Josselin Mouette wrote: > Le vendredi 19 mai 2006 à 23:42 -0500, Tom Marble a écrit : >> It was really great to be there... I enjoyed meeting you and many >> other Debian Developers. Perhaps the biggest thing for me to grok >> was that Debian isn't as much a "technical organization" as a >> "social organization" that happens to produce very interesting >> technical works. > > I find it very sad that people can get this impression after coming to > Debconf.
Realize that sometimes in e-mail it is difficult to convey subtlety or
nuanced meaning. Even though my experience with Debian is only three
years old I have found there is a great deal of elegance and
sophistication in Debian technology. My point here is that I have
developed the impression that Debian is more than technology...
Indeed I have met many people in the Debian community who are
very committed to goals of the project and how the project
has had / has / will have an impact on the world. Your passion in
this thread alone demonstrates your commitment.
If Debian is so important to you then why do you stop at saying
that I am mistaken instead of going on to educate me on a project
you care so much about? Wouldn't such elaboration do Debian a
service? I am not so proud as to think that I can spend a couple
days at Debconf and "know it all". On the contrary I want to
know more because I sense it is important. My time on the planet
is short and I want to make the most of it. I feel that understanding
the impact of technology on society -- and especially the
transformative power that can offer -- is important to my life goals.
My intuition tells me there is something important about Debian and
it's worth figuring it out. If I'm missing the "what it is" please
point me in the right direction.
And I'm little surprised that you address me in the third person.
You may recall that as I was struggling to convert a video with
transcode you showed me how to do it easily with ffmpeg. I
appreciated your help with that technical question. I would
really appreciate your help with this more profound question
of what is the essence of Debian?
Sincerely,
--Tom
P.S. I am aware of the additional questions on the DLJ here
and elsewhere [1] and intend to respond.
[1] http://forums.java.net/jive/forum.jspa?forumID=94&start=0
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