On Fri, 2005-12-30 at 00:45 +1100, skaller wrote: > On Thu, 2005-12-29 at 03:35 -0800, Steve Langasek wrote: > > > While insiders are not qualified to comment on how outsiders *feel* about > > the process, they are certainly the people to judge whether the *outcome* of > > the process is the correct one. > > Outcome for their own personal pleasure? No: they're not > qualified to judge the outcome either: that's a judgement made > in the market by end users. Based on that Debian is reasonably > successful .. but way WAY behind Microsoft. Do we really > want that??
Uhm. Debian IMO is about building a fantastic OS, not a *popular one*. There is a huge difference between those two things, and I trust folk like Steve much much more to make process correctness decisions than the vague concept of 'market'. Add to which, distribution end users are not consumers of the 'become able to upload to Debian process' - the end users of that process are the people responsible for the quality of Debian... and as we are a democratic society, that responsibilty lies to some degree on every DD, more heavily on those nominated to specific posts like ftp-master. So I think that in every sense, the 'insiders' are the only people who wear the responsibility to judge the outcome of the process. > > Sorry, if you want Debian to make > > particular changes to make it easier to contribute, > > Not really: I would like people who know more than me > about the processes to choose the changes so that the > outcome I desire is obtained -- an easier way for > people less committed to Debian than a DD to contribute. > > Ubuntu agreed with me, and made it so. It is still > quite hard though. (It's easier to become a MOTU than > a DD .. but it still requires way too much commitment > to the project for someone whose primary commitment > is to *developing* software rather than packaging it). Uhm, Ubuntu setup a very different process that has different results and goals than NM. MOTU are not able to upload to the entire distro, only to the unsupported universe area; MOTU membership does not grant enfranchisement - becoming an 'Ubuntu Member' does that which is a separate process. Debians NM process grants a great deal more rights than Ubuntu's MOTU one, and I think it would be a mistake to lessen the level of verification involved. > > you're much better off > > arguing it in terms of the *benefits to the project* > > To whom? A project isn't a human thing, it cannot > gain benefits. I am interested in Debian only in that > it benefits the whole human race. Meh, a project is an entity - it has an existence all of its own. > It does that -- IMHO -- by making it easier to install > and run an Open operating systems and tools.. something > I'm all in favour of. But the process itself is still > too much of a burden to participate in for those less > committed to Debian -- in particular upstream developers. > It's probably even worse for end users ;( If you dont *want* to be committed to Debian, why bother? Write upstream code, write it well, and let the folk that *are* committed package it for you. I often prefer to *not* package my own code anyway, having another DD package it lets me focus on upstream development when thats what I'm doing, and vice verca. Rob -- GPG key available at: <http://www.robertcollins.net/keys.txt>.
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