LWN: Comments on "Chris Lamb elected as Debian project leader"

Chris Lamb elected as Debian project leader

lamby — Thu, 20 Apr 2017 14:33:16 +0000

Thank you :)

Chris Lamb elected as Debian project leader

debacle — Tue, 18 Apr 2017 21:50:17 +0000

First, the Debian project lead is not a very powerful position, but more a representative one, both inside the project and to the outside. This, unfortunately, leads to low participation in general.

Second, esp. this election was not conflictive in any way. If one thinks, that both Mehdi and Chris are good for the job, why care? In the past, differences were a little bit stronger or more obvious.

Third, Debianites are all busy with the preparation of Debian 9 "stretch" - an important distrection from the election!

Anyway: Many thanks to Mehdi! Good luck, Chris!

Chris Lamb elected as Debian project leader

liw — Mon, 17 Apr 2017 14:40:39 +0000

https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2017/04/msg00065.html has statisics from past DPL votes.

This year didn't have quite the largest number of eligible voters, and also not also not quiet the lowest percentage of actual voters. But close.

As far as why fewer people voted, it's anybody's guess, until and unless someone goes to the considerable effort to ask Debian developer why they didn't vote.

My guess is that there's not enough conflict or danger to make voting feel important. Also the candidates this year were not all that dissimilar. But that's a guess.

For next year I may run on a platform that any Debian developer who can't prove they've made a backup in the past two weeks get forcibly retired from the project. Alternatively, it's acceptable to be quoted on LWN or participate in a flame war about systemd.

Chris Lamb elected as Debian project leader

gerv — Mon, 17 Apr 2017 12:57:39 +0000

There are more Debian Developers than ever before, and yet fewer of them voted than ever before (except perhaps the odd 2001 election). This is despite the fact that it seems that this year's race was pretty close. Are Debian Developers getting less interested in who's in charge?

Gerv