881_Bits_from_the_DPL.en.srt

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Daniel: Welcome everyone, this is the "Bits from the DPL"

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with our Debian Project Leader, Stefano Zacchiroli

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so, really, give a round of applause, I don't think he need much of an introduction

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Stefano: Thanks

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[applause]

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So, I'm sure you're here because this will be the last time

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I'll bother you with this "Bits from the DPL" speech,

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at least at a DebConf, so thanks for being here.

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In this talk, I'm gonna go through two main parts:

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the first one is some sorts of... a set of mantras

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that have become the way I define Debian today.

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I've presented them to various people before

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I see there is enough people in the room

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that won't be bothered because it's the first time they hear them,

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so I hope you will allow me to go through them.

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And then, after this kind of defining mantras of Debian,

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I will present some of the challenges that I think we have in Debian

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and that we need to take care of

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to guarantee that we have a long and healthy life ahead.

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But before that I'm trying to make the point that we did make history.

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So, this is how Debian started in 1993,

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the first quote.

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1993 is almost twenty years ago.

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Back then there were very few GNU/Linux distributions around,

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and they were... they had troubles,

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and the quality was not stellar

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and people started to think about

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"how can we make GNU/Linux competitive with commercial operating system?"

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and Ian Murdock came up with this great idea of Debian

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and this is where all this started.

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But then we made history at least in two ways:

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one way is a sort of community and social way:

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in a more recent interview of a couple of years ago,

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Ian made the point that Debian has been the first intentional community project;

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there were distributions back then,

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there were Free Software projects back then,

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but Debian was kind of designed with community in mind

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and with the idea that if you want something to scale to the size of Debian today

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we need to have a community behind it.

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So, I think we really made the history

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showing up how a project as big as Debian

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can be made only in a community driven way.

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But then, we also made history in very technical ways:

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twenty years has passed since 1993

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and if we look today at Debian

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we have something like almost forty thousands binary packages,

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in Debian proper;

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we have made twelve releases

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and - who knows? - maybe we'll make the thirteenth before the end of this year;

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we have a project of almost one thousand members;

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and almost two hundreds Debian Maintainers

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that are interested in maintaining some parts of Debian;

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and various thousands of contributors doing a lot of other stuff

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useful for the project.

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We have the largest number of ports

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among - let's say - "major" binary distributions out there.

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We have non-Linux ports:

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we have released a version of Debian that works with a kernel other than Linux.

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We haven't yet release a version of Debian that works with a kernel like Hurd

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but for people who like Hurd and want to try it

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Debian still remains the best choice to do that.

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Well done! This is us, making this!

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Bravo! All of you! We made this!

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But then, one thing is making history

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in some ways, technically or socially

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and a completely different thing is remaining relevant.

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So, in these past three years as DPL

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I faced the problem that people were starting to question

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- that was like a couple of years ago -

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"Do we still need Debian?"

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"Ok, you made history, you made a lot of stuff

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you made derivatives, you made a lot of stuff but ...

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... Do we still need Debian today?"

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I've asked myself how to answer the question

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and a way to answer the question is asking us ourselves

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what's different from what we do and what the other distributions do.

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There are something like three hundreds, four hundreds active Free Software distributions around:

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what is that makes Debian special?

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And I've started to thinking at some answers to that question

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and I've come to five specific traits that make - I think - the Debian Project unique.

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I think it's useful to keep them in mind

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and to remind why we are contributing to Debian and not to some other similar project.

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The first reason,

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and sort of my first mantra that makes Debian special,

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is freedom.

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This seems obvious but there's freedom in many ways.

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The first reason why Debian is special in terms of freedom

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is that we essentially have agreed with our public and with Free Software public in general

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to keep Debian always free.

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We've been promoting the culture of Free Software, not only giving Free Software to people,

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we've been promoting the culture of Free Software since 1993,

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and we have a product which is free the bottom up

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there is an incredibly high amount of dog food in what we do.

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So it is free in the software we give to people

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and it's free in the way we make it.

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Every single bit of the Debian infrastructure is free

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and nobody would accept if we start making Debian using like

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non free stuff in our infrastructure.

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This is kind of peculiar per se.

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And we have also a notion of freeness

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in the process we use.

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People who have been around in Debian for quite a while

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have heard the motto of "There Is Not Cabal!"

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as some sort of joke, several times.

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And we use it in saying that, in thinking that there is some cabal around

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but the point is that if we make this joke

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it means that we really cannot stand the idea that there is someone

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driving Debian behind the curtain,

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driving Debian not in the open.

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So we are free not only in our infrastructure,

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not only in the software we make,

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but also in the way we do things.

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We try to be as transparent as we could be.

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And what is interesting for me

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is that there's some sort of community awareness

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of this kind of attachment we have for freedom.

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Our community trusts us to not betray software freedom principles

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and they think that this is being a very high contribution to Free Software in general

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so we've set some sort of very high bar

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to decide when something is free or not.

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When people need to decide if some software is free or if some license

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should be considered Free Software or not

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they go basically to three entities:

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they go to the Free Software Foundation,

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they go to the OSI,

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they go to Debian

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and they see if that license is considered free

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by those people. And we are one of them.

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So first point, which I think is determining what we do in Debian, is freedom. Software freedom.

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Second point is a kind of perfectionism

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which sometimes strikes back on us

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sometimes makes that...

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it gets in the way of some of our choices

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but we do have a sort of culture of technical excellence.

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We have the Policy, which is where we have codified our quality needs for packages;

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we have a huge amount of testing: we have Lintian, we have Piuparts;

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we have automatic testing to see that packages matches our Policy;

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we have maintainers who are software experts.

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We try to discourage people to maintain software in Debian if they only know about packaging

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we try to encourage people to maintain software they use

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and software of which they are experts

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and this is huge in terms of users support.

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So when a user comes to us

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comes to the respective maintainer of some software in Debian,

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usually he find someone that knows about that specific piece of software.

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This, for us, is quality.

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We have packages that are all up to the same quality requirements

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and there are no packages... there is no distinction in the Debian archive that says

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"we try to have this quality requirements for one part of the archive

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and a different one for another part of the archive".

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And also when we say "we release when it's ready"

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it's our way to say that

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we know we cannot commit yet to a specific date

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because we fear finding issues, quality issues, just before that release date

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and we fear compromising our release quality for that specific date.

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So when we say "we release when it's ready"

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is also a matter of quality.

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Third point, and something important for what I'm going to tell you next,

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is independence.

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If you look around at the ecosystem of distributions out there

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you won't find many distributions where

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you cannot pinpoint a company that is backing the distribution.

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Among the big distribution, we are one of the very few

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that is completely run on a volunteer basis

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that have no corporate or some sort of hierarchical structure

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where the decisions come from top down.

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We have no single company babysitting us

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and we essentially live up to donations,

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in terms of time, so volunteers contributing time to Debian

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and donations in terms of money.

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This is very remarkable

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in the ecosystem of today, especially in Free Software distributions.

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And once more we have a phenomenon of community awareness:

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our community seems to trust that, due to this independence of us,

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decisions in Debian won't be taken due to some profit reasons

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or other kind of reasons than our own core values.

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So, independence is another very important value, for me, that motivates me to contribute to Debian.

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And then, we have decision making.

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Decision making is something that is very well codified in our Constitution.

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The basic rule, which I started to call a while ago do-ocracy

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- actually I picked it up from someone but I don't remember from whom I did pick it up,

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but it seems to be sticking around -

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essentially it says that if someone is responsible to do some kind of work in Debian,

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as long as is doing that work, well, they decide how to do it.

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Nobody can go there and say: "you need to do that work in that way",

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unless

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they are ready to commit and do the work themselves.

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And this is the default rule.

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All decisions in Debian, by default, are taken this way

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and then we have also democracy:

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we have come to some kind of potential correction on how we take decisions.

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So we are allowed to take decisions all together,

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in a democratic way, voting on stuff.

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We are wise enough to that only, and in general, for political reasons

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and for philosophical reasons

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we try not to do that for technical reasons

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but we can do that even for technical reasons.

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So we try to use this

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as some sort of way to make the default way of taking decisions works.

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And what this means?

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This means that is very easy to have an impact on Debian

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if you know how to do something in Debian, and nobody is doing that,

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you can pick it up

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and if you start doing it, you will decide how to do that.

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So, this is why is very is to have an impact on Debian thanks to the way we take decisions

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but it also means that the reputation in the project follows work

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if you have a good reputation in the project is usually because you've done a lot of work

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and a lot of very high quality work.

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And finally, once more, it means that there are not imposed decisions

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it's not like the people who own the infrastructure

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or who employ people

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can decide how decisions are made

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decisions are made this way.

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And last point,

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we've ended up being as some sort of root

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of a huge ecosystem of derivatives.

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I believe you all know what derivatives is about:

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you take an existent distribution,

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you start compiling packages,

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you add your own packages, you change stuff

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and you obtain a completely new distribution.

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This is something that started to happen in the last

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- started to happen massively -

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in the last - let's say - ten years

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and that really changed the way in which distribution products are made.

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Derivatives can focus on customization

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and benefit from all of the work that is done by their mother distribution

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and Debian ended up being at root at something like

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140 active distributions

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according to distrowatch.

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That means that the work we do in Debian

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is not only relevant for our own - let's say - "direct" users,

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is useful for the users of all this sort of distributions

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which include the most popular distributions out there.

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People out there, even if they do not know, rely a lot on the work which is done in Debian

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and I think that this is great.

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All in all, my point here is that Debian has a very important role to play

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in the Free Software ecosystem in general

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and if we fail at doing what we are supposed to do

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not only the direct users of Debian will fail.

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I think Free Software in general will suffer from a failure in Debian on delivering what we are about.

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So the question is:

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are we up to what we are supposed to do in Free Software in general?

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And I've seen some challenges that I would like to discuss with you.

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The first challenge is staying healthy

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and staying healthy

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for a Free Software project, for a volunteer Free Software project, essentially means

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being able to recruit people

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to find new volunteers that year after year join the project

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and if you have heard me talking at DebConf on the past two years

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00:12:50,270 --> 00:12:53,320
or in general to the Debian developers public

252
00:12:53,320 --> 00:12:56,360
we have always discussed the lack of manpower

253
00:12:56,360 --> 00:12:58,360
as a major problem in the project:

254
00:12:58,360 --> 00:13:01,620
we cannot do stuff because we have a lack of manpower.

255
00:13:01,620 --> 00:13:05,390
In fact I've looked up the data

256
00:13:05,390 --> 00:13:09,700
and our recruitment, if we can call it this way, is going very well.

257
00:13:09,700 --> 00:13:13,240
Over the past two years

258
00:13:13,240 --> 00:13:15,480
we have had thirty new DDs

259
00:13:15,480 --> 00:13:18,560
more every single year

260
00:13:18,560 --> 00:13:21,730
this is net in the sense that this is an actual increase on the number of DD

261
00:13:21,730 --> 00:13:26,920
I have already discounted the number of DDs that dropped off the project

262
00:13:26,920 --> 00:13:29,050
because of some sort of natural turnover.

263
00:13:29,050 --> 00:13:31,990
Thirty DDs per year is quite a lot.

264
00:13:31,990 --> 00:13:34,790
And if we look at maintainers, Debian Maintainers,

265
00:13:34,790 --> 00:13:37,770
we have something like fifty new Debian Maintainers per year

266
00:13:37,770 --> 00:13:40,390
this is gross because I didn't find the actual net data

267
00:13:40,390 --> 00:13:44,990
but it still give an idea that we do, we are able to recruit people

268
00:13:44,990 --> 00:13:46,990
both to work on Debian in general

269
00:13:46,990 --> 00:13:47,860
- whatever the task -

270
00:13:47,860 --> 00:13:50,280
and to work on specific packages in the archive.

271
00:13:50,280 --> 00:13:56,950
I think we should really stop using the lack of manpower as an excuse

272
00:13:56,950 --> 00:14:01,310
we are a volunteer project: we will always lack manpower to do something

273
00:14:01,310 --> 00:14:04,300
but our ability to recruit new people is doing well

274
00:14:04,300 --> 00:14:06,300
is doing very well.

275
00:14:06,300 --> 00:14:12,120
What we really need to do is to actually better use the manpower that we do have

276
00:14:12,120 --> 00:14:14,590
and, in particular, I'm worried about

277
00:14:14,590 --> 00:14:17,880
the barriers for contribution that exist within the Debian Project.

278
00:14:17,880 --> 00:14:21,250
One thing we discuss often is

279
00:14:21,250 --> 00:14:25,400
we don't need people to maintain yet another package in the Debian archive

280
00:14:25,400 --> 00:14:29,190
what we need is people working on some of the core teams

281
00:14:29,190 --> 00:14:33,010
the infrastructure teams or maintaining the very important packages in the archive.

282
00:14:33,010 --> 00:14:36,160
But the key to make that work

283
00:14:36,160 --> 00:14:40,010
is to make it easier for people to contribute to those teams.

284
00:14:40,010 --> 00:14:43,650
We have a lot of services in Debian which are very difficult to contribute to

285
00:14:43,650 --> 00:14:45,580
we have services which are online

286
00:14:45,580 --> 00:14:49,420
which have no mentions of where is the code behind those services

287
00:14:49,420 --> 00:14:51,840
of where to report bugs for those services.

288
00:14:51,840 --> 00:14:55,130
These are all small attentions we could use

289
00:14:55,130 --> 00:14:57,820
to make it easier to contribute within the Debian Project

290
00:14:57,820 --> 00:15:01,990
and if someone starts working on some leaf package in the archive

291
00:15:01,990 --> 00:15:05,330
and if he find easier to contribute to some more important stuff

292
00:15:05,330 --> 00:15:06,590
they will do that.

293
00:15:06,590 --> 00:15:10,700
In fact that's how I think most of us that got involved in the Debian Project

294
00:15:10,700 --> 00:15:13,240
ended up doing more and more important stuff

295
00:15:13,240 --> 00:15:16,360
starting from the easy part and climbing up at bit

296
00:15:16,360 --> 00:15:18,360
doing the more complex stuff.

297
00:15:18,360 --> 00:15:23,410
So, if you are working on something within the Debian Project

298
00:15:23,410 --> 00:15:25,950
in addition to think at the work you're doing

299
00:15:25,950 --> 00:15:29,010
please think at "how can I make it easier

300
00:15:29,010 --> 00:15:31,010
for others to contribute to this?"

301
00:15:31,010 --> 00:15:33,820
"have I documented how to contribute to this?"

302
00:15:33,820 --> 00:15:37,720
"have I put a link of where is the source code of this thing I maintain in Debian?"

303
00:15:37,880 --> 00:15:41,430
"have I mentioned who should they contact for a project?"

304
00:15:41,430 --> 00:15:42,750
all this kind of questions.

305
00:15:42,750 --> 00:15:46,870
This is what will help in better using the manpower we have in Debian.

306
00:15:46,870 --> 00:15:50,800
And another one, and someone will probably kill me for this,

307
00:15:50,800 --> 00:15:53,360
is diversity in various senses.

308
00:15:53,360 --> 00:15:57,090
I think we've realized

309
00:15:57,090 --> 00:15:59,670
that to do an operating system like Debian

310
00:15:59,670 --> 00:16:01,670
we need a lot of skills:

311
00:16:01,670 --> 00:16:03,410
packaging is not enough,

312
00:16:03,410 --> 00:16:05,410
packaging is one piece in the puzzle

313
00:16:05,410 --> 00:16:07,060
but we need a lot of other stuff.

314
00:16:07,060 --> 00:16:08,310
We need translations,

315
00:16:08,310 --> 00:16:09,700
we need people doing artwork,

316
00:16:09,700 --> 00:16:11,370
we need system administrators,

317
00:16:11,370 --> 00:16:12,310
we need porters,

318
00:16:12,310 --> 00:16:14,310
and all this kind of skills are quite different,

319
00:16:14,310 --> 00:16:16,030
we need software developers,

320
00:16:16,030 --> 00:16:20,300
and good packagers are not necessarily good software developers and vice versa.

321
00:16:20,330 --> 00:16:22,820
We need a whole lot of different skills

322
00:16:22,820 --> 00:16:28,260
and we do should not think that packagers are good at doing all of it

323
00:16:28,260 --> 00:16:30,850
it is not the case: the skills needed are very different.

324
00:16:30,850 --> 00:16:35,650
This is one reason why I think diversity is good

325
00:16:35,650 --> 00:16:37,000
for a project like Debian

326
00:16:37,000 --> 00:16:41,020
but I think it's good also for the discussion culture in Debian:

327
00:16:41,020 --> 00:16:44,450
if you know that in a discussion place

328
00:16:44,450 --> 00:16:48,390
you will find people that have very different backgrounds from yours,

329
00:16:48,390 --> 00:16:50,390
very different point of view than yours,

330
00:16:50,390 --> 00:16:55,730
then you need to be more cautious about how you write things

331
00:16:55,730 --> 00:16:58,410
you need to make less assumptions when you write things

332
00:16:58,410 --> 00:17:00,590
so having a more diverse project

333
00:17:00,590 --> 00:17:04,150
actually helps also in having a better discussion culture.

334
00:17:04,150 --> 00:17:07,710
This is the second reason why I think diversity is good for Debian.

335
00:17:07,710 --> 00:17:11,250
We've done a lot in the past few years

336
00:17:11,250 --> 00:17:14,730
we've sort of fixed the membership process

337
00:17:16,150 --> 00:17:21,540
making it clear that we do welcome people with a wide range of skills joining Debian

338
00:17:21,540 --> 00:17:21,560

339
00:17:21,560 --> 00:17:26,520
and we have also, more recently, fixed the nm.debian.org website

340
00:17:26,520 --> 00:17:29,030
to make it clear... to avoid implicit assumptions

341
00:17:29,030 --> 00:17:31,780
that there are only packagers that we welcome.

342
00:17:31,780 --> 00:17:33,780
This is great, we've done that.

343
00:17:33,780 --> 00:17:37,700
But as Christian mentioned in the previous talk, stealing my argument

344
00:17:37,700 --> 00:17:39,880
we are not doing very well

345
00:17:39,880 --> 00:17:43,220
at attracting people who do stuff other than packaging:

346
00:17:43,220 --> 00:17:46,920
in two years we've attracted only five people

347
00:17:46,920 --> 00:17:49,930
in this so called "non-uploading" DD category,

348
00:17:49,930 --> 00:17:54,580
only five people decided to join Debian as a project members

349
00:17:54,580 --> 00:17:55,880
and said

350
00:17:55,880 --> 00:17:57,730
"you know, I don't really care about packaging

351
00:17:57,730 --> 00:17:59,610
I want to do something else in the Debian Project

352
00:17:59,610 --> 00:18:02,490
and I commit to do that on a longer basis

353
00:18:02,490 --> 00:18:06,940
but I do understand the values of the Debian Project and I'm ready to uphold them".

354
00:18:06,940 --> 00:18:10,140
Only five is a bit ... it's quite a few

355
00:18:10,140 --> 00:18:11,990
sorry, it's not too much.

356
00:18:11,990 --> 00:18:15,580
We really need to understand how to invite

357
00:18:15,580 --> 00:18:17,580
people with different backgrounds than packaging

358
00:18:17,580 --> 00:18:18,600
to join the Debian Project.

359
00:18:18,600 --> 00:18:21,370
I think that diversity statement we sent out

360
00:18:21,370 --> 00:18:23,910
is a step in the right direction, but we need to do more:

361
00:18:23,910 --> 00:18:27,400
I don't know what exactly, but we really need to do more to attract those
kind of people.

362
00:18:30,530 --> 00:18:33,750
Some other challenges are related to the release process.

363
00:18:33,890 --> 00:18:36,910
I'm still amazed that people on the net

364
00:18:36,910 --> 00:18:40,530
still complain that Debian has unpredictable release cycles:

365
00:18:40,530 --> 00:18:43,790
the other day I replied on Linux Weekly News to someone who was complaining

366
00:18:43,790 --> 00:18:46,500
that Sarge has been very much delayed as release.

367
00:18:46,500 --> 00:18:48,060
Yes, that's true:

368
00:18:48,060 --> 00:18:50,060
Sarge has been a delayed release,

369
00:18:50,060 --> 00:18:51,170
like three years or something

370
00:18:51,170 --> 00:18:54,930
but it is something which happened seven years ago.

371
00:18:54,930 --> 00:18:57,190
Even in the time frame of Debian, that's a lot,

372
00:18:57,190 --> 00:18:59,430
that's one third of our time in existence.

373
00:18:59,430 --> 00:19:02,170
Since then we have learned:

374
00:19:02,170 --> 00:19:04,170
the release cycle of Etch

375
00:19:04,170 --> 00:19:05,610
took 22 months,

376
00:19:05,610 --> 00:19:07,610
same for the release cycle of Lenny.

377
00:19:07,610 --> 00:19:10,720
The release cycle of Squeeze took 24 months.

378
00:19:10,720 --> 00:19:14,750
All of these look pretty much predictable to me.

379
00:19:14,750 --> 00:19:16,750
I think we are doing well on that front

380
00:19:17,250 --> 00:19:18,750
and starting with Wheezy,

381
00:19:18,750 --> 00:19:19,120

382
00:19:19,120 --> 00:19:21,600
for the first time in our history,

383
00:19:21,600 --> 00:19:23,600
we've done time based freezes.

384
00:19:23,600 --> 00:19:26,260
You probably know that I'm a huge fan of that

385
00:19:26,260 --> 00:19:28,070
not all of us agree with that

386
00:19:28,070 --> 00:19:30,580
but I think that is a huge step forward

387
00:19:30,580 --> 00:19:34,840
because it helps developers in planning ahead changes.

388
00:19:35,680 --> 00:19:38,890
Yes, there are people that will upload the last minute no matter what,

389
00:19:38,890 --> 00:19:39,710
I understand that,

390
00:19:39,710 --> 00:19:42,240
but for all the people who want to plan ahead

391
00:19:42,240 --> 00:19:43,400
that's a huge help.

392
00:19:43,400 --> 00:19:46,320
And it also helps our upstreams:

393
00:19:46,320 --> 00:19:48,530
there are upstreams out there

394
00:19:48,530 --> 00:19:53,530
who very much care about the version of their packages that will end up

395
00:19:53,530 --> 00:19:54,950
in a stable Debian release.

396
00:19:54,950 --> 00:19:58,240
There are people out there that if they know we freeze on a specific date

397
00:19:58,240 --> 00:20:01,710
they will commit to give long term support for that software.

398
00:20:01,710 --> 00:20:05,810
So knowing a freeze date in advance is a huge help for them.

399
00:20:05,810 --> 00:20:09,880
I think we should keep this in mind,

400
00:20:09,880 --> 00:20:13,560
keep in mind what was not working with the previous model,

401
00:20:13,590 --> 00:20:16,780
like people getting upset of abort freeze

402
00:20:16,780 --> 00:20:19,390
without knowing in advance when they were going happen.

403
00:20:19,390 --> 00:20:22,590
And I think we should try to not forget this

404
00:20:22,590 --> 00:20:27,180
aim in the future at reliably freezing every x months.

405
00:20:27,180 --> 00:20:28,610
24? Maybe.

406
00:20:28,610 --> 00:20:30,300
More than that?

407
00:20:30,300 --> 00:20:32,300
Fewer than that? I don't know.

408
00:20:32,300 --> 00:20:36,010
But I think we should try to keep this in mind and maintain that in the
future.

409
00:20:36,530 --> 00:20:38,390
And in case you didn't notice:

410
00:20:39,060 --> 00:20:40,390
Wheezy is frozen!

411
00:20:41,330 --> 00:20:44,710
And we did this with a time based freeze.

412
00:20:44,710 --> 00:20:45,760
I think it worked well

413
00:20:45,760 --> 00:20:47,760
but there is still a lot of work to do

414
00:20:48,380 --> 00:20:49,760
and in particular

415
00:20:50,330 --> 00:20:52,240
we have frozen with something like

416
00:20:52,240 --> 00:20:57,000
135 more RC-bugs with respect to the previous stable release.

417
00:20:57,000 --> 00:21:00,350
There is a lot of work to do for all of us.

418
00:21:02,450 --> 00:21:04,870
In this work which is ahead of us

419
00:21:04,870 --> 00:21:08,600
I think we should really aim to have a short freeze period

420
00:21:09,780 --> 00:21:12,350
that's something we should aim to.

421
00:21:12,980 --> 00:21:15,830
It will happen or it will not happen it depends on us,

422
00:21:15,830 --> 00:21:17,830
but I think it should be a goal.

423
00:21:17,830 --> 00:21:21,900
It should be a goal because it will show us that

424
00:21:22,470 --> 00:21:24,710
time based freeze is a sustainable model

425
00:21:24,710 --> 00:21:28,620
even if it means freezing with a bit more bugs than before

426
00:21:30,090 --> 00:21:32,430
it will reduce the period of time

427
00:21:32,430 --> 00:21:34,700
in which we are bit frustrated

428
00:21:34,700 --> 00:21:37,510
in which we cannot do far reaching changes.

429
00:21:37,510 --> 00:21:40,180
The shorter we can keep this period

430
00:21:40,180 --> 00:21:44,400
it will be better for people who really want to make some more profund
changes.

431
00:21:45,320 --> 00:21:46,400
Asheesh do you have a question?

432
00:21:47,700 --> 00:21:48,400
Sorry?

433
00:21:48,400 --> 00:21:50,400
Asheesh: How short is good?

434
00:21:51,760 --> 00:21:53,680
Stefano: So the question is how short is good.

435
00:21:53,680 --> 00:21:55,080
Well, I don't know

436
00:21:55,080 --> 00:21:57,080
I think it should be a goal

437
00:21:57,080 --> 00:21:58,730
I don't think we can say...

438
00:21:58,730 --> 00:22:02,450
Well, I mean, staying within the limits of the past trend

439
00:22:02,450 --> 00:22:03,720
like six months

440
00:22:03,720 --> 00:22:06,450
I think that's would be good.

441
00:22:06,450 --> 00:22:07,880
Better would be shorter than that.

442
00:22:08,100 --> 00:22:10,540
But this is not really a question for me, this is more for the release team

443
00:22:10,540 --> 00:22:12,040
but I think we should have in mind

444
00:22:12,040 --> 00:22:14,040
that we should do all we can

445
00:22:14,040 --> 00:22:16,040
to keep that as short as possible.

446
00:22:16,880 --> 00:22:20,790
And also there are distributions out there

447
00:22:20,790 --> 00:22:22,110
that rely on testing

448
00:22:22,560 --> 00:22:27,310
we do have in mind a single product, which is Debian stable

449
00:22:27,310 --> 00:22:28,670
which is a great product

450
00:22:28,670 --> 00:22:30,390
but, like it or not,

451
00:22:30,390 --> 00:22:33,570
people out there are using Debian testing as a product

452
00:22:34,020 --> 00:22:36,470
they're using it on their desktop machines,

453
00:22:36,470 --> 00:22:37,760
on their development machines

454
00:22:37,760 --> 00:22:39,260
because it's kind of

455
00:22:39,260 --> 00:22:42,020
the thing that invented rolling distributions out there.

456
00:22:42,020 --> 00:22:44,020
And it's a great suite.

457
00:22:46,280 --> 00:22:47,590
Keeping it short

458
00:22:47,590 --> 00:22:49,900
keeping the release - ehm, sorry - the freeze period short,

459
00:22:49,900 --> 00:22:53,150
will also help other people that rely on something like Debian testing.

460
00:22:55,040 --> 00:22:56,020
How do we do that?

461
00:22:57,450 --> 00:23:01,920
I don't think it's really normal to have that many release critical bugs

462
00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:03,170
at the freeze point

463
00:23:03,170 --> 00:23:06,400
it means that there are maintainers... it means two things

464
00:23:06,400 --> 00:23:08,800
that there are very hard bugs to fix, which is normal,

465
00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:11,360
but it also means that there are some maintainers

466
00:23:11,360 --> 00:23:12,910
that they kind of neglected their work

467
00:23:12,910 --> 00:23:16,510
that they didn't manage to complete to clean up

468
00:23:16,510 --> 00:23:18,510
their packages of release critical bugs before the freeze.

469
00:23:19,350 --> 00:23:20,830
But it happens

470
00:23:20,830 --> 00:23:23,440
we are here, it has happened in the past, it will happen again in the
future.

471
00:23:24,100 --> 00:23:27,200
So the only way I think we have to release at this point

472
00:23:27,860 --> 00:23:31,840
is to, once again, keep in mind that releasing

473
00:23:31,840 --> 00:23:34,820
is not something that the release team does alone

474
00:23:35,340 --> 00:23:37,480
they cannot release Wheezy alone.

475
00:23:40,320 --> 00:23:43,020
I've been bothering you with this idea since ever

476
00:23:43,020 --> 00:23:45,020
since way before I became the DPL

477
00:23:45,400 --> 00:23:47,520
but I think the only solution we have for this

478
00:23:47,520 --> 00:23:49,130
is doing NMUs,

479
00:23:49,560 --> 00:23:50,650
accepting NMUs,

480
00:23:50,650 --> 00:23:51,630
welcoming NMUs,

481
00:23:51,630 --> 00:23:52,960
loving NMUs

482
00:23:53,400 --> 00:23:56,810
every single day, please, have a look

483
00:23:56,810 --> 00:23:59,500
at the list of release critical bugs reports.

484
00:23:59,500 --> 00:24:02,100
I look at this graph, essentially, every morning

485
00:24:02,100 --> 00:24:04,740
and also after coffee, to see how we are going

486
00:24:05,360 --> 00:24:07,730
really, please do the same!

487
00:24:07,730 --> 00:24:09,580
Then, please, every day

488
00:24:09,580 --> 00:24:12,040
look up if there is a release critical bug you can fix

489
00:24:12,480 --> 00:24:16,110
even, and especially, if it is not in your package.

490
00:24:16,110 --> 00:24:19,520
There are people, like Gregor - who is somewhere here in the room -

491
00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:21,300
that every single day - thanks Gregor -

492
00:24:21,300 --> 00:24:23,300
every single day try to do that

493
00:24:23,470 --> 00:24:25,750
and publish the initiative to make other do the same

494
00:24:25,750 --> 00:24:28,280
he is not the only one, a lot of other people are doing that

495
00:24:28,280 --> 00:24:30,280
but also publishing it is very good.

496
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:34,320
And, really, NMUs that fix RC-bugs

497
00:24:34,320 --> 00:24:35,610
are free for all

498
00:24:36,180 --> 00:24:39,330
do them properly, try to make it clear that you're trying to help

499
00:24:39,820 --> 00:24:41,900
the maintainer of the involved package

500
00:24:41,900 --> 00:24:43,900
but please: that's the only way

501
00:24:43,900 --> 00:24:45,900
we're going to release Wheezy

502
00:24:45,900 --> 00:24:47,900
really.

503
00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:51,060
And if you want another way of looking at this,

504
00:24:51,060 --> 00:24:54,910
it's for the software engineering fan,

505
00:24:54,910 --> 00:24:56,910
is collective code ownership.

506
00:24:56,910 --> 00:24:59,800
So, collective code ownership is a notion that

507
00:24:59,800 --> 00:25:03,080
well, this term comes from extreme programming

508
00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:05,210
and essentially says that all programmers

509
00:25:05,210 --> 00:25:07,210
have access to all of the code of a project

510
00:25:07,840 --> 00:25:10,760
so that no single person can be a bottle neck

511
00:25:10,760 --> 00:25:12,760
on a specific part of the project.

512
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:16,490
This is considered good in agile development,

513
00:25:16,490 --> 00:25:19,480
this is considered a best practice to follow

514
00:25:19,480 --> 00:25:21,800
in open source project management,

515
00:25:21,800 --> 00:25:25,730
but in some way it is not always considered good in Debian.

516
00:25:25,730 --> 00:25:26,980
Which is kind of weird.

517
00:25:26,980 --> 00:25:30,380
In the past we didn't have the notion of maintainer

518
00:25:30,580 --> 00:25:33,990
then, Bdale will correct me if I'm wrong, in 1995

519
00:25:33,990 --> 00:25:34,840
has been introduced.

520
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:37,190
Is it right? Something like that? Ok thanks.

521
00:25:37,380 --> 00:25:41,080
And with that we sort of added some barriers.

522
00:25:41,350 --> 00:25:44,330
There are useful stuff behind the notion of maintainer

523
00:25:44,330 --> 00:25:48,400
like pride in what you do, being recognized for the work you do

524
00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:49,280
which is great.

525
00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:52,280
But we should also keep in mind that there are barriers

526
00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:53,260
with the notion of maintainer

527
00:25:53,260 --> 00:25:54,420
that make it harder

528
00:25:54,460 --> 00:25:56,850
for others to contribute to your package.

529
00:25:56,850 --> 00:25:58,850
So the best approximation we have

530
00:25:59,160 --> 00:26:01,090
to collective code ownership in Debian

531
00:26:01,380 --> 00:26:05,460
is essentially being more liberal with NMUs

532
00:26:05,460 --> 00:26:06,830
and team maintenance,

533
00:26:06,830 --> 00:26:10,120
but we don't have teams which are as large as the Debian Project.

534
00:26:10,120 --> 00:26:13,550
So liberal NMUs is really our best approximation

535
00:26:13,550 --> 00:26:15,550
for collective code ownership in Debian.

536
00:26:18,980 --> 00:26:21,570
And then, moving to the past two,

537
00:26:21,570 --> 00:26:24,010
which probably will be a bit more controversial.

538
00:26:25,560 --> 00:26:28,910
Low company involvement, I think is becoming a problem in Debian.

539
00:26:29,750 --> 00:26:33,530
If you look at other similar project to Debian

540
00:26:34,230 --> 00:26:37,060
with the same kind of history and with the same size,

541
00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:40,500
you'll see that Debian has less paid work opportunity around

542
00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:44,090
and you'll see that we have few companies which are contributing
directly.

543
00:26:45,900 --> 00:26:48,040
Think at the Linux kernel:

544
00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:51,300
everyone who can show that can get code in the Linux kernel

545
00:26:51,300 --> 00:26:53,730
will find a job in five minutes.

546
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:57,980
We do have companies that will be happy to hire Debian Developers

547
00:26:57,980 --> 00:27:02,200
but not as much as you have around a project like the Linux kernel.

548
00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:06,280
So, for me, volunteering is great

549
00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:10,380
I wouldn't work on Debian on paid time, I would not do that.

550
00:27:10,380 --> 00:27:13,360
I work on Free Software for volunteering reasons

551
00:27:13,360 --> 00:27:16,390
it matches my view of society where

552
00:27:16,390 --> 00:27:18,390
each of us has a work

553
00:27:18,390 --> 00:27:21,150
and some extra time, after work,

554
00:27:21,150 --> 00:27:23,330
in which he does something to contribute to society

555
00:27:23,330 --> 00:27:26,010
so this is not really for me.

556
00:27:26,010 --> 00:27:28,790
But I think it could be a problem for Debian in general.

557
00:27:28,790 --> 00:27:29,990
Why?

558
00:27:30,590 --> 00:27:31,990
We do compete

559
00:27:31,990 --> 00:27:37,710
with companies and their full staff - sorry - and their full time
employees.

560
00:27:38,710 --> 00:27:41,780
So, our competitors are commercial distributions

561
00:27:41,780 --> 00:27:45,970
with huge means in terms of employees who are working on the distro.

562
00:27:45,970 --> 00:27:50,790
That's fine, we don't do Free Software only to make money

563
00:27:50,790 --> 00:27:53,070
but we need to watch out for our morale.

564
00:27:53,070 --> 00:27:55,550
So, when we start thinking stuff like

565
00:27:55,550 --> 00:27:57,550
"Debian is not innovating anymore"

566
00:27:57,550 --> 00:27:59,870
"It is other distributions innovating"

567
00:27:59,870 --> 00:28:01,540
well, we need to keep in mind that

568
00:28:01,540 --> 00:28:05,840
the ratio of forces in the field may not be very well balanced.

569
00:28:06,300 --> 00:28:10,720
This is the first problem that I think having low company contributing to
Debian.

570
00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:12,930
Second reason is that

571
00:28:12,930 --> 00:28:15,570
there are useful tasks out there

572
00:28:15,570 --> 00:28:18,160
that volunteers won't bother doing.

573
00:28:19,010 --> 00:28:21,350
I've been asked many many times:

574
00:28:21,350 --> 00:28:24,940
"why don't you go to hardware vendors and convince them

575
00:28:24,940 --> 00:28:26,940
to pre-install Debian on their machines?"

576
00:28:27,210 --> 00:28:30,980
Well, try to find a volunteer that is happy to spend his time

577
00:28:30,980 --> 00:28:35,150
in, you know, lobbying hardware producers to install Debian on it.

578
00:28:35,690 --> 00:28:36,870
That's an example.

579
00:28:36,870 --> 00:28:40,070
Other examples are all sort of certification lobbying:

580
00:28:40,070 --> 00:28:43,450
something that very often public administrations ask me

581
00:28:43,450 --> 00:28:46,470
is why Debian is not certified for

582
00:28:46,470 --> 00:28:52,610
random very high quality corporate database system.

583
00:28:52,610 --> 00:28:55,790
Why Debian is not certified for that unnamed system?

584
00:28:55,790 --> 00:28:58,340
Well, because you need lobbying to do that,

585
00:28:58,340 --> 00:29:00,730
you need people going to the

586
00:29:01,020 --> 00:29:04,370
software vendors and convince them to say "Yes, you can run this on
Debian".

587
00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:07,210
Otherwise, there are people out there that won't run Debian.

588
00:29:07,750 --> 00:29:09,630
And all sort of other stuff,

589
00:29:09,630 --> 00:29:12,010
like creating a sort of networks that makes

590
00:29:12,010 --> 00:29:17,040
specific adopters convinced them they will be fine adopting Debian.

591
00:29:17,530 --> 00:29:21,910
And the last reason why I think we need a bit more of companies involved in Debian

592
00:29:21,910 --> 00:29:23,910
is a sort of disturbing thought.

593
00:29:23,910 --> 00:29:27,580
What if only one company or a few companies, for what it's worth

594
00:29:27,580 --> 00:29:30,430
end up hiring the whole lot of DDs?

595
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:34,820
The independence I've been babbling around before will be gone.

596
00:29:35,390 --> 00:29:36,470
This is not paranoia.

597
00:29:36,470 --> 00:29:38,780
This is a kind of problem that has been discussed,

598
00:29:38,780 --> 00:29:41,240
for instance, in the Linux kernel community for a long time.

599
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:44,920
They know that they have some sort of independence because they have

600
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:46,690
many different companies

601
00:29:46,690 --> 00:29:48,690
with interest in the Linux kernel

602
00:29:48,690 --> 00:29:50,690
which sort of balance each other.

603
00:29:50,690 --> 00:29:54,010
So if we don't have more companies interested in Debian

604
00:29:54,010 --> 00:29:56,340
we'll risk ending up in that situation.

605
00:29:56,690 --> 00:29:59,990
Some sort of very early work in progress

606
00:29:59,990 --> 00:30:02,380
which I've tried to kick start

607
00:30:02,380 --> 00:30:04,930
is a sort of user group, debian-companies,

608
00:30:04,930 --> 00:30:07,330
of companies who have some strategic interest in Debian

609
00:30:07,510 --> 00:30:11,000
and want to try to work on fixing this problem.

610
00:30:11,510 --> 00:30:13,000
They may be other solutions,

611
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:15,410
I don't know, I wanted to present this as problem

612
00:30:15,410 --> 00:30:17,410
as I think that in the long run we'll need to think about it.

613
00:30:18,670 --> 00:30:22,910
And the last thing is the DPL.

614
00:30:22,910 --> 00:30:25,170
Which happens to be me at the moment.

615
00:30:25,170 --> 00:30:27,800
What does the DPL do for you?

616
00:30:28,620 --> 00:30:30,760
According to my family possibly too much

617
00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:32,760
but that's a separate problem.

618
00:30:33,250 --> 00:30:35,080
He does fancy stuff:

619
00:30:35,080 --> 00:30:38,970
he goes to conferences, he's all around the world, he's invited to talk about Debian

620
00:30:38,970 --> 00:30:41,990
and he has a wikipedia page and all this kind of fancy stuff.

621
00:30:41,990 --> 00:30:43,780
But he also has to do

622
00:30:43,780 --> 00:30:49,650
all sort of needed but pretty boring, for the average geek, stuff.

623
00:30:50,100 --> 00:30:51,980
He has to take care of money:

624
00:30:51,980 --> 00:30:53,660
approving reimbursements,

625
00:30:53,660 --> 00:30:54,950
buying hardware,

626
00:30:54,950 --> 00:30:56,950
DebConf, donations

627
00:30:56,950 --> 00:30:58,780
trying to avoid bankruptcy,

628
00:30:58,780 --> 00:31:00,240
which is a nice thing to do.

629
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:02,240
And he needs to take care of lawyers.

630
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:05,070
I've never been working with lawyers

631
00:31:05,070 --> 00:31:07,070
as much as in the last three years.

632
00:31:07,070 --> 00:31:10,290
He takes care of what we do with patents:

633
00:31:10,290 --> 00:31:11,510
can we have it in the archive or not,

634
00:31:11,510 --> 00:31:12,600
what we do with trademarks,

635
00:31:12,600 --> 00:31:15,090
what we do with copyright, for instance,

636
00:31:15,090 --> 00:31:17,090
can we relicense the Debian logo

637
00:31:17,090 --> 00:31:20,100
without undermining some other asset we have?

638
00:31:20,100 --> 00:31:21,910
And legal responsibility:

639
00:31:21,910 --> 00:31:24,290
and what if a Debian Developer get a lawsuit?

640
00:31:24,290 --> 00:31:25,820
All this sort of stuff,

641
00:31:25,820 --> 00:31:26,820
which is useful,

642
00:31:27,100 --> 00:31:29,290
because if we now have a bit more

643
00:31:29,290 --> 00:31:33,350
- how to say? - enhanced multimedia experience in Debian

644
00:31:33,350 --> 00:31:35,280
is also because we take the time

645
00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:38,860
to discuss this stuff down with lawyers that are experts in Free
Software.

646
00:31:39,050 --> 00:31:41,630
And he does mediations,

647
00:31:41,630 --> 00:31:43,260
and he does reports.

648
00:31:43,260 --> 00:31:46,280
How many reports from me have you got in the past three years?

649
00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:47,660
Yeah, too many!

650
00:31:47,660 --> 00:31:49,350
This is all sort of boring stuff

651
00:31:49,350 --> 00:31:51,350
which I think is useful for the project.

652
00:31:52,350 --> 00:31:57,030
But then, as it is today, the DPL is a problem.

653
00:31:57,770 --> 00:32:02,110
I am a problem, but it's not me, it's the role of DPL who has a problem
in Debian.

654
00:32:02,690 --> 00:32:04,680
It just does not scale.

655
00:32:05,760 --> 00:32:08,990
We basically rely on some sort of luck

656
00:32:08,990 --> 00:32:10,990
that we will find

657
00:32:11,490 --> 00:32:15,290
candidates that will have enough time to do all of this

658
00:32:15,730 --> 00:32:17,810
and it's quite a bit of time.

659
00:32:17,810 --> 00:32:20,750
I don't know if it's wise to only rely on luck

660
00:32:20,750 --> 00:32:22,100
to finding those people

661
00:32:22,100 --> 00:32:24,100
over the years forever.

662
00:32:25,460 --> 00:32:28,640
Second problem: transparency is very hard.

663
00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:32,090
I've tried to... I've worked quite a bit on that:

664
00:32:32,090 --> 00:32:35,240
I think I spend like half of my time

665
00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:36,110
as DPL

666
00:32:36,110 --> 00:32:38,260
in trying to tell you what is going on

667
00:32:38,260 --> 00:32:40,260
and only the other half on working on stuff.

668
00:32:40,260 --> 00:32:42,450
I've been happy to do that, but is very hard.

669
00:32:43,270 --> 00:32:45,870
And as long as I'm talking to myself

670
00:32:45,870 --> 00:32:50,110
or replying to inquiries that come to the Leader's mailbox

671
00:32:50,110 --> 00:32:52,110
there are some sort of intrinsic limits:

672
00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:55,310
if you are in a team with more people

673
00:32:55,310 --> 00:32:56,490
you need to discuss things

674
00:32:56,490 --> 00:32:58,720
and if you force yourself to discuss things publicly

675
00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:00,720
you don't have these intrinsic limits.

676
00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:05,580
And the third problem is that there is very little institutional memory.

677
00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:11,730
We keep on, essentially, rediscover the job

678
00:33:11,980 --> 00:33:13,730
at each DPL change.

679
00:33:14,660 --> 00:33:17,250
Yes, I can write a DPL Howto

680
00:33:17,250 --> 00:33:19,250
with the help of all past DPLs.

681
00:33:19,250 --> 00:33:21,920
We can do that, but things change

682
00:33:21,920 --> 00:33:24,710
and essentially the key of the problem is that

683
00:33:25,170 --> 00:33:28,700
being the DPL is unlike any other task in the project:

684
00:33:29,370 --> 00:33:33,720
it's difficult to know who will be a good DPL before

685
00:33:33,730 --> 00:33:36,310
because he or she has never done that before

686
00:33:36,540 --> 00:33:39,030
and there is essentially only trial and error.

687
00:33:39,030 --> 00:33:41,890
There is very little institutional memory of how to do things.

688
00:33:44,840 --> 00:33:46,210
How can we fix this?

689
00:33:46,410 --> 00:33:48,820
I've been thinking a lot about this,

690
00:33:48,820 --> 00:33:52,190
is one of the reason why I decided to run again for a third term,

691
00:33:53,340 --> 00:33:55,340
essentially I think the problem is that

692
00:33:55,500 --> 00:34:00,620
the role of the DPL is a relic of the "benevolent dictator" era in the
Free Software.

693
00:34:01,230 --> 00:34:03,520
It made a sense in the past,

694
00:34:03,630 --> 00:34:08,560
today projects of the size of Debian are not run in this way

695
00:34:08,560 --> 00:34:11,310
not even for only the management part.

696
00:34:11,810 --> 00:34:16,050
We do not do the technical part with a benevolent dictator, which is very
good,

697
00:34:16,710 --> 00:34:19,530
but we do that for all the kind of management part.

698
00:34:20,270 --> 00:34:24,350
I think the only solution possible here

699
00:34:24,350 --> 00:34:27,410
is have some sort of board of directors

700
00:34:27,410 --> 00:34:29,410
as other projects have

701
00:34:29,410 --> 00:34:32,090
which essentially helps the DPL.

702
00:34:32,400 --> 00:34:34,440
The role of the DPL should not disappear.

703
00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:37,680
I think we should try to keep this as informal as possible

704
00:34:37,970 --> 00:34:41,850
but if we have a group of people that we can call the Debian Board of Directors

705
00:34:41,850 --> 00:34:44,260
that can have some sort of turnover

706
00:34:45,140 --> 00:34:47,620
to guarantee that there is some institutional memory

707
00:34:47,620 --> 00:34:50,440
so they should not be tied to the normal DPL period,

708
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:53,900
otherwise you'd have the problem of institutional memory again,

709
00:34:53,900 --> 00:34:56,710
with periodic meetings for transparency

710
00:34:57,550 --> 00:35:00,360
and if we do have this

711
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:02,670
you can have the people on this kind of board

712
00:35:02,670 --> 00:35:06,860
that help out and show if themselves they will be able to do

713
00:35:06,860 --> 00:35:08,860
good DPLs or not.

714
00:35:08,860 --> 00:35:11,670
I think this is the only way

715
00:35:11,670 --> 00:35:13,930
to make the role of the DPL scalable

716
00:35:13,930 --> 00:35:18,530
without changing the nature of what the institution is.

717
00:35:18,530 --> 00:35:20,910
And as an interim solution

718
00:35:20,910 --> 00:35:23,220
I'm trying to collect a group of DPL helpers

719
00:35:23,250 --> 00:35:25,980
you've seen the call for help, thanks to all the people who replied.

720
00:35:25,980 --> 00:35:28,250
So what I'm trying to do is to

721
00:35:28,250 --> 00:35:30,450
try to see if this kind of things could work.

722
00:35:31,930 --> 00:35:36,550
And yet, the DPL will remain.

723
00:35:36,550 --> 00:35:40,740
So, given I'm here basically because someone

724
00:35:40,740 --> 00:35:44,520
a few years ago started joking about me becoming DPL,

725
00:35:44,820 --> 00:35:46,740
well, this is a good occasion for all of you

726
00:35:46,740 --> 00:35:48,360
to start think at the next one

727
00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:49,730
and maybe start joking with him

728
00:35:49,730 --> 00:35:52,590
whether he or she will be happy to candidate the next year.

729
00:35:54,010 --> 00:35:56,700
So, thanks a lot

730
00:35:56,700 --> 00:35:59,310
it's a pleasure to be here

731
00:35:59,310 --> 00:36:02,400
and if you have questions or thoughts I'm available.

732
00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:03,590
Thanks

733
00:36:04,160 --> 00:36:12,720
[applause]