his platform that he does not believe in a "DPL board" because "the DPL term is too short to spend time with extra coordination hops," he immediately moved closer to McIntyre's position by adding that he "will be looking for a 2IC (second in charge, vice-leader)." This admission led McIntyre to add a rebuttal to his own platform: "That I can understand completely, but I'd be personally much happier if he was to name his proposed assistant before the election. I did that deliberately with Luk, as I want people to be able to vote for a known quantity rather than somebody unnamed."

The largest difference between the candidates is in their answers to the question of what actions will improve Debian the most. In reply to the question, Zacchiroli wrote, "When I joined in 2001, Debian was The Distribution that a lot of users were using and all my friends knowing Free Software were dreaming of contributing to. Things have changed since then: newbies now use Ubuntu or Fedora, and contributors can easily join their communities. Debian is too often seen as the old distro that some old timers still use, having a process to join which is not worth trying. The Debian value that needs to be improved the most is changing that: putting Debian back into its place." Zacchiroli maintains that, within a year, Debian can set an example for the rest of the free software community, particularly in contributing changes to upstream projects.

In comparison, McIntyre replied to the question by writing about improving communication both inside and outside the project. "We need to encourage more people to experiment with new ideas, rather than simply live with the status quo all the time. Larger projects have inertia, and we have to acknowledge that: either push things more to overcome it, or work around it for the new ideas until they're ready for wider adoptions." He added that "the most important thing we need to do is to work out exactly what we want the Debian project to be, in terms of leadership. Making it clearer and easier for people to gain recognition for whatever work they're doing on or with Debian is far and away the best way to encourage more people to get involved." Noticeably, though, the solution for both candidates to the main problem that they see is to improve coordination within and without the project, the only difference being the reasons they want to do so.

Conclusion

Rather than attack each other's policies, both McIntyre and Zacchiroli tried to point out the weakness in each other's statements. For instance, in the rebuttal added to the end of his platform statement, Zacchiroli attempts to characterize Claes and McIntyre's candidacy as vague, claiming that "their platform lacks hints and strategies that explain how they are going to attack those problems . . . . Also, I'm missing the vision of the two candidates on relevant topics such as Debian membership, mailing list discussion quality, [and] derivatives [distributions based on Debian]."

For his part, McIntyre attempted in his own rebuttal to counter Zacchiroli's bullet lists by saying, "I'm not sure he will have the time to do what he's planning: time always runs away more quickly than you expect" — a comment that serves to remind voters of his own experience as DPL.

After you read McIntyre's and Zacchiroli's comments, you soon realize that there is no major difference of opinion between them. When you find an apparent one, on close examination, it tends to be a matter of emphasis at a particular time more than anything approaching a major disagreement. In fact, one candidate's answer in a particular context often echoes the other's answers in another. Both show an awareness of issues and maturity that could make an effective DPL.

The main question about this years' election, apart from who wins, is whether such reasonableness will affect voter turnout. Although many decry the acrimony of previous elections, it may have encouraged people to discuss issues and vote. This years' reasonableness seems to have reduced discussion on debian-vote (always taking into account the Debian community's tendency to discuss everything publicly and at great length) and the possibility seems strong that the number of votes cast could be similarly reduced. We'll know some time in the early hours of April 12 when the results are announced.

Comments (5 posted)

New Releases

CentOS 5.3 released

The CentOS 5.3 release is available. "CentOS-5.3 is based on the upstream release EL 5.3.0, and includes packages from all variants including Server and Client. All upstream repositories have been combined into one, to make it easier for end users to work with. And the option to further enable external repositories at install time is now available in the installer." See the release notes for more information.

Full Story (comments: 8)

Fedora 11 beta release available

The Fedora 11 beta release has been announced. "The larger open source community, beyond just developers and Fedora contributors, can download, test, and report issues, which should substantially improve the final release. Fedora even provides convenient Live images that testers can write to either CD/DVD, or to a USB key. Windows users can also make Live USB keys using the easy LiveUSB Creator application." See the Fedora 11 feature list for information on some of the new stuff in this release.

Comments (none posted)

Ubuntu 9.04 Beta released

Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope (9.04) beta is available for testing. In particular, there is a call for testing suspend/resume. For those who have already downloaded Jaunty beta, beware of a python upgrade with some problems. The bad packages have been blocked and fixed packages have been uploaded, so make sure you have the correct python 2.6 packages.

Full Story (comments: none)

Distribution News

Debian GNU/Linux

First call for votes for the Debian Project Leader Elections 2009

The voting period has begun in the this year's Debian Project Leader elections. There are three choices available: Stefano Zacchiroli, Steve McIntyre (the current DPL) or neither. Voting will be open until April 11, 2009.

Full Story (comments: none)

Fedora

Reminder: Fedora Board IRC meeting 1800 UTC 2009-04-07

The Fedora Advisory Board is holding its monthly public meeting on Tuesday, 7 April 2009, at 1800 UTC on IRC Freenode. "We're trying something new (albeit in a minor way) in this meeting. The moderator will still be available to gather input from the #fedora-board-public channel, but will voice people, one at a time, in the queue in the #fedora-board-meeting channel. We'll limit time per voice as needed to give everyone in the queue a chance to be heard. If this process works well, we'll use it at later meetings and note the change on the wiki." Public meetings will be held on the first Tuesday of each month.

Full Story (comments: none)

Gentoo Linux

Gentoo Council Meeting Summary

Click below for a summary of the March 26, 2009 meeting of the Gentoo council. Topics include GLEP 55 and EAPI-3 Proposals.

Full Story (comments: none)

Ubuntu family

Packaging Training Sessions

The Ubuntu Developer Community has announced a new initiative to help those interested in developing Ubuntu. "Thursday is from now on Packaging Training day. We'll have regular one-hour sessions in #ubuntu-classroom on irc.freenode.net where we'll have speakers who present a packaging technique and leave enough time for all packaging related questions you might have." Click below for the April schedule.

Full Story (comments: none)

Other distributions

LynuxWorks' BlueCat 5.6 Supports Portwell's PEB-2737 Embedded Computer Board

LynuxWorks has announced that BlueCat 5.6 Linux operating system now supports Portwell's commercial off the shelf PEB-2737 embedded computer board. "Utilizing an Intel Embedded Compact Extended form factor, the PEB-2737 leverages Intel's Z510/Z530 Atom processor series by providing an optimized micro-architecture for low power, compact and fanless devices and when combined with LynuxWorks' BlueCat Linux, is a basis for applications in in-vehicle infotainment, medical, military and industrial automation and control."

Comments (none posted)

Distribution Newsletters

DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 296

The DistroWatch Weekly for March 30, 2009 is out. "After last week's interview with Tiny Core's Robert Shingledecker, the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly takes a first look at the world's smallest desktop Linux distribution. Can a 10 MB distro be turned and tweaked into a powerful desktop replacement? Read on to find out. In the news, PCLinuxOS has seen developers leave the popular distribution over internal conflicts due to issues around the latest release. This has also caused ripples as TinyMe decides to move away from PCLinuxOS as their base. In the meanwhile, the administrator of a PCLinuxOS community web site has announced that he will no longer be involved with PCLinuxOS and will instead work on a new distribution called Unity. In other news, OpenSolaris posts major improvements to their package management system, Fedora calls for testing the open-source Nouveau driver, and the founder of Qimo 4 Kids explains the purpose of the young distribution designed for children. All this and more in this issue of DistroWatch Weekly - happy reading!"

Comments (none posted)

Fedora Weekly News #169

The Fedora Weekly News for the week ending March 29, 2009 is out. "This week in "What Happened Last Summer?" Developments conveys an announcement on the Fedora intrusion of 2008. Announcements reels-off a list of interesting "Upcoming Events". PlanetFedora selects choice blog posts including Richard W.M. Jones' RPM-dependency visualizer. Marketing reports that "Fedora has the Most New Features". Ambassadors reports that "Fedora is on the move in Italy". QualityAssurance shares the results of "Test Days" for the nouveau driver and other outstanding work. Translation catches-up on problems with Persian l10n and more. Artwork asks is it too late for "A Lion for Leonidas?". Security warns of a "Firefox Emergency". Virtualization concludes that "KVM and QEMU Merge Feature Stays in Fedora 11" and on "Web Based libvirt Management" and a comprehensive "Fedora Virtualization Status Report"."

Full Story (comments: none)

openSUSE Weekly News #65

This issue of the openSUSE Weekly News covers an Update on iFolder, openSUSE Weekly News @ RadioTux.de, People of openSUSE is back, OpenSource meet Business, My GIMP Tutorial and Resource and more.

Comments (none posted)

Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #135

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter for the week ending March 28, 2009 is out. "In this issue we cover: Ubuntu 9.04 Beta Released, Jaunty Countdown Banners, Ubuntu 7.10 reaches EOL April 18th, Ubuntu Server dedicated course, QA Team Testing Day: Ubuntu Installers, Ubuntu Makassar, Ubuntu Tunisia, Ubuntu New York, Ubuntu LoCo Drupal 6.3.1 released, Launchpad Maintenance April 1st, Linking project releases in Launchpad to Milestones, LinkedIn for Ubuntu Members, Ubuntu 9.04 Free Culture Showcase Winners, The Fridge needs a new theme, LWN subscription for Ubuntu Members, Ubuntu Podcast #23 and an interview with John Pugh(Canonical Technical Partner Mgr.), Full Circle Magazine #23, March 2009 Team Reports, and much, much more!"

Full Story (comments: none)

Distribution meetings

openSUSE Project at LinuxExpo in Prague

Look for the openSUSE project at LinuxExpo in Prague. "The openSUSE Project is bringing the green to Prague in April! The openSUSE Project will have a booth, demos, and several presentations at the LinuxExpo in Prague, April 15 and 16th at the Hotel Olympik Artemis."

Full Story (comments: none)

openSUSE Conference

The openSUSE Project will be having its first contributor's conference, September 17 - 20, 2009 in Nuremberg, Germany. "If you're interested in being part of the conference team, speak up on the opensuse-marketing mailing list. We're looking for contributors to help with speaker selection, event staff, video recording talks and sessions, and much more. See the wiki for more help, and add your name if you're interested in being part of the conference team."

Comments (none posted)

Distribution reviews

Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11: A true Windows replacement (Computerworld)

Computerworld reviews SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11. "There are lots of Linux distros being touted as great desktop operating systems for PCs. However, there's only one that I can wholeheartedly recommend to business owners as a Windows replacement: Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (SLED). SLED 11, which was released on March 24, stands above its competitors because it works and plays well with existing Windows business networks, data files and application servers. You can, of course, add this functionality to other Linux distributions -- if you're willing to do it manually. SLED gives you pretty much the full deal out of the box."

Comments (none posted)

Jackalope sighting: first look at Ubuntu 9.04 beta (ars technica)

ars technica reviews Ubuntu 9.04 beta. "All things considered, Ubuntu 9.04 is shaping up to be a pretty good release, albeit a bit light on new features. I've been running the it since the beginning of the month, when I installed it from a daily CD image. I've only had a few minor problems with it and it's definitely on track to be much more robust than the last two versions. I'm having significantly fewer problems with Compiz and PulseAudio. I've also noticed that boot performance in 9.04 is excellent, as my system starts up much faster."

Comments (none posted)

Novell Desktop Linux: Solid, But Lacks Features (eWeek Europe)

Jason Brooks takes a look at SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED). "Based on my tests so far of SLED 11, I've found Novell's new Linux offering to be a solid desktop operating system with a set of features and support options that are well tuned for enterprises - particularly those looking to integrate the Linux desktop into a Microsoft-centric infrastructure."

Comments (none posted)

Page editor: Rebecca Sobol
Next page: Development>>