A look at the 2024 Debian Project Leader election

The nominations have closed and campaigning is underway to see who will be the next Debian Project Leader (DPL). This year, two candidates are campaigning for the position Jonathan Carter has held for four eventful years: Sruthi Chandran and Andreas Tille. Topics that have emerged so far include how the prospective DPLs would spend project money, their opinions on handling controversial topics, and project diversity.

The DPL role

The project leader position is defined by Debian's Constitution, and has a one-year term. The DPL is elected by members of the Debian Project, the Debian Developers. The DPL has duties in two broad categories, external and internal duties. The external duties can include attending events and giving talks about Debian, as well as managing relationships with other projects. The DPL's internal duties include coordinating and communicating within the project, and appointing delegates to the various committees, including the Debian Technical Committee, Debian Publicity Team, Debian System Administration (DSA) team, and the Treasurer team, among others.

The DPL is empowered to make decisions that require "urgent action" and those decisions "for whom [no-one] else has responsibility". The DPL is also charged with making decisions about "property held in trust" for the project (such as hardware, or money), and can decide to authorize new "trusted organizations" to hold Debian assets, or to remove organizations from the list of trusted organizations.

The project lead co-appoints a new Project Secretary with the current secretary. If they cannot agree on a delegate for this position, then it is put to a vote by the Debian Developers. The Project Secretary is responsible for, among other things, managing project elections. The current secretary, Kurt Roeckx, has held the position since 2009 and was re-appointed to another term in February.

The Carter years

Carter, the current DPL, has held the position since April 2020 and is the first to hold the position for four consecutive terms. Last year, Carter ran unopposed. This year, Carter did not stand for election, but he posted a lengthy overview of his terms in his final "Bits from the DPL". He covered topics like the things that were accomplished during those terms, and things he felt could have gone better or still need to be done. It provides a great deal of insight for those who would hold the DPL role and for those who need to evaluate candidates.

Communication is at the top of Carter's list of things that could have gone better:

With every task, crisis or deadline that appears, I think that once this is over, I'll have some more breathing space to get back to non-urgent, but important tasks. "Bits from the DPL" was something I really wanted to get right this last term, and clearly failed spectacularly. I have two long Bits from the DPL drafts that I never finished, I tend to have prioritised problems of the day over communication.

His tenure as DPL had plenty of crises and deadlines. Carter's first term began in April 2020, just as COVID-19 began to spread globally and forced the project to hold DebConf20 as a virtual event. The project released Debian 11 and Debian 12 on his watch. He led the project during an episode of attacks on the Debian community by a former Debian Developer that began during Sam Hartman's term and continued into Carter's. But the most difficult period, said Carter, was the loss of Abraham Raji, who passed away during a kayaking trip during DebConf23. "There's really not anything anyone could've done to predict or stop it, but it was devastating to many of us, especially the people closest to him."

Carter said his number-one goal for his last term, which carried over from previous terms but failed to materialize, was for Debian to become a "standalone entity". Currently Debian is affiliated with Software in the Public Interest (SPI), a 501(c)(3) non-profit incorporated in the United States. In addition to SPI, Debian takes donations via Debian France (a French non-profit organization) and debian.ch (a Swiss non-profit). Carter included this in his 2022 campaign platform, citing "difficulties in setting up agreements with external entities, and creating problems in terms of personal legal liability within the project" as reasons Debian needs to have its own legal entity. Carter said it was "something that we need to seriously address together as a project and make a decision based on its merits", but it remains unaddressed.

The DPL winds up having a hand in many project initiatives by encouraging others to do the work, and delegating the authority to do so. In his final "Bits from the DPL," Carter recounted several initiatives that he helped along in this way, including founding the DebianNet Team to provide hosting services to Debian developers, nudging Steve McIntyre to propose the successful non-free firmware general-resolution, and encouraging the creation of the Debian Reimbursements system.

The candidates

Roeckx's call for DPL nominations went out on March 8. Candidates self-nominate for DPL and provide a platform with a biography and goals for voters to consider ahead of the campaign period. In addition to the two candidates who have chosen to run this year, Debian Developers always have a third option as mandated by the Debian constitution: none of the above. The project uses a variation of the Condorcet method for its general resolutions and elections, where voters rank the options instead of simply choosing one. If Debian voters rank "none of the above" over the two candidates, then the election process is started again and run until a winning candidate is selected.

Chandran had run for DPL previously in 2021, and her 2024 platform was updated from that year's platform. She described herself as "a librarian turned Free Software enthusiast and Debian Developer from India". She has worked on Ruby, JavaScript, Go, and font packages for Debian since 2016, though she mentioned that she is not very active at packaging these days. Chandran highlighted that she is a member of several teams and was chief organizer of DebConf23 in India.

Why is Chandran running? She wrote that she is concerned about "skewed gender ratios within the Free Software community (and Debian)" and is doing "whatever I can to better the situation". It may be worth noting that, if elected, Chandran would be the first woman to be DPL—a position that has existed since 1993:

I am aware that Debian is doing things to increase diversity within Debian, but as we can see, it is not sufficient. I am sad that there are only two women Debian Developer[s] from a large country like India. I believe diversity is not something to be discussed only within Debian-women or Debian-diversity. It should come up for discussion in each and every aspect of the project.

Diversity is a cornerstone of Chandran's platform. She stated that Debian spends "a good amount of money on diversity" but without achieving results. Therefore, her first task as DPL would be "to revisit the existing spending pattern to analyse why and where we are going wrong". She would "streamline" the Diversity Team's activities and appoint a delegated team to coordinate all diversity activities within Debian and help make decisions about related spending.

Chandran would also like to focus on outreach as DPL. Debian participates in Google Summer of Code (GSoC) and Outreachy, but she would like to see additional activities, such as a "Debian camp" similar to Free Software Camp, and review the efficacy of participating in GSoC and Outreachy.

She agreed that it may be time for Debian to become its own registered organization or foundation:

While organising DebConf23, I had to face some issues because Debian is not a registered organisation, That is when I started thinking about this concept seriously.

So, as a DPL, I would be definitely interested in exploring the possibilities, advantages and disadvantages of having Debian registered. I am not saying that this is my main agenda, but it will definitely be brought up if I am elected.

Tille wrote in his platform that he has been involved with Debian for more than 25 years, but this is his first run for DPL. Tille has a background as a physicist, which has given him "a keen interest in practical applications of IT solutions in science". He wrote that his primary involvement with Debian has been as a packager, and he is running because he feels "compelled to give back more to my friends and the community".

Keeping Debian "relevant in a changing OS ecosystem" is at the top of Tille's agenda. He wrote that Debian is a "victim of its own success" as "the most frequently derived distribution". If elected, he would like to work on making Debian more widely known by users who "do not consider themselves Linux experts" and try to learn from other Linux distributions to improve Debian. "Maybe we will be able to draw some conclusions, for instance, why ArchWiki is famous for good documentation but wiki.debian.org is not." He would like to encourage better packaging practices and to help address Debian's "smelly packages" (packages that need to be updated to meet newer Debian standards). The Debian Trends page has information about packages in need of refresh and lists of packages with the issues that need to be addressed.

Tille also emphasized outreach, diversity, inclusivity, and a need to foster "a friendly environment inside Debian" in his platform. He cites success in attracting contributors to Debian Med, a project to create a Debian Pure Blend tailored for "all tasks in medical care and research" with software for "medical imaging, bioinformatics, clinic IT infrastructure" and more. His platform includes ideas about lowering the barriers to contribution by "introducing tasks such as bug squashing, autopkgtest writing, and other short-term assignments that require minimal time commitments".

His platform includes an emphasis on shared work on packaging and improving the process of integrating new packages. In particular, Tille wants to see a Debian where "every crucial task" is handled by at least two people to "ensure comprehensive backup and support". Those who prefer a single-maintainer model, he wrote, "should probably rank me below 'None of the above'".

On controversial topics

It is customary for the prospective DPL candidates to take questions on the debian-vote mailing list during the campaign period. Thomas Koch jumped in on March 10, before the official start of the campaign period, and led with an observation that "more and more areas of our lives become political and controversies on such topics [become] more aggressive." He then asked, how would the candidates "try to lead a community that focuses on producing a great distribution without getting divided on controversial topics?"

Tille held his response until the official start of the campaign period and provided a two-part response. Tille wrote that if Koch meant political controversies, "I have a clear statement: Make sure off-topic messages will be reduced to a bare minimum on Debian channels". He suggested a maximum of one, clearly marked, off-topic message that invites discussion elsewhere. Controversial technical topics, he wrote, are "no problem as long as participants of the discussion are following our Code of Conduct".

Politics, wrote Chandran are in "every aspect of our life", including Debian; "using or contributing to Debian itself is a political statement. I do not consider Debian to be 'just' a technical project, it has its social and political aspects too". Like Tille, she said there will be technical disagreements, which is fine as long as the discussions are constructive and do not violate the code of conduct.

Debian as an organization

Nilesh Patra wanted to know what the candidates plans were for managing Debian's finances and accounting. Patra wrote, "the finances in the project do not have a lot of transparency" though there are occasional updates on debian-private and via DPL talks. The candidates' platforms, complained Patra, "have only a (very) vague idea about it and I'd like to know more specifics about it" and if the candidates had ideas about where the money would be best spent.

Indeed, tracking Debian's spending is not as easy as one might hope. One might expect a project like Debian to have an annual budget with projected spending, estimated donations, and all of that to be tracked publicly. However, this is not the case. The bulk of Debian's finances are held by SPI, and Debian's spending via SPI is found in the SPI treasurer reports rather than on Debian's site. The most recent SPI report is from November 2023, and found here. According to that report, Debian held more than $649,000 in reserve.

Chandran said that "deciding in advance where to spend and where not to spend money in advance is not a great idea in our context", because Debian does not have a fixed budget. Her only plan right now, she wrote, is "to revisit the diversity budget and how to increase the efficiency" of spending on diversity. If elected, she wrote that she would spend time to evaluate whether a better system could replace the "delayed, manual and tedious accounting process" the project has today.

To this, Carter replied that "accounting processes have definitely been one of the stumbling blocks", but pointed to the new reimbursement system as a major improvement:

It's still under development, but it's shaping up nicely, so I think in the future, the financial administration will be far less of a burden to the DPL than it has been for years already.

Tille admitted that his understanding is "currently low and incomplete". However, he wrote that he would "love to be transparent about money" and is open to help on that front should he become DPL. He said he did not know how to "measure 'best' objectively" but listed events like DebConf, bug-squashing parties, and team sprints as important, as well as infrastructure hardware for the project. People were not, he said, donating money to Debian for the money to sit unused in a bank account and the project should consider new ways to use its money, including paying people to do Debian work:

Personally, I'm open to discussing whether to compensate contributors for important tasks that either nobody wants to do or lacks people with sufficient time capacity to undertake those tasks. I recall the various pros and cons raised during past discussions on this matter, but if people believe it's time to initiate a fresh discussion, I'm very receptive to that.

Joost van Baal-Ilić asked a related question: what do the candidates think about having a single legal entity to represent Debian worldwide? Pierre-Elliott Bécue, the treasurer of Debian France, followed that question with more detailed inquiries about statements in Chandran's platform.

In her platform, Chandran wrote that she would like to revisit the relationship with Debian's trusted organizations (TOs) that hold its funds and to explore having more TOs instead of a "dependency on one or two", which she identified as a problem while organizing DebConf23. Bécue wrote that he had a "certain memory" of a TO that "disappeared with Debian assets", and observed that it is already difficult managing three TOs. He wondered how more would be an improvement.

Chandran said that she was aware of the TO's disappearance and that "having TOs with just 1-2 people responsible is a warning sign". She wrote that if more TOs were appointed, "it would be ensured that there is a team of people and a good governing structure before committing," and agreements with TOs that "show signs of collapse" would be revoked. Regular reporting, she said, would be a requirement for any new TOs.

Bécue had complained that SPI held 90% of Debian's assets and that he spends "more than 30 to 50%" of his time as treasurer dealing with SPI because it is "very slow to process things". What, he wanted to know, "do we inten[d] to do about it?"

She responded that having the bulk of Debian assets in a single TO "is like putting all the eggs in one basket" and that her platform suggestion of more TOs would balance that. "I know this would be a herculean task, but I would like to at least get it started."

Tille did not respond to Bécue's questions, but did address the idea of Debian becoming a legal entity. He suggested that if a person or persons felt strongly that Debian should have its own legal entity, they should take the lead:

We are a Do-o-cracy. The person who does the job can decide what gets done. Those who really strongly believe that a legal entity is the answer to major problems in Debian might run this effort, find consensus to run a GR changing the [constitution] - whatever seems to be necessary. If we do not find competent volunteers this will not happen.

Personally I decided to become a [physicist] and not a lawyer since I consider the laws of physics simple, easy to describe and perfectly able to verify in practice. This is all very distinct to the laws we have given [ourselves] in society and I'm no expert in the latter. Thus I simply feel not comfortable in giving statements about things I do not full understand.

Instead, Tille wrote, he would like to focus on technical problems he sees and that he understands. His time to devote to being DPL is limited, he noted, so he would decide to focus on areas where he feels competent and more efficient. "I will not stop others solving additional problems and if those people manage to convince me that it is important for Debian I might support this."

Hardware and cloud

Thomas Goirand wanted to know if the candidates would consider, for example, spending $100,000 on "a new Debian cloud". In addition, he asked about spending a similar amount to provide more build servers and systems for reproducible builds.

Carter replied that he didn't want to take attention away from the candidates, but noted that the DSA team had recently filed a request for up to $160,000 for upgrades. He said that "every single hardware request over the last 4 years (whether from DSA or from a DD) has been approved".

Chandran expressed concern about having enough volunteers to take on maintenance of services like Goirand's cloud. "If we do not have a enough volunteers to handle them, it will result in burnout and eventually the services die." She suggested taking up the topic after the elections to evaluate pros and cons before making a commitment. She was more favorable toward spending money on hardware for existing teams and services, but suggested deferring to a discussion with DSA before making decisions.

For his part, Tille said that he had no use case for a Debian cloud but is "perfectly open" to a discussion but it would need to have a "real team" and not a one-person team to care for it. He said that he would be happy to spend money on hardware infrastructure, as long as there are people to "do the actual grunt work of buying, installing and maintaining the hardware". Paying a cloud provider directly for some services instead of trying to build a Debian cloud might be an answer to Tille's personnel requirements, although he said it would need to be discussed and what could be delegated to cloud providers and what needed to be hosted by Debian.

Bandwidth challenges

Patra had a second question for the candidates, this time about addressing bandwidth challenges. Patra observed that teams in Debian "struggle with limited developer time" and that many teams have as few as three or four people sharing the burden, in some cases only one person. This "can lead to exhaustion, burnouts" and can lead to stale packages and other work stagnating when people become busy with real life. Did the candidates have a strategy for addressing this?

Tille responded that he considered this "a crucial problem" and one of the tasks of the DPL to identify areas where work is not sustainable. Step zero, he said, was for one-person teams to admit there is a problem. He pointed out that this does not always work. He cited an example of asking for help with R packaging, but the only response was "two further confirmations of time constraints". But the first step had to be admitting there is a problem, and advertising it:

In general I believe that a DPL is limited in effectiveness if people don't [do] that step zero. It seems that within Debian, there are individuals with exceptional technical skills who may also experience a syndrome where they feel they are the sole individuals capable to do certain tasks. This might make step one even harder: Document what you are doing, seeking actively for more team members and teach them kindly.

This step is time-consuming, especially for individuals with significant time constraints. Investing time without a clear vision of success poses a challenge - ensuring that the new team member can effectively handle the pending tasks while also committing to the role for a long time to make it really sustainable.

He added that he had "no good idea" how to fully solve this problem within a volunteer organization like Debian. Tille did raise the idea of paying people from Debian funds to help take on important work, but said it would be better "if we could convince companies to pay Debian developers and permit them to use their [payed] time to spent on Debian tasks than paying single persons from Debian funds". Chandran has not yet responded to the bandwidth question.

Decision time

The voting period begins on April 6 and ends on April 19. The term for the new DPL begins on April 21 and runs for one year. No matter who wins, the incoming DPL will have no shortage of work to be done.