Clint Adams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> Delegates aren't somehow magically different, and there aren't enough
> No, everyone with special privileges or access is "magically different". > That includes DSA, ftpmaster, the release team, and so forth. I just don't agree with this. What bright line is drawn around those particular jobs that makes them special? I have special access to the Perl repository on Alioth as a member of the pkg-perl team; am I magically different? Or am I magically different because I have commit access to the lintian repository? Or am a member of the QA team but haven't done anything with that access yet due to lack of time? >> Otherwise, the only people you could get to take on time-intensive >> delegated positions are people who either have very flexible working >> conditions or who have sufficient personal funds to not have to work a >> full-time job. > Sounds like you're describing a volunteer organization. I think we're not using the same definition of volunteer. More to the point, this pattern, however you would care to describe it, is extremely common among free software projects and, for that matter, many other types of organizations that do things for the common good. Many corporations will sponsor (i.e., fund) employee activities for such organizations as Habitat for Humanity, for instance. I don't consider this to be in any way a bad thing. I think it's *way* too restrictive to require that no employer be involved in any way. One does have to take care with conflicts of interest, but it's possible to act responsibily with respect to conflicts of interest without segregating one's life to *that* degree. Furthermore, to address this from a more personal level, I *will not* segregate my life to that degree. I find it deeply unpleasant to do so and have no particular desire to be involved in a project that would require me to make sharp distinctions between work time and not-work time. I carefully chose my employer precisely so that I would *not* have to do that. I chose an employer that would not create difficult conflicts of interest, I have structured my life so that I can work on what I feel needs to get done without having to worry about who "owns" that work, and I would deeply resent someone trying to interfere with that *personal* decision. >> It is absolutely worthwhile to expect people in such positions to act >> in the best interests of Debian, to be aware of their different hats, >> and to be cautious about having a variety of people coming from a >> variety of different positions involved in critical decisions. This >> isn't exactly a new problem, though, and *many* free software projects >> have already dealt with issues like this in a reasonable way. > As far as I can tell, the developer body is not united in that > expectation. I don't consider that particularly relevant. The developer body is large enough that it's unlikely to be united in anything. -- Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
