PROPOSAL: Additional yearly voting ritual
My Dear Fellow Developers, I would like to propose a new voting routine as an adjunct (or perhaps replacement) to the DPL race. I propose we allow Developers to nominate one and another (or perhaps themselves) for elimination from the project. Winners would have their membership in the Debian project revoked and be expelled in a public manner that induces remaining developers to maintain a pleasant working relationship. Naturally, this contest would be judged by the usual Condorcet method. Each Developer would be limited to a maximum of one nomination per year and could require a minimum nomination count to qualify (ie. sqrt(#devel) / 4). Each Developer nominated for expulsion could optionally provide a platform about why they should or should not be eliminated. The contest should have at least one winner for dramatic effect. The most Condorcet oriented method would be to expel all the nominees that do not defeat the option "I Really Couldn't Care Less". This approach would create an open, egalitarian and democratic method for expelling undesirable marginal elements (such as myself) from the project. In the spirit of teamwork I hope you will all give my idea some consideration and forward me any feedback. With very pleasant regards and in fellowship towards the greater good, ~E -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com
Re: PROPOSAL: Additional yearly voting ritual
No match for "DEBIANSURVIVOR.COM"! On Thursday 09 March 2006 08:12 pm, Ari Pollak wrote: > Yeah! It should be like Survivor, only with less excitement and more > flaming! This is a great idea, Ean! Please tell us more! Look how many > exclamation marks I am using! -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [DRAFT] resolving DFSG violations
- "Robert Millan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> +
> + In order to ensure continued compliance with this promise, the
> + following rule is to be followed:
> +
> +
> + When ever a package in Debian is found to have been violating the
> + Debian Free Software Guidelines for 60 days or more, and
> + none of the solutions that have been implemented (if any) is
> considered
> + suitable by the maintainers, the package must be moved from Debian
> + ("main" suite) to the Non-free repository ("non-free" suite).
> +
> +
> + The action of moving it may be performed by any of the developers.
> + When this happens, any known violation of the Debian Free Software
> Guidelines
> + in the package must be resolved before the package can be moved
> back into
> + Debian.
> +
I've kept a low profile for some time but AJ's enthusiasm tempts me into
discussion.
These changes seem redundant to me. Rule 1 of the Social Contract is clear in
its intent and Rule 5 spells out (in perhaps even more detail than necessary)
how non-conforming software will be handled. I think adding links to the
relevant parts of policy from the Social Contract page might be a more
expedient way of drawing people's attention to the preferred "best practices".
A change to the SC mixes our policy (how things will be accomplished) with our
philosophy (what our motivations are). Foundational documents are intended to
communicate a more basic premise and having policy drift into them could set an
ugly precedent. Making simple changes in policy would more often require an
"act of congress" and it will be harder, rather than easier, to get work done.
I hear the daunting problems as illustrated in the SUNRPC/glibc issue. These
are the same issues that the community has faced from the beginning. We're
arguably in a far better position today than when Stallman was writing his
earliest GNU work and had to go through mind-warping contortions and
compromises to push towards a more open world. Viewing all this as a process,
perhaps we can require that any non-free code given a "stay of execution" be
part of a formal road-map that its developers commit to. If your package can't
commit to a road-map to get to Free then maybe it becomes part of the road-map
to arrange its removal.
I doubt a single massive move of everything that may be in violation will get
us somewhere useful. An optimistic view is that we are slowly formalizing what
has been done for a long time through an evasion of mind. If we can continue to
formalize our progress towards the goal we've held all along then that seem
productive. Rome wasn't built in a day and all that sort of thing.
--
Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315
--
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Re: [DRAFT] resolving DFSG violations
- "Pierre Habouzit" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > It's not, and that's exactly Marc's point, the difference between > non-free and Debian will be blurry (if it's not already blurry enough), > and every single User will have non-free, whereas I believe quite a few > live without it right now. > > That's regression, and it's IMHO far worse than a couple of binary > blobs in Linux. What we really need is a way to continue having non-free be easy to install but have the user be aware of the fact that their system is partially non-free but not in a way that "irritates" them about it. We need to follow that up with some kind of web based resource that helps the user figure out "you bought this thing with non-free firmware, you should have bought this thing that is free and close to the same price". By marketing (a dirty word in these circles) a non-free "lifestyle" we can help influence the purchases of users and incentivise manufacturers to move towards more open and customer-centric production practices. If you think of Ubuntu and Debian as more aligned than enemies (which they are) then the idea that we can bring significant influence against manufacturers is not crazy. This would be even more true if we were more aggressively pursuing activities like a Debian certified product database. Some of that is present today on the Debian Hardware Wiki but we don't currently push that to the forefront and use our most trafficked pages to aggressively push hardware that makes it easy for us to execute the obligations of the Social Contract. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Bug reports of DFSG violations are tagged ???lenny-ignore????
- "Thomas Bushnell BSG" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Tue, 2008-10-21 at 16:00 -0500, William Pitcock wrote: > > Unfortunately, those who contribute to Debian must be dedicated to > > ensuring future releases of Debian support the latest available hardware > > at time of release. Really do have to disagree there. We should absolutely preferentially support quality hardware that facilitate user control. >From a purely practical standpoint, there may come a time (because of >evolutions in nanotech or who knows what) where certain type of digital >technologies have strong controls that must be honored in order to preserve >the safety of the general public. Given that scenerio I think we would have to >be "100% free" and "100% obey the law". I think we can leave it to others to >break the law for us (or, preferrably, secure legal permissions through proper >channels). We don't need to distribute binary blobs to have a useful >foundation for building other things. If I was going to suggest any kind of change to the Social Contract at this point it would be: 6. Debian will obey the law We acknowledge that our users live in real communities in the real world. We will support the needs of our users to comply with the laws that are applicable in the places where they use their software. We will strive to create the most usable operating system legally possible for our users. Within the boundaries of our resources we will work with our developers to track and adapt the changes necessary for them to comply with the laws and rules of their local authority. In the jurisdiction of authorities which are antagonistic to the cause of Free Software we will work within the boundaries of the law to promote change to a more open system. ... Obviously, we can't be in the position of asking our donors or our users to purposefully break the law. Where law and logistics make it impossible to be "completely free" we must strive to be as "free as legally possible" and work to promote positive change. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Bug reports of DFSG violations are tagged ???lenny-ignore????
- "Gunnar Wolf" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Umh, problem is the myriad of jurisdictions all over the world. This > would very easily become unfeasible. In the end, it ends up being each > user's responsability to obey the law the best way he can. Debian > helps as much as possible by only using valid, free and compatible > licensing schemes - but if in West Namibia it becomes illegal to > digitally manipulate photographies, we won't stop shipping photo > manipulation programs. I guess the question is, staying in the arena of "100% Free", what if DRM technologies become pervasive in the United States and Europe and it literally becomes illegal to have a computer without some proprietary software in it? What if it becomes impossible to develop on a computer, legally, without compromising? Would it still be better to have a computer that is 99.9% free? Keep in mind that I'm asking this in the scenario where providing the last 0.01% as Free Software would be illegal. With the way cell phones and hosted applications are developing it might not be so far-fetched. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [DRAFT] resolving DFSG violations
- "Aníbal Monsalve Salazar" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The Sun employee is the Chief Open Source Officer at Sun > Microsystems, > Simon Phipps. I'll be at Apachecon in two weeks and Simon Phipps is scheduled to be there. I'll ask him about the SUNRPC issue. Would someone privately mail me a link(s) to the best summary of what we need? -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [DRAFT] resolving DFSG violations
- "Manoj Srivastava" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Thu, Oct 23 2008, martin f krafft wrote: > > > It's all a matter of defining what your priorities are, which brings > > us back to the Social Contract, which says that these include: > > > > - 100% freeness > > - cater best to the interests of our users > > Frankly, this mindset infuriates me. It frames the discussion > incorrectly, it implies that freeness and user interest are at > odds. Logically, it aargues that Windows is the best for users, since > it caters to newbies, and is not free- and since the implication is > that freedom can be taken too far, allowing the users freedom to see > movies legally, to use MS office and photoshop legally might triump the > new fangled linux thingy. Its a lot like exercise. Its not convenient and its not easy but in the long run its a good idea. I think the loud voices you are talking about are the same kind of loud, short-term gain voices that have caused so much trouble for the American economy. The point is that what is "best for the user" and what is "convenient or easy for the user" may not be the same thing. It is convenient and easy to eat fast food every day but it will make you fat and unhealthy. So it is the same way with your computer. It is easy and convenient to give up freedom and control so you can watch a movie and play a cool 3D game, but you end up with your data trapped in an infrastructure controlled by the interests of others. Now, breaking the law to keep control... I don't know how we advocate that. That's a harder question. Without law the whole notion of copyright is farcical and the DFSG becomes largely meaningless unless we are looking to some kind of "higher law". Not clear how that works. -- Debian, choice of a GNU generation. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: on firmware (possible proposal)
- "Peter Palfrader" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > c) such firmware can and should be part of our official installation media. We've seen a trend towards organizations building on Debian as a foundation for various special purpose distributions. Debian adds a lot of value as a starting point precisely because of our commitment to a completely Free Software oriented process. I think its safe to say that our model forced Novell and Red Hat to both create parallel programs (OpenSUSE, Fedora) to match the influence of Debian. Extending on this trend towards distributors, maybe we should not be overly obsessed with the Debian "reference platform" running on every piece of equipment under the stars. If we accept that proprietary drivers, source and binaries are indispensable for a "retail" quality product then I think it would be better for us to promote "value added" distributions from other groups than to compromise our core policies. In the end, as we've seen with Ubuntu, second-tier distributors can *vastly increase* the market share of our packaging rather than diminishing it. I can't say whether this distribution process would take the form of an automated way to fetch proprietary apt-sources, a catalog of value-added ISO images or something completely different. I do think it would be more natural for us to rely on partners to fulfill this role because it would be more flexible going forward. Part of the process could be to establish a new set of policies for distributors to follow if they want to be recognized as "Debian Compatible(tm)". Major partners like Ubuntu, Mepis and Knoppix could help us work out some ground rules and maybe large commercial users like Hewlett Packard could give us some perspective on how their internal packages could fit into that sort of scheme. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: on firmware (possible proposal)
- "Johannes Wiedersich" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I would propose to create a new section of the archive, called 'sourceless' > or such. > Stuff within this archive doesn't have full sources. It is legally > distributable and > follows the DFSG with the only exception of missing sources. On top of the > DFSG it is > required that software in 'sourceless' _must not be executed_ on the host CPU. > 'sourcless' therfore applies to firmware as well as eg. documentation pdfs or > images > without source. For the sake of argument, what if we created a distribution of Debian that only runs on architectures with more than one CPU. We will designate one of the CPUs to be the "non-free CPU". This CPU will run all "sourceless" software. For this distribution we can move all of non-free into the "sourceless" designation since it does not run on the "host CPU". -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: on firmware (possible proposal)
- "Frans Pop" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'm certainly in favor of Debian going in this direction. Ideals are fine, > but castrating the distribution for them is taking things to far. IMO we > can still strife and work to have more source made available to the > community without alienating users by making it needlessly hard to > install Debian or find important pieces of software. But you have to see that castrating the ideals of the project is just as damaging as these distribution problems are. I believe Debian has remained important over time because, despite our various social failings, they *respect* our ideology. We remain relevant because we assert a standard and have managed to mostly provide a useful product while complying with those standards. If we bend the rules too much it becomes an open question on why we are better or different than any of the many other distributions out there. We shouldn't be bullheaded, unrealistic or unyielding but we should be strong and true. If distributing proprietary binaries is inescapable then, again, I'll say that we should leave that distribution to others and create some ground rules for identifying how those others should "play nice" with us. If we have an army of third party value-add distributors who fill in these proprietary gaps then we will be well armed to deal with the emerging spectrum of platforms that will be coming down the pipe in the coming years. Things that look like phones and other appliances will be the wave of the future and those devices will have many strange legal obligations. A partner program that enables the vendors of these devices to supply the necessary proprietary baggage and still guarantee a "Debian Compatible" environment will serve us, them and our users. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: on firmware (possible proposal)
- "Frans Pop" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > And I believe that Debian is becoming increasingly marginal because users > are driven away to other distros. Sure, it is nice that a lot of those > users go to derived distros instead of "real" competitors, but IMO it is > still unhealthy if Debian's own user base becomes too small. After all, > we largely depend on having that user base for a healthy turnover in DDs > and having motivated translators and such. If we handle things properly, it is like the GSM standards body worrying that it doesn't actually build phones. Ubuntu has helped us suck the air out of Red Hat and Novell in a way that no one would have thought possible. Now, to your point, I would like to see them be a little more direct about co-marketing with us and it seems that they are coming around to that way of thinking as time goes on. I think they've eventually come around to the idea that "Debian done right" doesn't fly nearly as well as "Debian + Added Value". Being derogatory about the foundation of your product is backwards and nonsensical. What we need to do is get these distributions to view co-marketing with Debian as a positive thing, like the "Real" Milk products or the Java (gah! dare I say it!) brand. To me, real Debian derived distros would provide users with the core Debian value of "choice" and then add value on top of that. What we need to do is make some formal rules about how "choice" is provided. For instance, a Debian based platform that locks the user out of root and has cryptographically secured firmware would not meet the criteria of an "official derived distro". The kind of protections I'm outlining here will become far more important than the bits of firmware in the main distribution as time goes on. If, in the future, there are no computers to install Debian on (ie. everything becomes more embedded and network based) then it won't matter a bit what is on our CDs. Engaging the platform manufacturers and other value-added resellers is going to become ever more critical. > If we are selective in our concessions to pragmatism and careful in the > way we implement things (which always has been one of the strengths of > Debian), I personally don't see the problem. > > I'm well aware that what I tend to think of as the "DFSG hardliners" in > the project do not like this, but why not discuss things openly (and > hopefully without too much flaming) and vote on it? Let's see what the > project as a whole thinks. I'm not disagreeing with you on the fact that bundles of proprietary bits are going to become harder to get away from as we move towards more embedded looking platforms. I'm just saying that distributing those bits through the core development process is a mistake and that value-added distributors are the way to go. That's what we're already doing and it works. What we should do is increase the effectiveness of our current process by making it more formal and explicit. Martin Michlmayr actually proposed some similar ideas under the name "Debian Labs", which I immediately reserved as a means of making a point about trademark infringement. That URL could still be a good place to do this kind of work and I'm happy to hand it back to SPI if someone is serious about doing that kind of work on it. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: call for seconds: on firmware (was: on firmware (possible proposal))
- "Charles Plessy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > can the secretaries state whether it is a supermajority option or > not? > > If yes, how will we deal with it after it is voted? The GR will not be a > foundation document but will rule over one. It will be hidden between many > other GRs, which is in my opinion messy, especially if it happens multiple > times: it will raise the entry barrier for people who want to understand > Debian's principles. Seconded. I think that this GR would change the interpretation of a foundation document to the point of effectively rewriting it. SC #1 effectively becomes "Debian will remain 100% Free except for binaries make us difficult to install on commodity hardware". I started using Debian at a time where you practically had to hand pick a Linux compatible hardware setup and the PC world was literally 99% Windows (or OS/2) so these alterations and their motivations are a little hard to swallow. I would rather see "Debian + non-free" ISO and install images for newbie users before a blanket acceptance of proprietary firmware. We could offer these disks as a service in addition to our "official" images that are completely Free. I realize that I haven't contributed to Debian enough lately to really complain about any of this but I still can't help being surprised. We should be running free ads for hardware vendors that offer pre-rolled Debian systems with no proprietary bits before we are doing any of this. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Call for seconds: DFSG violations in Lenny
- "Robert Millan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Or rather, I propose the following alternative which incorporates Manoj's > rewritten #2 (in addition to removing the last sentence in #4): > > Option 2 (allow Lenny to release with propietary firmware) > ~~ > >1. We affirm that our Priorities are our users and the free software > community (Social Contract #4); > >2. We acknowledge that there is a lot of progress in the kernel firmware > issue; most of the issues that were outstanding at the time of the > last stable release have been sorted out. However, new issues in the > kernel sources have cropped up fairly recently, and these new issues > have not yet been addressed. > >3. We assure the community that there will be no regressions in the > progress > made for freedom in the kernel distributed by Debian relative to the > Etch > release in Lenny > >4. We give priority to the timely release of Lenny over sorting every bit > out; for this reason, we will treat removal of sourceless firmware as a > best-effort process, and deliver firmware in udebs as long as it is > necessary for installation (like all udebs), and firmware included in > the kernel itself as part of Debian Lenny, as long as we are legally > allowed to do so. > > (Since this option overrides the SC, I believe it would require 3:1 > majority) This seems rational and pragmatic. I second this proposal. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Call for seconds: DFSG violations in Lenny
- "Bas Wijnen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > So what's the problem? We want to provide a 100% free software > distribution. Appearantly we currently can't do that. We're far on the > way, but not there yet. We may have thought we were there, but we were > wrong. > > So indeed, people currently running Debian don't run a 100% free > software system. The simple obvious thing to do, seems to be (to me at > least) to remove non-free parts from main, and tell people the truth: > "currently, we can't offer a 100% free solution, please use this stuff > from non-free, we're working on free solutions". > > Instead you seem to invent a new rule, which says "the number of users > of Debian must be as high as possible", and you even want to break SC#1 > for this rule. I think parallels can be drawn between this situation and the recent financial crisis. Certain banks found a way to bend the rules on what they considered to be "good investments". Because they took stable investments to the casino with slanted odds they started to make lots of money. Other banks saw this and began to feel uncomfortable and jealous about what they were seeing and followed suit. Soon, many banks were caving in to their greed and by the time the whistle blew the damage was very deep. As the smoke clears we see that financial institutions who followed their values are the big winners. They stood on rock while others built castles on sand. Just because something is popular doesn't mean its right. The first lesson anyone must learn in the stock market is that following the crowd is a doomed behavior. If you focus on short term results at the expense of long term strategy then, eventually, the value of your organization will disappear. Warren Buffet and his teacher Benjamin Graham say "always look for value". I agree that we must be sensible about providing users with a workable product. Let's just make sure "thou shalt not steal" doesn't turn into "steal when convenient". If we must break the rules then please lets do "steal when you have no other choice and pay back with interest later". -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Proposed wording for the SC modification
- "Peter Palfrader" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > This is not part of my GR as proposed and seconded. > > If anybody wants to change the words of either the DFSG or the SC they > will need to propose an amendmend. > > As proposed this clarifies my and other people's view of what our > foundation documents mean. You are welcome to add a > note/comment/explanation to the SC, but this doesn't modify it. A desktop with a "host cpu" and components with "firmware" is directly analogous to a small cluster of computers. There is no *real* difference between a host programming its RAID controller and a cluster manager handing a blade its boot image. You are engaging in a mental evasion that, for you, allows your proposal to make sense. If you want this proposal to become law then you must come to terms with the fact that you are asking the project to distribute small non-free programs for execution on a variety of (usually) simplified architectures attached to the system by some network/bus. In the case of graphics, TOE, iSCSI and RAID the attached controller may not even be that much less capable than the "host". Trying to differentiate between a USB bus and an Ethernet network in any meaningful way just blurs the picture further. I have drivers installed that upload firmware to my MIDI keyboard. I extracted the firmware from the windows executable they shipped me. Is my usb-attached sythensizer a computer? Do you want my Windows EXE extracted firmware in main? I can probably get m-Audio to approve us including it. You are asking the project to distribute a certain class of non-free software out of convenience. To square that act with our social contract you must alter our social contract's meaning. There is no way around it. Remember, the point of Debian is to keep code off of your computer that you can't understand (or at least have the opportunity to understand). If you don't have the source for your machine's behavior, or are locked out of it, you can't know for sure what it is doing with your information. We want to be sure and so do our *real* users. ps. Take all of that with a grain of salt since I agree that we should release Lenny with continued *temporary* exceptions for problematic, popular firmware. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Proposed wording for the SC modification
- "Michael Banck" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Sure there is, the RAID controller doesn't run Debian GNU/Linux; it just > runs some uploaded microcode. Your blade will run Debian GNU/Linux (or > whatever else you hand it to). So it would be legitimate to distribute an install image for Windows Mobile cellular phones as a package in main? After all, its "firmware". The device won't be running Debian. It will almost certainly have a different architecture than the desktop. Lots of people have cell phones so it will definitely be popular. Can you see any criteria that I'm missing here? -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Proposed wording for the SC modification
- "Josselin Mouette" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Le lundi 17 novembre 2008 à 13:01 -0600, Ean Schuessler a écrit : > > No, the proposal wouldn’t allow that since it only lifts DFSG #2. Such > an image would still fail DFSG #1, #3, #7, and probably #5 and #6. No, it would not. The image is "firmware" and is not subject to DFSG requirements. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Proposed wording for the SC modification
- "Frans Pop" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Ean, with all due respect, but I find your contributions to this > discussion way below par as apparently you can't even be bothered to read > the proposals under discussion. > > We are NOT discussing a blanket waiver of all DFSG or SC criteria for > firmware. The only criterium that is considered for being waived in any > practical sense is the one that requires source to be available for the > firmware. > > So, given that we are just for example extremely unlikely to have the > right to redistribute Windows Mobile, the answer to your question is a > clear and totally undisputed by anyone NO. I would guess that including > Windows Mobile would also violate several other of our principles that > are not under discussion. So please take your pick. > > Now that that's been cleared up, can you please either keep your fingers > off the keyboard for the remainder of this discussion period, or else > start contributing to the discussion in an intelligent fashion? We > already know what your position on the issue is, so there's really no > need to keep repeating it (the same goes for some others BTW). I'm sorry, but I am dense. Please help me understand. If I have a Microsoft device and they provide an opensource Linux installer which ships a Windows Mobile based firmware then how would this not meet your distribution criteria? When considering Silverlight(tm) development tools this use case is not even far-fetched. I made the mistake in my earlier message of saying "main". I should have said "sourceless". In either case, the firmware in question could be distributed as part of our standard install images. Which part am I getting wrong? -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Dwindling popularity
Debian's "dwindling popularity" seems to be a major push behind the arguments I'm seeing for proprietary firmware. Ubuntu bashing is so last season but I think its clear that, in these discussions, "losing developers and users" is code for "losing developers and users to Ubuntu". With that in mind, please review this news story: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/111708-ubuntu-and-chip-maker-arm.html?hpg1=bn To me, this puts things in perspective. Debian has been slaving away on ARM support for years. The vast majority of "Ubuntu ARM" is just a coat of paint on Debian's handiwork. Yet, is the ARM marketing VP sweatily telling us how Debian will "enable rapid growth, with Internet-everywhere, connected, ultraportable devices"? Heck no. The predictable result is that the next generation of Linux-based ARM based thingies will be running Ubuntu and not Debian. That will give them lots of users that we will never have a chance at, no matter how much proprietary firmware we bundle in. There may be other solutions to this problem but I think we have to correctly identify the source first. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Dwindling popularity
- "Bas Zoetekouw" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > To be honest, I don't consider this (i.e. Ubuntu being popular) to be a > problem at all. Neither do I. To your point... if Ubuntu being popular isn't a problem then maybe Ubuntu is the right way to install Debian + proprietary firmware? -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: call for seconds: on firmware
- "Steve Langasek" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > It appears what you don't understand is what the DFSG actually says, since > you're playing word substitution games with the text. Maybe /you've/ > promised not to distribute any works without source code in Debian. The > Debian project has done no such thing. The Debian project can only act through its members (until we build an AI) so your point seems syntactically meaningless. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GR Proposal 2: Declassification of -private
On Monday 21 November 2005 12:00 pm, MJ Ray wrote: > I'm amazed anyone considers otherwise. It's unethical to publish > things that debian promised to keep private. I think it also leaves > us wide open to accusations of infringing copyright. In the final analysis, does debian-private "own" any of the posts it contains in the sense that it can block the original authors (quoted or otherwise) from releasing the information? There is no contractual obligation (that I'm aware of) that one must keep debian-private secret at least in the sense of a true non-disclosure agreement. Should we just create a system where Debian-Private authors can authorize messages (3 years or otherwise) and they are automatically made publicly available. Is there a legal barrier to creating such a system, GR or no GR? -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: debian services and responsibility
On Fri, 2002-03-01 at 07:01, Branden Robinson wrote: > No, in fact I'd venture to say it's unacceptable. And I will venture to say "step the fuck off". Brainfood has, for many years and certainly at the cost of many thousands of dollars, provided services to the Debian organization. We have done so out of love for the project and have never extracted any press, profit or renumeration other than simply using the Project as part of our daily operations. Sponsors have come and gone, some out of disinterest and some as casualties of the dot-com bust, but we have remained steadfast and reliable. Now. We have seen some strange behaivior on some of our systems. We aren't even precisely sure that there has been a compromise. Right now we are in the final stages of rolling out a six-figure web site for one of our primary customers. Now, I don't know what fantasy land some businesses live in but here at Brainfood we must pay our bills with the fruits of our labors. If we do not fulfill our commercial obligations then there will be no services to donate to Debian. Our staff is currently not in a position to audit the systems in question and we cannot risk an exploit. We will complete our critical work and then we will address the situation. I cannot give you a firm time because the project we are rolling out is huge, uses new technology and takes priority over everything else we are working on. Debian-Admin has been informed. Master has redundant capability. We have taken pains to make sure critical systems such as Murphy are still able to fulfill their tasks. I think we are acting reasonably. This might be a good time to think about how many times you have ever said "thanks" to Brainfood for our years of effort and support. You know how often we hear that from anyone? Almost never. All we get is bitching and complaining, speculation about how we are some evil cabal, and formal SPAM complaints to our service providers. No one pays us, as HP pays Progeny, to help Debian. So show some tact, some empathy and maybe a shred of patience. E -- _________ Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: debian services and responsibility
I would like to thank Jim, Nate and many others who took the oppurtunity to say "THANKS!" to Brainfood in my moment of frustration. Because of my deadline committments I haven't been able to respond to all of you individually. Debianers, THANK YOU! Every Debianer helps make this amazing experiment possible and that is why we keep doing it. It's great to recieve some positive feedback from all of you. On to Branden's email: On Fri, 2002-03-01 at 14:11, Branden Robinson wrote: > Of course, I read this message only after sending my very long followup > where, wonder of wonders, I take note of Brainfood's long history of > contribution to Debian. Your last email had a considerably more personable tone. > I'm sorry you took so much of that mail personally. Regrettable I agree, but not suprising. > I didn't want to get bogged down in the specifics of this week's > incident because: > 1) I don't have full possession of the facts in the issue at > question; and > 2) I think we should try to keep the DPL campaign focused > on principles and not let it get bogged down in hot-button > issues, like "should we drop support for non-free". > > I Cc'ed the people I did because I *did* perceive a failure of process, > but it wasn't completely clear to me where the lines of communication > were broken. Was it between Brainfood and DSA, between DSA and the > developers, or what? If you're not following the traffic on the > debian-vote list closely, I can see how a bunch of hypotheticals might > get construed as a mixed bag of random accusations. Forgive me, but I think you are back-pedaling because of the bad reaction you recieved. > My context was a DPL campaign question. Your context is as "incident", > which, as you said, might not even be a security breach at all, but is > certainly real-world and not highfalutin' platform stuff. I don't think that was the case. I think you've changed gears. > So again, I apologize for contributing to the confusion surrounding the > siutation with Debian machines hosted at Brainfood. Apology accepted and deeply appreciated. -- _ Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: debian services and responsibility
On Fri, 2002-03-01 at 22:20, Branden Robinson wrote: > I don't know how you can accept an apology and accuse me of insincerity > and/or duplicity at the same time. Can you help me out with that? Its simple, I'm glad for your apology regardless of the circumstances that prompted it. -- _________ Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: call for seconds: on firmware
- "Steve Langasek" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > This says that the *license* must comply with the DFSG. It specifically > does *not* say that the *firmware* complies with the DFSG, allowing us to > ship firmware in main for which source code was unavailable if it otherwise > complied with the DFSG. > > So yes, the etch release did violate the Social Contract (including the DFSG > by reference) as it stood. To have any standing you must show that the firmware in question is not an executable. For data lookup tables, or something like that... sure, maybe. If the firmware runs is executed by a Turing complete CPU attached to the system then it is a binary like any other and should be subject to the same rules anything else is! Modern 3Ware cards have a PowerPC CPU. Claiming that their firmware is not an executable is a distortion. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Call for vote (Re: call for seconds: on firmware)
Does 5 refer only to firmware that is not currently identified as being non-free? If that is the case, is 5 a viable choice? If it doesn't resolve the problem completely and allow us to release then it needs to be accompanied by a plan for the other problem firm/software. - "Manoj Srivastava" wrote: > Here is the *DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT* ballot for the GR. Please note > the dates on the ballot; voting is not open yet. > > Please send comments to the debian-vote@lists.debian.org list. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR
- "Steve Langasek" wrote: > Boycotting is unlikely to prevent all ballot options from reaching the > quorum requirements, and given the inconsistent application of supermajority > requirements by the secretary it is possible that the vote outcome, as > determined by the secretary, will not match what the outcome would have been > on the same ballot with consistent supermajority requirements. I don't see how he is being inconsistent. Honoring DFSG requirement that programs come with source shouldn't require a super-majority and neither should distributing GPL blobs if they are indeed GPL. All the other options require that we distribute software that is not DFSG compliant. I know that some are fixated on the fact that firmware runs on "some other CPU" but I don't buy that line of reasoning. If this firmware business passes then I am going to start hunting down some MAME ROMs that have lapsed into the public domain. Those ROMs, after all, are firmware for video game machines and they run on a simulated CPU... not the "host". I hope #1 wins and we release Lenny by distributing a proprietary firmware enabled installer out of "non-free". Its just as easy for users to download and it doesn't require us breaking our foundational documents or distorting the notion of what constitutes free software. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Bundled votes and the secretary
- "Josselin Mouette" wrote: > For the GFDL GR, this was even worse: the Secretary decided that “GFDL > is free” required 3:1 while “GFDL without invariant sections is free” > did not. The only reason is that he couldn’t stand the latter proposal > and decided to make it impossible to pass. Note that I was strongly > against that proposal – but even while agreeing with Manoj on the topic, > I cannot approve such a manipulation of the vote. > [snip] > > No, he’s outrageously abusing his position. For gosh sakes man! Try to be polite! Any child can see that GFDL invariants violate the DFSG because they cannot be modified. Saying that someone is "outrageously abusing their position" is a powerfully insulting statement. You had better make sure that the problem isn't your inability to grasp the details of the discussion. I certainly do not envy Manoj's position. The task of turning this firmware hoo-haw into a reasonable vote seems difficult at the very best. Thank you, Manoj, for your work. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR
- "Steve Langasek" wrote: > The title of ballot option 5 is a complete fabrication on the part of the > Secretary that has nothing to do with its text. If option 5 had actually > said what the title claims it says, then a different supermajority > requirement might be in order, but that's not the case here. "Complete fabrication" seems a bit melodramatic to me. I will agree that #5 is not as clearly worded as it could be but I don't think its being purposefully deceptive by a long shot. I read it as stating that we assume firmwares to be under a DFSG compliant license that does not violate the GPL when linked into the kernel. The kernel is GPL and the firmwares may be under a variety of licenses that do not violate the GPL (BSD, etc). I also read #5 as implying that firmwares constitute source. None of those cases require a super majority as long as you actually believe that firmware constitutes "source" (which it may, in some rare cases). -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR
- "Ean Schuessler" wrote: > I know that some are fixated on the fact that firmware runs on "some > other CPU" but I don't buy that line of reasoning. If this firmware > business passes then I am going to start hunting down some MAME ROMs > that have lapsed into the public domain. Those ROMs, after all, are > firmware for video game machines and they run on a simulated CPU... > not the "host". I've already found some public domain MAME ROMs! You developers in the former GDR may remember some of these games. Apparently they ran on a soviet clone of the Zilog Z80. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PolyPlay There is also a Bally Midway game that has been released into the public domain. http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=R&game_id=9368 As soon as firmware is considered source, I can ITP these awesome games! -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Bundled votes and the secretary
- "Pierre Habouzit" wrote: > The point is, the secretary chooses interpretations that suits his own > proposals to the vote. Explain to me how the "release lenny" options > need [3:1] supermajority where the very same vote didn't need it in the > past ? >From a rigorous perspective, the release Etch vote should have been 3:1. If we >are worth our salt we should not be allowing DFSG violations past "testing" >and developers should be aggressive about filing bugs on errant packages. I >can understand the necessity of providing certain users non-free drivers to >help them get their equipment going. Serious users should be selecting >equipment that won't have install problems. Last time I checked, this was a >distribution for serious users (that also happens to want to be friendly to >people just getting started). I fail to understand how serious Debian >Developers arrive at a point where enforcing the DFSG is an exercise for >"zealots". -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Bundled votes and the secretary
- "Pierre Habouzit" wrote: > I disagree. What would be 3:1 (to date) is to decide that such bugs > aren't RC. The funding documents don't enforce the release team to > release without a single known DFSG-related issue, unless I'm deeply > mistaken. A $suite-ignore tag is _NOT_ the same as downgrading the > severity of a bug. It's acknowledging it's a serious issue, but that we > shall not wait for it to be solved to release. > > I don't say that DFSG freeness is a secondary issue. What I'm saying is > that when: > * we see DFSG freeness issue that need quite a long time to resolve > properly and would else delay the release too much, > * there is no sign of foul play from the maintainer (IOW those bugs > have not been sneaked into testing, but have just been detected > after the migration to testing), > Then I fail to see why deciding to release with such bugs needs a 3:1 > vote. It's merely pragmatism. Well. I do agree with you here. Doing a "release" is essentially just bookmarking the state of the archive at a point in time where we consider it to be stable. From a DFSG violation perspective the real culprit is the uploading of the problem software, not the bookmarking of the release that includes it. Obviously, we could be distributing non-free from testing main for a year if we are waiting for a release as the event to clean it out. From this perspective, I agree with you. The release team declaring that a release state has been reached does seem orthogonal to the DFSG violation problem, especially as long as the release team is working with the rest of the project to clear problem softwares. I still disagree strongly with declaring firmware to be source but I agree on the notion that marking a release ready state is a separate matter. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR
- "Steve McIntyre" wrote: > >Both the override and the statement about the meaning of the documents > >should require 1:1. 3:1 should only be required when the documents are > >explicitly superseded or changed, not just for making a project statement > >about their interpretation. > > And that's my interpretation too. I think the constitution is quite > clear here. If the new interpretation alters the meaning of the document then the operation is functionally identical. This discussion is taking on shades of 1984... war is peace, binaries are source, etc. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR
- "Steve Langasek" wrote: > With the corollary, I think, that such 1:1 position statements are > non-binding; you can compel developers to a particular course of action with > a specific 1:1 vote, but you can't force developers to accept your > *interpretation* of the foundation documents that led to the override, short > of modifying the foundation document to include that interpretation. But > such modifications definitely shouldn't happen without the express intent of > the proposer. Don't we need to take into consideration that the release managers' interpretation of the DFSG is the most binding one in the project? I understand that there is a motivation by the release manager's to insure that the release is both technologically stable and timely but shouldn't the release managers be equally concerned with the "legal stability" of the release? Putting on the corporate user hat, I would hope that running stable would give me the highest level of protection against inadvertently running software that is violating its license. A serious license problem could potentially be every bit as disruptive and expensive to our users as a technical problem. I think this factor is really what the discussion is about and why release continues to be a sticking point year after year. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR
- "Steve Langasek" wrote: > No, I'm pretty sure you're the only one harping on /that/ point. None of > the GR proposals mandate a particular interpretation of the legality of any > component of the archive, the release team has never indicated that they > intended to ignore legal problems when releasing, and popular vote is a > stupid way to decide questions of law. It was, and is, my perception that people were trying to get sourceless binary executables into the distribution and I took exception with that. You may question my comedic MAME argument but I think it clearly illustrated the point that something doens't stop being software just because it is on a ROM and executed by a weird processor. The fine points of how a "binaries are source" argument interacts with the GPL is secondary to my primary complaint. Now, I understand that some of these "binaries" are, like, 64 bytes of code (or data?). That really does suck but I don't think we should say "short mysterious sequences of bytes with undetermined function are allowed" to accommodate a few weird drivers out of convenience. That's my opinion and if that makes me a "zealot", fine. Guilty as charged. I do want to say, I still really appreciate all the work that you and everyone else involved in the release and FTP process does. I love Debian and use it every single day (practically every hour). Sorry that I'm compelled to be a zealot and bum your release high. Duty calls. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: I hereby resign as secretary
- "Manoj Srivastava" wrote: > I am hereby resigning as secretary, effective immediately. I was > planning on leaving the office soon, anyway, but I had a rewrite of > Devotee underway, which would have made the software more useful for > different people (different checks --LDAP.gpg. and others), and allowed > Devotee to be packaged as essentially a perl library, with vote > protocols being perl scripts (debian-vote --config gr_lenny.cfg). But > that is no longer a compelling reason to stay on. Man, what a drag. I appreciate that you are between a rock and a hard place with this one. Thanks for the hard work. I'm mighty curious who wants to sign up for this beating next. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR
- "Steve Langasek" wrote: > Enforcement of the foundation documents is not defined in the constitution, > so no, this is not a question of constitutional law. I'm not clear what you are saying here. Are you saying that the foundation documents do not imply any required behavior for project members? To me the foundation documents are "foundational" in the sense of the Bill of Rights. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: gr_lenny vs gr_socialcontract
- "Anthony Towns" wrote: > I consider being able to easily install Debian and get it running on > whatever random hardware I buy an essential freedom, so I see most of > this as people trying to take away my freedoms. Obviously, your mileage > varies, but that doesn't make either of us popularity seeking knaves. If there is a non-free firmware enabled installer available from the "Get Debian" page then an install is going to be as easy as it possibly can be. If what you are after is an installer that says "FREE" on it, regardless of the contents, then I think you need to analyze your motivations. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Supermajority requirements and historical context [Was, Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR]
- "Steve Langasek" wrote: > Yes, I agree that supermajority requirements are a bad idea in > general. To understand the need for a supermajority all you have to do is look at American politics. A supermajority insures that a razor thin majority can't end up doing something radically disagreeable to almost half the population. With a three to one supermajority you insure that only a true minority of the project would be in disagreement with whatever action is under consideration. I do agree that we need clarification around votes where choices have varying consensus requirements. It seems like they may malfunction but I can't really visualize all the ways that might happen. Is there a mathematician in the house? -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Supermajority requirements and historical context [Was, Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR]
- "Steve Langasek" wrote: > Oh gee, so the US is using Condorcet now? You know that was not the point of my last message. Condorcet is orthogonal to the issue. A condorcet vote is just a full run off of options against one and other conducted via a ranking. The presence of "further discussion" effectively provides a "we should do this, we should not do this" vote for each choice. The question is "what is the 3:1 majority against?" If the majority is between "further discussion" and the 3:1 controlled result then I can see how it is the same as a "do this, don't do this" vote. If it is between the next closest runner up, then it seems poorly defined. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Supermajority requirements and historical context [Was, Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR]
- "Steve Langasek" wrote: > It isn't. The US two-party system and resulting political maneuvering are > an exploit of FPTP. The point of the super majority was to "engrave the social contract in stone". From the beginning, there was a concern that financial incentives would distort the shape of the organization and we wanted a safeguard against the system being gamed by a commercial organization "buying up" the voting populace. (Microsoft being the primary suspect in that day) Requiring significant inertia to make fundamental changes to the original plan is not a crazy idea. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR
- "Wouter Verhelst" wrote: > Nowhere in the constitution is it said that the DFSG is law, and that it > cannot be overridden. Nowhere in the constitution is it said that the > social contract is law, and that it cannot be overridden. > I'm not saying we should just thump them out, but a temporary compromise > is not necessarily a change of our principles. > So, yes, that does require interpretation. Could we please vote on whether the Social Contract is the "foundation" of the constitution? This notion that the SC is a "suggestion" is making my brain hurt. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315
Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR
- "Steve Langasek" wrote: > Yes, because it's not a supersession of the Foundation Document; it's either > a position statement or an override of a decision by a delegate. Position > statements are not binding; overrides of delegates can only override > decisions that have actually been taken. Either way, if 50%+1 of the > project wants to order a project delegate to do something that contradicts > the Social Contract, there's no constitutional basis for having the > Secretary prevent them from doing so. *The Secretary is an officer of the > constitution, not of the Social Contract*. Is now an inappropriate time to start a GR to formally recognize the Social Contract as a component of the constitution? The notion that the Social Contract (our purpose and motivation) is less binding that the Constitution (how we get things done) seems nonsensical in the extreme. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315
Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR
- "Matthew Johnson" wrote: > Yes. Come back when Lenny is released (and I'm also keen to see a GR to > clarify all this) So how about that "release Lenny with DFSG violations" GR that needs to pass with 3:1? I bet if it is clear cut that it will pass easily. After that we can move on to correcting the constitution/social contract gap and figuring out if we need another drawer labeled "firmware and other indispensable non-free bits" for things people just can't stand to put in non-free. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315
Re: Purpose of the Constitution and the Foundation Documents
- "Ian Jackson" wrote: > A. De-entrenchment: this is very unlikely to achieve the required > supermajority. But it should be on the ballot anyway when > we put this mess to a vote after lenny. > B. Developers are to interpret: this is I think the only workable > option and given that we have several times now had a GR whose > outcome was essential identical to that of the Developers in > question, I think we might be able to get a supermajority. > In case it doesn't, this ballot option should explicitly state > that this is the Project's view of the corrent interpretation of > the existing constitutional text and that this resolution is > intended merely to clarify the constitution. > C. Rewrite the documents to be clear. > Those of you who remember my term as DPL will remember an enormous > flamewar that ensued when I tried to replace the DFSG with a clear > statement about what licence conditions were acceptable. At that > time they were't entrenched but even so it became clear that > getting a consensus would be impossible because it would involve > arguing about every stupid licence condition ever invented. > So I think this is a non-starter. > D. Establish an interpretation committee: Please god no what a > nightmare. How do you defend the committee from a majority of > voters anyway ? Or are you going to entrench it the way the TC is > entrenched ? That's all very well for technical decisions but > it would be quite wrong for political ones to do with the > project's goals. Your reasoning is sound as usual. Unfortunately, I do not see a solution in your conclusions (which remind me a bit of reading The Economist). We are stuck in a chronic morass because our mission to deliver a Free Software (or Open Source or whatever) operating system is built on terms for which there is no real agreement. Its easy to design a legal system for a world where no one breaks the law. In real life you can't have B without some form of D. Sooner or later someone will put a crazy sourceless binary into main that people take issue with. Its simply a question of degree. The problem today is that "option D" is supplied in the form of a 18-monthly GR fight over RC DFSG compliance bugs. So while I agree with your reasoning, I challenge you to work things through to their conclusion. B is not a solution, its the beginning of a problem. "Do what thou wilt" -- Francois Rabelais -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315
Re: Purpose of the Constitution and the Foundation Documents
- "Ian Jackson" wrote: > Then the ftpmasters and/or the TC will decide to throw it out. If you > don't trust the ftpmasters and you don't trust the TC then what kind > of setup could you trust ? If you're only willing to trust yourself > and your hand-picked co-adherents then I'm afraid you need to go and > find a much smaller project to be in :-). What you are avoiding is that the FTP masters or the Technical Committee *is* option D in your scheme. They are the final arbitrators of DFSG compliance. As we've seen, that scheme has led to friction during the last few release cycles. I don't have any problem with the ftp-masters or the technical committee being the authority. I tend to agree with you that it is much better to have people with hard skills performing real tasks as the arbitrator rather than a panel of people whose primary concern is to split philosophical hairs. At the same time, you yourself note your disatisfaction with the firmware decision. I am suggesting that we must lower the pain threshhold on marking software non-free so that we can correctly classify bytes we are distributing without it becoming an all out war. If there is *any* serious doubt about the compliance of a piece of software then we must be able to mark it non-free without it being the end of the world. As Bdale noted, requiring users to make a conscious decision to enable non-free drivers and software is a great exercise and one that defines our value proposition. S ome insist that this is a hugely unacceptable inconvenience but I don't think you have to look far to find people who compliment Debian for being dedicated to clarity and discipline rather than convenient marketing objectives. Please, acknowledge that what you are suggesting by "option B" would be more clearly labeled as "FTP masters and/or Technical Committee are the final authority for DFSG compliance" with a corrollary that "it is acceptable to leave non-free binaries in main on an ongoing basis if authorized by TC/FTP". Otherwise, we have not reached a formal conclusion on the matter of resolving DFSG compliance RC bugs. I swear that I am fine even with this outcome if we determine as a group that is where we are going. Personally, I would accept a simple majority to carry these items even though I expect that the second option requires 3:1 under the constitution. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315
Re: Results of the Lenny release GR
- "Robert Millan" wrote: > The majority of developers voted to make an exception for firmware in > Lenny. They did NOT vote to empower the Release Team to make exceptions > as they see fit. Results of GR 2008/003 are crystal clear about this. Unfortunately, nothing can be crystal clear about GR 2008/003 because there is simply nothing crystal clear about it. Ironically, Bdale *is* warping the results of the vote and applying an editorial voice to the interpretation of the results. I say "ironically" because Bdale's actions go far beyond anything Manoj did with regard to imposing his desires or thoughts on the construction or result of a vote. Amusingly, those who called for Manoj's head have now fallen quite silent. There are some things that are clear to me: * I have a very high level of trust in Bdale, even when he starts doing peculiar things. * We should not delay Lenny for further political discussion because people's operations depend on our release. * Discussion of these issues in the shadow of Lenny warps people's minds and makes sane discourse impossible. * We have already made several such releases in the past and do not have a soberly constructed framework for solving the problem permanently. With that in mind, I am inclined to go along with Bdale's "release Lenny by all means possible" reading of 2008/003. However, if anyone views this as a victory then they are smoking extremely powerful crack. I would rosily call this a "convenient failure of democratic discipline" on Debian's part. It would be VERY, VERY UNFORTUNATE if it continutes to be a permanent pattern. I think the very survival of our organization depends on us coming to a well defined solution by the next release. So I'm sorry Robert, your heart is absolutely in the right place but I agree that we should release Lenny. I encourage you to "go with flow" and think about structuring the solution down the road. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315
Re: Results of the Lenny release GR
- "Kalle Kivimaa" wrote: > Umm, why shouldn't Bdale have his opinion about the results? Nowhere > does it say that the (acting) Secretary is the authority to > interprete GR results (that's not interpreting the Constitution). > The people who do the interpretation are obviously the release team, > with the DPL being the potential sanity checker. It is clear enough that, recently, Manoj was the "roadblock" to release because he was the primary consitutionally empowered person that was pushing us to honor the Social Contract, honor the consitution and its majority requirements and generally follow procedure. Now that Bdale is the acting Secretary there should be no further resistance to releasing Lenny. I think you will find that Bdale's intrepretation is going to stick. Just a hunch on my part but I'm a gambling man. Do not take this as an expression of distaste on my part. There are no "enemies" here, just people disagreeing passionately. Passion is good, we just need to channel it properly. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315
Re: Results of the Lenny release GR
- "Russ Allbery" wrote: > If he wants to stop the release, he needs to propose a GR to override the > delegate decision, and it has to pass. Neither of those things have > happened. Until they do, this is all pointless noise. Some people cannot just leave well enough alone. Please do not ask for another GR unless you want one. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315
Re: GR proposal: code of conduct
- "Wouter Verhelst" wrote: > # Debian Code of Conduct ... > ## In case of problems > > Serious or persistent offenders will be temporarily or permanently > banned from communicating through Debian's systems. Complaints should > be made (in private) to the administrators of the Debian communication > forum in question. To find contact information for these administrators, > please see [the page on Debian's organizational > structure](http://www.debian.org/intro/organization) It seems to me that with the Code of Conduct (afterwords CoC) that we are institutionalizing a penal system in Debian. With that in mind, I think we should follow some of the best practices typical of these processes in other organizations. I also think some aspects of the CoC relate to obligations we have taken on in the Social Contract. It is well understood that secret laws and secret courts are not a desirable feature for any government. I feel that the same should hold true for our community. The procedures leading up to a ban, the evidence collected, the criteria the evidence must meet and the persons making the final decision should all be public record. I reference the Social Contract mandate to "not hide problems" in support of this concept. Please do not interpret this suggestion as an attack on the character of the listmasters or any other project member who donates their valuable personal time to make things happen. That is not the intent. I have the highest level of respect for everyone who contributes to the project and they have my heartfelt thanks for the operating system I use every day. I feel we must see clearly that the CoC and its related ban punishment effectively amounts to a nascent "court system" for the project. Bans have been treated as an embarrassing thing that we want to keep out of the public eye but they constitute a very serious punishment. A comprehensive ban is effectively a "death sentence" for its target because, from the perspective of the project, that person will cease to exist. This may seem strong language but some members of the project feel a great deal of passion for the effort and would regard an eviction as catastrophic. I hope many of you will agree that while the CoC may be a necessary feature for our community it should be governed in a transparent, policy-driven and unbiased manner with detailed record keeping and peer review. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/24545501.20871392227105291.javamail.r...@newmail.brainfood.com
Re: GR proposal: code of conduct
- "Ian Jackson" wrote: > This isn't really true IMO. Someone who is banned can always send a > message privately to a sympathetic contributor, who can forward it if > it seems relevant or interesting. (I have in fact done this for a > contributor who was under some kind of cloud, when they had a > relevant and constructive contribution to make.) I have seen this used in years past and its seems to underscore the "second class" status of the person involved rather than relieve it. This is, of course, my opinion. > I disagree. I don't think that making these processes heavyweight is > a good idea. I have had very poor experiences with "policy-driven" > processes of this kind. I agree. No one likes red tape. I don't think basic record keeping has to be heavy weight. A ban is an infrequent event and is regarded seriously. A process just slightly less onerous than a kernel commit does not seem like too much to ask. > I get the impression from your mail that you would vote against the > CoC in its current form. That's your prerogative, of course. Do you > intend to draft a counterproposal and if so how long do you expect > that process to take ? The CoC in its current form has been > extensively discussed on -project already, of course. I am actually for the CoC. My complaint is that the GR does not require a record keeping process. I actually agree with Steve that we should not be concerned about publicly advertising the bans. A ban should have been proceeded by a warning and should be reasonable and clear-cut given the circumstances. By the time a ban is issued it should have been fairly obvious that the recipient effectively "signed on the dotted line" for it. It does not seem unreasonable to me that if a developer is curious about why another developer was banned that they should be able to find out what messages provoked the ban, when a warning was issued, who implemented the ban and why (briefly) the band was warranted. This could be as simple as the listmaster forwarding a couple of signed messages to a procmail script. I would be willing to help modify the necessary scripts. The current procmail rules do not contain documentation about the messages that provoked the ban. Ironically it is currently easier to find out who has been banned than it is to find out why. ps. I will also be working on an automated sarcasm detector which may or may not be helpful in streamlining the ban workflow. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/13336517.22291392250726231.javamail.r...@newmail.brainfood.com
Re: GR proposal: code of conduct
- "Steve McIntyre" wrote: > I'm not sure how wiki.d.o bans would fit. We *could* list banned > users > on a specific page, I guess. But the vast majority of the bans we > ever > enact are for spamming. I feel like spamming and trolling should be considered a different phenomena than bans brought for other reasons. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/32330072.41231393314427334.javamail.r...@newmail.brainfood.com
Re: Rationale for CoC proposal A
What if the DPL begins to consider persistent disagreement with the DPL as a form of "flaming"? - "Wouter Verhelst" wrote: > I'd like to propose a rationale for option one on the ballot, if I > may: > > Rationale: > Allowing the DPL to update the Code of Conduct will make it easier > to > adapt it to changing circumstances, without having to go through a > lengthy GR procedure. One of the roles of the DPL is to mediate in > case of conflict; therefore, the DPL is in an ideal position to > detect > when an update to the code of conduct may be necessary. > > If the DPL were to go rogue and replace the Code of Conduct by a > blank > page (or similar), we already have sufficient procedures to recall > or > override the DPL. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/16041386.67041395560710985.javamail.r...@newmail.brainfood.com
Re: The Code of Conduct needs specifics
- "Russ Allbery" wrote: > I think this is a mistake. > > The experiences of other groups have mostly convinced me that the > point of > a Code of Conduct should be to scare away potential contributors who > cannot or are unwilling to behave according to the standards that we > expect of our community, and to reassure the people who would be > injured > by violations of those standards that we're serious about declaring > those > people unwelcome in our project. Not welcoming them and attempting > to > quietly encourage them to become better people (which doesn't work). I agree with Russ. I also think that specificity avoids a perception of people who run astray of the CoC to claim that they have been targeted by "The Cabal". The legend that there is a secret inner core of Debian members that controls things and plays favorites is almost as long-running as Debian's reputation for being inhospitable and unfriendly. I don't think its a perception that we want to encourage. Would it be possible for us to give a rich set of examples while, at the same time, stating clearly that they constitute a guideline and that final decisions are left to the listmasters? If it does turn out, eventually, we have someone in a position of authority who is repeatedly arbitrary then these examples would help speak to them about how they should conduct themselves. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/19099685.69041395693743073.javamail.r...@newmail.brainfood.com
Re: Re-Proposal - preserve freedom of choice of init systems
- "Holger Levsen" wrote: > If you don't like upstreams choices, *you* should write patches. Not > GRs telling other people to do so. Very well stated. Perhaps a sensible response to this GR is for all of the maintainers who truly disagree with it to state their intent of putting their packages up for adoption upon its ratification. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/17457306.37831413558059670.javamail.r...@newmail.brainfood.com
Vote Robinson for DPL!
For those of you who don't watch #spi regularly I thought I would forward this along. I think it really embodies the professional tone and spirit that Branden brings to all of his endeavors and may help you when you are making your DPL decision. so, Anita Schuessler sends us a naggy mail on Wednesday, grousing about how we haven't paid Brainfood's invoice yet, and goes on about what ungrateful bastards we are without even asking if we've already sent payment or not. Now, that's the same day Ean replied to our notice that we had scheduled payment through FirstIB, and said "Huzzah!" So apparently even Ean and his mother don't practice the sort of vaunted levels of communication that Ean vowed to bring to SPI. * Overfiend shakes his head in disgust. While the grousing was justified, the failure of internal communication is quite telling. oh well. Let's not forget that SPI sucks, no matter what. All of you volunteers just remember: If you spend money out of your own pocket to help Debian and want to be repaid you are an evil idiot. If you complain after not getting paid for six months you are a naggy grouser. If you inquire about these topics regularly and comment on them then your organization is incompetent and so are you! SPI, however, totally has its shit in gear and any claims to the contrary is something that will require months of snide comments. Vote Robinson! He's the man that will make you feel like your contribution is worthwhile! Cheers and in disgust! ~E * This very sarcastic email brought to you by servers hosted at the highly incompetent Brainfood corporation and written by the naggy, incompetent and grousy Ean Schuessler and his incompetent staff. Proudly serving Debian with grumpy incompetence for almost 10 years or something! -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Truly, there is no justice. I love this project! On Friday 18 February 2005 09:31 pm, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: > Thanks Ean. I read this and figure that you are certainly someone who > shouldn't get my vote, since you can't keep someone with the same last > name, who you recruited, aware of what's going on, when you have all > the relevant information right at hand. > > By contrast, I find the exchange demonstrates that Branden does indeed > make a fine candidate, frustrated by the difficulties in getting SPI > to function effectively (and I recall you as a key obstruction a while > ago), and yet doing lots of very important work for the project. > > Which packages do you maintain, by the way? -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On a single day: - My mother sent Branden another reminder to pay SPI's very late postage bill. - Branden posted a message to the list saying he finally paid it. - I read Branden's message and said "huzzah!". What is your question? ps. This is all after repeated reminders and invoices by physical mail, e-mail and IRC for more than six months. I mean, wouldn't you say "huzzah!" too? On Saturday 19 February 2005 02:10 am, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: > Justice? You didn't answer the basic point, which I find interesting, > since, after all, you brought it up. > > Why didn't the payee of this check ask you instead of Branden? Do you > not communicate? -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Saturday 19 February 2005 02:30 pm, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: > Branden's implication on IRC was that he had already paid it when he > got the note from your mother, and that you had already said Huzzah! > when your mother sent the reminder, suggesting that you and she don't > communicate very well about business. A strained suggestion at best. A promise from SPI to pay is not the same as a check in hand. My Mom doesn't read spi-private. Worst case scenerio, I did not run into my Mom's office and shout "they paid!" the second I read Branden's post. It mostly indicates that Branden did not copy my Mother on his message announcing payment. Otherwise, why would he write her? In any case, my beef is that he is publicly talking about the incompetence of my organization for totally unsubstantiated reasons. That's bad behavior. Even more so since my organization is a long-time, reliable and well behaved donor and supporter of the Debian project. If this is how Branden treats friends I'd hate to see how he treats enemies. > But my question is: why did you not discuss this privately with him, > instead of bringing it to a public mailing list? Because his performance and behavior as SPI Treasurer continues to be the single best criteria to measure his ability to function as DPL. Remember that Anita's inquiry was totally private. IRC is public and IRC discussions about my organization should and do concern me. Branden is the one who continues to publicly antagonize me on this topic for no apparent reason. I am discussing it on this list because his behavior reflects on his suitability as a candidate. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Whoops. I misworded that. Branden must have failed to copy my Mother about cutting the check. He only told the list. Otherwise, why would she write him an email? Sorry. On Saturday 19 February 2005 02:48 pm, Ean Schuessler wrote: > It mostly indicates that Branden did not copy my Mother on his message > announcing payment. Otherwise, why would he write her? -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Saturday 19 February 2005 03:31 pm, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: > Because she didn't bother asking you? But that's not the point. About sending the check? > The question is, why didn't you clear this up directly with Branden? Ok, I'm game. Why? ps. Who's on first? -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
I don't see a conclusion anytime soon here but I'll try once more. - Branden failed to cash hundreds of donation checks for Debian. - I spent money out of my own pocket to mail apologies to the people who donated the money in the first place. - Those letters were in fact sent. - SPI would not reimburse the postage for the mailing (more than $100) for over six months. - When at last a check was cut Branden made it a point to complain publicly about how incompetent my company was because it asked for a check to be cut. My problem is that SPI is still non-performant to any reasonable professional standard and that I am being bad-mouthed publicly by its representatives when I ask for simple tasks to be performed. I think it is perfectly reasonable to complain about that publicly considering that Branden is the person who is failing to perform well in that core task, bad-mouthing Debian donors publicly and running for DPL all at the same time. The exact timing of me saying "huzzah!" and my mother saying "pay up!" in email seems tiresomely inconsequential. It also doesn't seem to change any of the basic facts about the money I laid out, the amount of time it took to get paid back and the baselessness of the complaints about my organization's competence. If my organization is so incompetent then why did SPI owe it the postage money for sending apology letters in the first place? You've made it clear that you have different priorities than me when it comes to leadership. Fine. I think my concerns are cogent and I hope there are others in the project who feel the same way. On Saturday 19 February 2005 03:59 pm, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: > I know you want this to be all about Branden. But what I see is that > you took a brief thing on IRC, and decided it was a Big Issue. > Indeed, you didn't have all the facts straight when you did so, and > you proceeded to try and get people riled up on debian-vote. > > If you want to say that Branden is a sucky treasurer of SPI, and > therefore shouldn't be DPL, you have chosen an amazingly poor way to > say that. > > Instead of making me think what you want me to think, I decided that > you were telling us nothing useful about Branden, but you were telling > us something about your ability to be a leader effectively. You may > not be running for DPL, but you are serving in a position of > responsibility for SPI, and you don't seem to have the things needed > to do that well. You aren't playing nice. You are trying to solve > inter-personal problems by bringing them up on big group mailing lists > instead of talking directly with the person concerned. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
I haven't been on the SPI board since July. On Saturday 19 February 2005 05:56 pm, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: > > My problem is that SPI is still non-performant to any reasonable > > professional standard and that I am being bad-mouthed publicly by > > its representatives when I ask for simple tasks to be performed. > > You are one of its representatives. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Sunday 20 February 2005 5:23 am, Martin Schulze wrote: > Ironically, he did so in a relatively small forum without public archive > (iirc) but you brought the issue up yourself on a mailing list, with > 400 > people subscribe and a public archive that will end up on Google. > > So, if you only want to document bad behaviour in connection to Brainfood, > you did well, Google will catch up on this. > > If you just wanted to get the issues "straight" you seem to have failed > and created an interesting connection on search engines. > > See, there are reasons private mailing lists exist, and they don't > violate the DFSG. The obfuscation continues! Let's not get caught up in the actual problems I'm trying to put on the table. Let's stay focused on the fact that discussing mistakes and the efforts to correct them makes you persona non grata. Silence dissent! The status quo is dandy! Shut up and be "nice"! > *sigh* And you've got this documented publically. Well done... God forbid that we should discuss the failings of our organizational infrastructure publicly. Debian must carefully guard SPI's public image by carefully concealing its inability to do basic bookkeeping. Of course, we have this whole notion of transparency and "not hiding problems", but those feel-good notions are only skin deep. When it comes to *real* mistakes we must carefully keep them out of google, out of public lists and hidden from view. I know that's what I signed up for. Cheers! -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
You guys knew this was coming. When I shelved this flamewar months ago I made it clear that the problem would be revisited at a future date. That future date is here and I want to know how SPI has corrected its accounting problems. I want to know the filing procedures. I want to know why I can't get paid for six months and why SPI's officers badmouth my company when we ask to get paid. These are reasonable questions. Debian should be curious about how its monies are managed. How any DPL candidate can ignore the fact that SPI "misplaced" $18,000.00 of donation checks this year is beyond me. I think it is a valid and reasonable topic for discussion in this DPL race. On Sunday 20 February 2005 5:17 am, Martin Schulze wrote: > I really wonder why you posted this and started yet another flamewar (well, > it was time anway, since the other one was just about to come to an end). > Why not just feel happy that these things are finally resolved. (It can > happen all the time that reminders and invoice payments overlap.) -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fwd: [Fwd: Re: Invoice #3603 from Brainfood Inc.]
FYI, Here is the "naggy, grousing email" that my Mother sent SPI. This is, by the way, the *only* reminder we sent SPI in the six month period it took SPI to pay its bill. Huzzah! -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com --- Begin Message --- Ean, The bill had come up as 6 months overdue when I went to do my middle of the month billing. I usually start billing somewhere around the 15th-20th of each month. That is why it went out when it did. As the CFO I do not feel it necessary to come to you and ask you about payments from each client that needs to be billed. That is my job...not yours. That is what you can tell Brandon. Anita -- Anita Schuessler, CFO Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." Martin Luther King, Jr. --- Begin Message --- Jimmy, I did receive your check in the mail today. Thank you for your help. Anita Jimmy Kaplowitz wrote: Hi Anita, On Wed, Feb 16, 2005 at 03:56:05PM -0800, Anita Schuessler wrote: Your invoice #3603 billed originally on 7/30/04 is attached. This invoice has never been paid. I know you have the money for payment so I would appreciate an immediate reimbursement for this amount. I spent hours and hours of my personal time organizing all of the SPI mess and didn't receive anything for it...not even a thank you from all but a couple. The least SPI can do is reimburse Brainfood for the expenses of mailing all that stuff for them. As Ean should know from a mail sent on February 14th to SPI's private mailing list, your check should be arriving approximately today. We definitely do not want to withhold your money from you any longer than we already have. I think I said this at the time, but we very much appreciate the work you did for us. - Jimmy Kaplowitz, SPI Treasurer [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Anita Schuessler, CFO Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." Martin Luther King, Jr. --- End Message --- --- End Message ---
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Monday 21 February 2005 1:38 pm, MJ Ray wrote: > When you were appointed President in July 2003, Branden had > found an accountant to help with the work. From the minutes, it > seems the SPI board did not revisit this topic before Branden's > resignation is mentioned in January 2004. By May 2004, the > apologies are being sent out. It took some number of months for me to extract the records. > In general, status reports seem few and far between in the > minutes. Aren't they meant to be part of the normal order of > business under the SPI by-laws? As you were so happy to point > out last summer, doesn't the president have some responsibility > for checking SPI follows the by-laws? It is also the responsibility of the SPI President to see that records are accounted for properly and legally. However, it wasn't possible for me to do this because the new Treasurer (Jimmy Kaplowitz) would be told how to do his job. While I admire his chutzpah, his timing was not ideal. So, responsibility yes... capability no. > There do seem to have been problems with SPI. I don't think > one member of the board can put the blame solely on one other > member of it without clear evidence. At best, your abrasive > hectoring conduct as SPI president did not seem to help. I > don't think you should be so keen to raise this topic again. Hey, I suck! I'm the first to agree. That's why I didn't run as President again. Jimmy, Branden and the rest of the SPI team have now had a six month crack at sorting it out on their own without my badgering. That doesn't seem to have working well either. > I don't think the SPI problems makes transparency and > accountability any more or less of an issue in the DPL elections > than it would have been otherwise. I would like to ask all > candidates about them, but let's wait for campaigning to start. I disagree. This is the first time SPI misplaced $18,000.00 of Debian's money. That's a pretty spectacular screw up. Without Debian's money and trademarks SPI is largely irrelevant. I think its all good food for thought. I do agree about the campaign though. I'm just warming up a little, since Branden has been doing the same. Speaking of... I'm not running for DPL but here is something almost as good for you: http://www.eanschuessler.com/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=ShutUp -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Monday 21 February 2005 2:26 pm, John Goerzen wrote: > In a nutshell: > > 1. A regular treasurer's budget has been established > > 2. The treasurer has adopted a more informative reporting system > > 3. An assistant treasurer (Branden) has been selected > > 4. Banking is now done in a more convenient way for geographically >disparate people There is improvement. The reports are vastly more informative than the complete lack of information we had seen previously. However, there is still no line-item information on how SPI is receiving and spending project monies, just high-level summaries. I am also concerned about the security and organization of the filing system and how paperwork is being disposed of. If we could get the invoicing cycle down from 180 days to 30 or something then we would be getting somewhere. I'm also curious to see whether reports continue since the January '05 report is the first and only one ever delivered. But hey! I'm behind you guys 100%! > Obviously the work is incomplete. But progress is being made, despite > your efforts to ignore it. Jimmy or Branden can probably speak more to > this. If you want to engage in a discussion about this, I submit that > spi-general is a more appropriate forum than debian-vote. Of course, > this is not the only business that SPI must attend to, and we've had > other things to deal with also. > > > get paid for six months and why SPI's officers badmouth my company when > > we > > It would have helped if: > > a) you had sent the invoice to the SPI treasurer > > b) you hadn't sent it in the middle of a box of papers that otherwise >needed only to be stored > > c) you hadn't made contradictory remarks about whether or not you >desired payment at all > > Branden is not an SPI officer. Jimmy is the SPI treasurer. Branden is > a member of the board only. Well, since Branden sent the board a picture of my invoice sitting on top of the sorted papers I assumed you were aware of it. Of course, maybe that wasn't "procedural" enough for you guys to take any action on it. > Actually, "this year" would be inaccurate. "last year" would even be > inaccurate. This would have to be 2003 and before, right? Maybe a very > small part of the beginning of 2004? Last DPL duty cycle then. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Blaming operational failures on emotional factors is a recurring theme in both Debian and SPI. Operational results are by no means the guaranteed result of a good vibes culture. On occasion, nastiness can be very efficient no matter how much you wish it weren't so. Still, pleasant attitude, egalitarianism and nurturing can all improve productivity. They just can't be a replacement for knowledge, skill or discipline. If "pleasant environment" becomes the priority over results then failure is certain. There's $15 worth of corporate management buzzwordery for you. On Monday 21 February 2005 4:38 pm, MJ Ray wrote: > When there has been an emotional vampire sucking the enthusiasm > out of the project, which is largely administrative anyway, > it takes the patient a while to recover. From experience of other > groups, I will be dead impressed if it's anything like working > smoothly by July. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: *sigh*
Hey buddy! You want some too! I... uh... let me see. Well, sadly, I'm fresh out. On Monday 21 February 2005 6:23 pm, Wouter Verhelst wrote: > >From the "WHAT DID YOU CALL MY MUM?!?" department, > > The new meaning of Debian Jr. > > Brought to you by Brainfood and Branden Robinson. > > ... > > Please, guys. I think it's pretty clear to everyone involved now that > Branden Robinson and Ean Schuessler don't really, uh, like eachother all > that much. Such is life. Can we go on now, please? -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
technically true that #spi is not a private > channel, you made the comments far more public than he did. I suspect > that nobody paid much notice to them, and that Branden expected as much. > > Let's talk about some of the good things happening at SPI, too. David > Graham has made tremendous work catching up with old never-posted > minutes and resolutions. Several people have helped with that effort by > updating many pages on the website. Several new projects have joined > SPI. Jimmy & Branden recently produced the closest thing we've ever had > to a true treasurer's report and successfully migrated to a more useful > bank. The trademark committee has been actively working on projects in > multiple countries. Wichert has migrated some of the SPI services to a > new machine. I produced the first ever (as far as I can tell) annual > report last year (a responsibility you neglected). > > In short, I think that SPI is finally *starting* to act like a real, > competant organization, after almost 8 years. These are tentative baby > steps, of course, and much remains to be done. I hope that 8 years from > now, we can look back and see how far we've come, rather than continuing > to point fingers. Maybe then, you, me, Branden, and everyone else can take > some pride in the little contributions we have made to make SPI better, > and SPI's past will no longer haunt its present and future. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Wednesday 23 February 2005 7:07 am, MJ Ray wrote: > I doubt anyone would take a "yes" here now, quite rightly. We > need to watch and decide for ourselves. Hey. I agree. > No and I think you've demonstrated why not very well. I would > hope that there are laws against presidents doing that, but US > company laws seem very lax to me. As I've said, I can be combative, irrational and mean tempered. At the same time, I was able to get a few years of accounting problems cleared up in a week or two. I think it is great that we are focused on group concensus in Debian but I think everyone can agree that we paralyze ourselves with that focus at times. If you look underneath the skin, most interesting things in Debian get done by individuals who work without permission to build something interesting. Fundamentally, all I was trying to do was hack on SPI because it was broken. Think of it like this. If the Debian mailservers were broken, how long would Debian wait for the "official mailserver guy" to fix them if it became clear that he didn't really know much about mailservers? How long would keep someone who knew exactly how to fix the problem from doing so in the name of an official title? I may be a pain in the ass but I do run a business and have a full time accountanting help. I also write ecommerce websites for a living. Fixing the SPI accounting is kiddie stuff. > In SPI's minutes, I see Branden being appointed (September > 2001), working for a while (to mid-2002), flagging up the > problem (January 2003), trying to get help to deal with the > problem (July 2003) and resigning (January 2004). I have seen > him being a bit annoyed with the other people in the mess with > him, but I can understand that. Can you tell me where to see > him blaming everyone else? When I say that he blames everyone I mean just those defenses. That the job was more than one person can do, that no one would help him. When raising that argument he fails to include the fact that it took months for him to ship the paperwork even at my expense. Also, the job just isn't that hard. It's tiresome, boring and detail oriented but not overly time consuming. Its only when it is neglected that the backlog becomes difficult to deal with. Even then, with an enormous back log, it wasn't that hard for us to iron out. > This seems similar to an earlier situation where a secretary > was appointed, couldn't fill in past holes and resigned, > although you didn't give any time between pointing it out > and resigning. Maybe you gave up too quickly and Branden gave > up too slowly? Could be. I have a short attention span. > Also from the minutes, it looks like SPI was slowly failing from > mid-2002. Branden was part of the board, but so were you. Who > should we blame? Is there any point blaming anyway? Blame me for sure! I am not good at getting volunteer hackers to participate in a bureaucracy. I've learned that the hard way in flying colors. I can get things done with my normal team. I wanted to use that team to clear up SPI's problem but that meant breaking stride with the existing processes. The existing processes weren't working and, to my way of thinking, are only barely limping along now. I didn't see the harm. That, of course, is part of why I failed. > Branden wasn't leader of SPI. You were. See above. I failed to lead SPI effectively. (I did, however, alert hundreds of people that their donations to Debian had failed to complete because of ineffective processes and returned their checks to them and I did that by myself. Not that I'm complaining. It wasn't that hard.) > Can you substantiate that claim besides trying to blame him for > the SPI bug? His packages don't seem to be worse than a few other > people I've looked at, although it seems his upstreams aren't > particularly cooperative. Well. I would like to make the bold distinction that hacking on software is not the same thing as maintaining a bureaucracy and that assumption is why we have failed to make SPI work again and again and again. > Not really a Branden/DPL issue, but more a DPL question in general: > Will the DPL go to many SPI board meetings or appoint a delegate? Debian money held by SPI is still Debian's money. SPI is a corporation and Debian is its main customer. If I had a bank mislay checks constituting 50% of my account holdings I would take a very active interest in its operations. I don't think its a question of who will represent Debian in SPI but rather the level of performance Debian expects. The representative is irrelevant so long as results are achieved. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
I will continue to respond to inquiries on this topic on Debian -vote. You have expressed your opinion that this is off topic for vote. Since Branden is running for DPL (or has, at least, begun rallying support) and since the topic of discussion is his success as an officer of SPI, I modestly submit that you are wrong. For the time being I have sufficiently stated the facts, unquestionable as they are, and am content to wait for further discussion. If you want to keep noise down then you can at least refrain from these obviously ineffective requests to cease the discussion. Especially since such requests ironically continue the very thing you are trying to end. Uh, so there. Nyah. etc. On Wednesday 23 February 2005 4:35 pm, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: > Please take this off debian-vote. It is not on-topic here and belongs > elsewhere. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Wednesday 23 February 2005 7:09 pm, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: > Where has he been "rallying support"? Where is he an announced candidate? http://wiki.debian.net/?DraftBranden > What you have stated are not the facts. Are you afraid to bring them > up on the SPI mailing lists where they belong? SPI is not in a position to change its own behavior. :-D -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Wednesday 23 February 2005 9:05 pm, MJ Ray wrote: > Huh? If you cleared up the accounting problems, why did you come into > this thread claiming that there are accounting problems? Did SPI undo > all the process changes you put in place in another week or two? As a service to mailservers everywhere I'll put up a permanent page outlining my complaints: http://www.eanschuessler.com/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=SPIAccounting > Maybe you cleared up some accounting symptoms but not the problems. I > mean, that's good too, but who's fixing the problems you left? I didn't leave any problems that I was able to fix. I left a lot of neatly sorted and labled files in a box, safely delivered to the person the board demanded. I wasn't allowed to do anything more than that and my official term had expired. I did leave a half finished end-of-year report but since I wasn't the Treasurer and since I had no end of year financial summary that seemed a difficult proposition at best. I did leave a significant portion of the material that was in the final end of year document. Still, that effort was a failure and I will accept responsibility for it. I could have dogged people for content even after my term was up. > Sure, but you have no fine clue how to work with people you can't > raise or fire, as far as I've seen. That much appears to be true. > Erm, *I* raised the argument and I didn't include that as I didn't > notice mention it in the record. Wasn't there any problem with the > president taking control of financial office? If not, I'll wait > for some other of SPI board to comment. Open to interpretation. The President *not* taking control of the financial office (at least temporarily) has certainly allowed problems to continue. > How long was it neglected when Branden took the post? A period of years. We corrected portions of that task as well. > Sure, fine. So no, you can't substantiate it beyond trying to > blame the whole SPI thing on Branden? It depends on what you mean by the "SPI thing". If you mean not processing hundreds of donation checks, then yes, I blame that on Branden. If you mean a generally confused organization that is marginally fulfilling its charter and endangering the resources of the projects it serves, then no. That problem belongs to all of us. The above statement is way letting Darren Benham off the hook but he isn't running for DPL. If he ran for DPL then I would put on a display that makes this look like Sunday school. Branden knew that Darren had cocked things up terribly when he took the task on. Let me be clear. The fact that he failed isn't the problem. Branden is a stand up guy but we're talking about running for DPL. When addressing his failure he can't say things like "I didn't lose the funds, they were sent back to the donors." That's not DPL behavior. That's not showing problems at face value. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Wednesday 23 February 2005 10:30 pm, John Goerzen wrote: > I looked at your wiki page. The only items that look relevant going > forth are "I outlined next steps to correct procedures going forward" > and "Checks are now once again being processed by volunteers in two > assorted places with no secure storage and no professional accounting > help." > > Regarding the first point, could you post a URL to these suggestions of > yours? The discussions were on the SPI board list and are not publicly available. My general suggestions were: We should pay an actual person to perform clerical services for SPI. For $18,000 we could have paid a trained office temp to do 50 hours of clerical work a month for the next three years. 50 hours a month should safely allow that person to: - Open all the mail, scan it and upload it to a secure web server. - Sort and file all the materials. - Take all materials older than 12 months and send it to a permanent, secure document archive service such as iron mountain. 50 hours, actually, is probably way, way to much time. I would imagine typical traffic load will require no more than 10 hours a month. I would be happy to host the files and the temp at my office facility but we could have backups. I'm sure Progeny, Ubuntu, HP or even the government of Brazil would help us come up with something more secure and professional than having all Debian's legal documents sitting at someone's house. I'll add this stuff to my Wiki entry. > Regarding the second point, I agree with you that professional > accounting help should be found. However, simply saying, "see, we're > paying someone to help!" doesn't magically make things better. As you > know, there has been some resistance to spending money on this. It > doesn't really take a pro to write log transactions and send things off > to a bank, either. It is taking a long time. Any reasonably conducted business should be able to cut a check on a 30 day cycle. It should also be totally possible for most businesses to expedite a check in 24 hours. I know I waited six months and I know of at least one other person who is more than a year out. I'm certain that there are other Debianers who have had problems but aren't talking about it. > Regarding secure storage: what is there to store? Checks are being sent > off for deposit almost as soon as they come in, and bank statements, > canceled checks, etc. are made available electronically. Having an > Internet bank is, I think, a great benefit there -- and the geographical > proximity to Branden probably helps, too. Businesses should store five years of financial transactions in case there is an audit. At Brainfood we store seven. How good do you feel about SPI going through an IRS audit right now? I've been through them and it wasn't fun and we were well prepared. > We probably have some non-treasurer things -- incorporation papers, etc > -- that should be in a safe deposit box somewhere. I'm aware of that. > It just hasn't been at the top of the list given all the other urgent > needs we have around here. Or are you aware of things I don't know of? Where is the correspondence for that lady that brought charges against SPI being stored? With Greg? -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Thursday 24 February 2005 5:48 am, MJ Ray wrote: > Can you add references for some of the claims? It's hard for anyone > to take that page and run with it. Also, not setting a white background > would make it easier to read. I can. I'll fill it in. > Do you have any response to the claim that your invoice was in a box > of papers for filing? Yes. The invoice was included in the box I sent to Branden. The box was not full of papers for filing, but rather filed papers. Branden sent me 15 pounds of unopened mail and I sent back those papers filed by account and year with photocopies of the checks that were returned to the donors. The invoice was on top of the filed papers. Branden took a picture of what he received and sent it to the board. The board had requested that the files be sent to Branden since he was still the only person who had permission to sign checks even though he was no longer treasurer. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Thursday 24 February 2005 12:52 pm, Steve Langasek wrote: > That wiki page was not created by Branden, it was created by people who > think Branden should run. Branden's only message to debian-vote this month > has been to explain the conditions under which he would run for DPL again, > in direct response to duplicate questions from DDs. The net effect is that he is campaigning early with assistance from 3rd parties. > They (and he) are courteous enough to not fill this mailing list with > irrelevant drivel about a non-candidate; why aren't you? Is being an ass > to your peers really the only strategy you find effective in life? Of course, you would never stoop to such tactics, would you? -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
For it to be slander I would have to be lying. How would you cope with a genuine slander campaign if I was conducting one? Am I lying? How do you know? What resources can you use? Will one of you prove that I am lying or do you just prefer to go on your instincts? Moreover, lying aside, do you even really care about Debian misplacing its funds? On Thursday 24 February 2005 3:54 pm, Jeroen van Wolffelaar wrote: > The only one campaigning is you, and what you're doing suspiciously > looks like a slander campaign. Branden has as far as I can see, nowhere > done any public DPL-platform like statements in this month. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: DPL election IRC Debate - Call for questions
I know I've caused a lot of controversy with this issue but I keep reapproaching it only because I feel its so important and that we are still failing to address the issue with the proper level of seriousness (ie. completely and permanently solved). So... Dead horse... Kick. Kick. Kick. Q: In June of 2004 it became apparent that SPI had been having deep set responsibilities executing its chartered task. Donations equal to roughly half of Debian's total holdings did not make their way into the project's accounts due to poor (or non-existant) bookkeeping procedures. This failure reflected poorly on Debian when donors have to correct the accounting errors introduced. No typical business or professional organization can tolerate this type of performance in a mission critical area. As a DPL candidate, what actions will you take to insure that Debian's funds and other property are managed in a professional manner? How will you insure successful execution? On Monday 28 February 2005 3:29 am, Helen Faulkner wrote: > As you probably know, the 2005 Debian Project Leader elections will > involve an IRC debate, to be chaired by Martin Krafft and myself. > > The exact format and time of the debate have not been finalised, though > the debate will obviously be held during the campaign period (ie before > March 21st) and the format will probably be broadly similar to those in > previous years. The details will be finalised soon and announced to > this list. > > We would therefore like to call for suggestions for questions to be put > to the candidates during the debate. We hope to be able to choose a set > of questions which reflect the concerns and interests of Debian > Developers in general. > > You are welcome to either post suggested questions to this list, or to > email myself and/or Martin privately with your suggestions. If you wish > your questions to be anonymous, please email us privately and make that > clear. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: DPL election IRC Debate - Call for questions
Whoops. I screwed up an edit. Let me redo it: Q: In June of 2004 it became apparent that SPI had deep set problems executing its chartered tasks. Donations equal to roughly half of Debian's total holdings did not make their way into the project's accounts due to poor (or non-existant) bookkeeping practices. It reflects poorly on Debian when donors are forced to correct for accounting errors in their own business caused by our mistakes. No typical business or professional organization can tolerate this type of failure in a mission critical area. As a DPL candidate, what actions will you take to insure that Debian's funds and other property are managed in a professional manner? How will you insure successful execution? Sorry, I should have read it out loud. On Wednesday 02 March 2005 8:42 pm, MJ Ray wrote: > Ean Schuessler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [...] > > > Q: In June of 2004 it became apparent that SPI had been having deep set > > responsibilities executing its chartered task. [...] -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: DPL election IRC Debate - Call for questions
Where can we put them? Submitting them "in secret" to be edited by the debate organizers seems incorrect. I think we just need to remain focused on the idea that we are editing questions to be posed to candidates, not attempting to answer the questions themselves. On Wednesday 02 March 2005 9:41 pm, Anthony Towns wrote: > Can we keep the debate questions off this list? Otherwise the choice is > between leaving them unanswered for a couple of weeks until the debate, > or having them already answered on the list, and thus redundant for the > debate. Having different Subjects for different topics would be nice too... -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Clarification about krooger's platform
Vampire Bat Boy drops Debian for Ubuntu! "Night creature sites lack of Transylvanian mother tounge." On Thursday 03 March 2005 4:20 pm, Joey Hess wrote: > I'll leave the rest of your bile to someone else, but for the record, as > the founder of DWN, I resent the implication that the newsleatter is > modeled on a US tabloid, which I have never read (except for headlines > about two-headed cows while standing in line with my milk). If it wasn't > so sad, that alligation would be histerical. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Question for A. Towns - NM
On Friday 04 March 2005 06:21 am, Anthony Towns wrote: > I can think of a few ways to try to resolve this. The most important is > killing "noise", by which I primarily mean off-topic threads, but also > mails generally that don't add anything to the discussion because > they're, eg, just rehashing old arguments, or outright spam, or similar. > As DPL, I'd be aiming to have a delegate group (perhaps listmaster, or > perhaps a moderator group, so listmaster can focus on technical issues) > to start enforcing list policy by technical measures, such as bouncing > posts on threads that have gone off-topic, or by suspending or banning > posters who are frequently off-topic or offensive, to potentially having > developers who're are unable to control themselves removed from the > project entirely. I tend to think having a simple "post a non-private > message to -private, and you'll be suspended from the lists for a week, > and followups to the message will be bounced" would be both effective, > and require very little enforcement after the first instance. Perhaps we can source some code from the Chinese government. I believe they have a similar method of maintaining "political order". Pray do chose your "listmaster" committee carefully. > I think the following messages should have resulted in the posters being > sanctioned to some degree, eg: > > http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2005/02/msg00022.html >- campaigning is limited to a set three week period, campaigning > for or against potential candidates outside this time is off-topic Your selections have already picked up some bias. Branden was able to unfairly campaign in advance through his "100 supporters" technique but this has escaped your notice. At least my "campaining" has the excuse of thousands of misplaced Debian dollars driving it. Moreover, I'm not running for office and receive no personal benefit if the issues I've raised are addressed. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Questions to candidates: what is source?
Ha! This gets the official "best question so far" award. Especially the neural network bit. That's rich. On Saturday 05 March 2005 7:49 am, Seo Sanghyeon wrote: > 6. Which of the following satisfies DFSG #2? What is the general >principle? Or should it be case-by-case? > > * ELF binary without C source > * Java class file without Java source >(This is reasonably decompilable: cf. jad package) ... > * Dump of neural network data without training data or without >exact method to duplicate the network ... -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: Re: debian-women obscurity, was: Clarification about krooger's platform
Is it possible to just chill out on the chicks? Can't the girls brave enough to wade into our computerized backwater have a little something of their own without all this trouble? The very few women in Debian put up a page that lists those women and men aren't listed on it because it is a list of women. What is your problem? You want men listed on it? Would you have a problem with blind Debianers creating such a list? Nazis or terrorists sure, but ladies!?! I wish them the best of luck, maybe our conferences will be less of a weenie roast. Get over it man! On Saturday 05 March 2005 6:55 pm, MJ Ray wrote: > http://women.alioth.debian.org/profiles/ -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Red-tops, was: Clarification about krooger's platform
I'm very sorry but attempting to measure cabal power by frequency of discussion in public news forums is obviously naive. First and mostly because there is no cabal. On Saturday 05 March 2005 06:21 am, Henning Makholm wrote: > No, not by a large margin. I have a cabalometric experiment at > <http://people.debian.org/~henning/brainshare/dwn-2005-09.96.html>. > The rules: Each time DWN links to a mailing list post by you, you get > 1000 brainshare points. Each time a new issue comes out, your score is > multiplied by 0.96 and rounded down to an integer. This will make all > of your 1000 points go away in two years if you don't replenish them. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Question for Andreas and Branden
The notion of asking politeness is not reprehensible at all. The question is who will categorize things as "rude". In Ubuntu I would imagine that anyone who challenges "management" long enough would be considered "rude" if their views could not be reconciled. Debian theoretically has no management so you would need some kind of concensus testing device to determine which people were being sufficiently irritating. Technically you could hold a GR to order someone to shut up (or to shut them up) but they would have to be pretty amazingly rude at that point. I think existing communication technologies (/ignore, mailfilters, etc.) provide sufficient mechanisms for selective ostracization. Is ostracization a word? On Tuesday 08 March 2005 05:12 am, Andrew Suffield wrote: > Yuck. I can think of nothing more ethically reprehensible than such a > notion. One person enforcing their political position on another is > simply inexcusable; a higher crime does not exist. It's a form of > slavery. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Q for Andreas Schuldei: "Small teams"??
If you are going to collect questions for the type of page you've suggested please do not enforce your views in the process. Henning's question was perfectly sensible. A great many Debianers persue their packaging efforts largely as an individual and are perfectly content with the status quo. The additional responsibility of required meetings with an ad hoc team assembled by unknown methods could very well drive people away from Debian. The most common thing people hate about Debian seems to be "dealing with other Debianers". I strongly suspect that Andreas' plan would not lead to the utopia he has in mind. Team interactions should be limited to those functional associations required to execute the tasks at hand. Social clubs should not be a requirement. At least, that's my opinion. If you need clarification, ask for it. Please do not dismiss valid questions out of hand. On Tuesday 08 March 2005 06:52 am, David Schmitt wrote: > On Tuesday 08 March 2005 13:13, Henning Makholm wrote: > [See http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2005/03/msg00242.html] > > Sorry Henning, after purging those sections I believe covered by common > sense definitions of "team", "working together" and "discharging > responsibilites" there was nothing of your questions left to post on my > summaries page. > > Do you want it posted unaltered in full length or do you want to reconsider > your submission? Especially the parts about being "assigned" to a team, > "team leader" and "requirements for teams" stopped me cold in the tracks. > > Regards, David -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Q for Andreas Schuldei: "Small teams"??
Sorry, I got trigger happy and mailed before reading Henning's response to your mail. In your references below, however, you still seem to be missing the point. The "small team" under discussion is not SCUD but rather the small teams that Andreas is suggesting the developers form in to. From his response it seems that the teams will be voluntary and function related (ie. mp3 players) and will, therefore, pretty much be as they are now. I personally am involved with Debian-Java and hang out on #kaffe and some of us have attended various Free Java related functions together (redhat vm summit, fosdem, etc.) with much enjoyment by all. So, his clarification is important because it is a lot different from dividing the project into groups of seven random people and requiring them to meet regularly. On Tuesday 08 March 2005 9:44 am, David Schmitt wrote: > Please see > http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2005/03/msg00298.html > > and > http://debian.edv-bus.at/vote-2005/project-scud.html > "Constitutionality" -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com
Re: My platform
I have the same God-forsaken wireless card in my laptop. In this day and age where there are dozens of 10Mbit wireless cores out there I managed to get suckered into buying a Centrino because Intel was deceptive about their support for Linux. Rather than bending our sensibilities to appease these companies we should provide a database of vendors who sell laptops that are verified to be 100% free-software supported. Hit 'em where it hurts, the wallet! Oh. Ooops. I'm not running for DPL am I? Uh, will one of you guys add "database of free software capable equipment" to your platform? I'll help write it. On Tuesday 08 March 2005 10:12 pm, Angus Lees wrote: > To give a concrete example: My laptop has an extremely comon centrino > (ipw2200) wireless card. To support this card under Debian/Linux, I > need to install packages from contrib and download a firmware blob by > hand. To simply have the HTML4 specification easily available, I need > to install packages from non-free. What I'm trying to say is that by > removing all these things from main (imo) too quickly and too early, > we have instead *encouraged* all our users to use non-free. The best > outcome is of course that these things are available under a licence > we can all be happy with, but there is a clear distinction between > these "grey area" cases and "really non-free" stuff like Macromedia > flash plugins. I'm concerned that the long-term goal is going to > suffer by forcing users to make the choice between (a) going somewhere > else or (b) exposing themselves to poorly supported software from > non-free. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Question for A. Towns - NM
Read more carefully and you will see that I suggest existing technologies (mail filtering, IRC /ignore) as solutions. The problem may be that some Debianers have better filtering in place than others. Some brave soul could start a special version of Razor for Debian that lets people vote on other's idiotness. Subscribers to the system would have flame-happy turf heads (like me) removed from their reality automagically. Of course, those foolish enough to demand a raw feed would be perfectly capable of doing so. The "Censorship Boo-Man", as you deftly downplayed it, is the central motivation for this project. Freedom of communication, freedom to process your own data and freedom to modify the infrastructure for doing so are the reason we are here. Nyah. On Wednesday 09 March 2005 10:34 am, Matthias Urlichs wrote: > Ah, the Censorship Boo-Man. > > Sorry, you lose. > > You can get another ticket for the Meme Lottery if you tell us what we > (and/or the new DPL) should do instead, given that (a) inappropriate > "content" is a problem on many Debian lists, and (b) previous attempts to > tone said content down have failed. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: debian-women obscurity, was: Clarification about krooger's platform
The secret is out. A new cabal is trying to cleanse Debian of women through pure irritation and MJ is in on the action. Gentlemen, steel yourselves for a future consisting entirely of endless pedantic hair-splitting over policy, very little actual technical work and homoerotic all-male skinny dipping geek parties at exotic locales.* Dammit man! It's a list of women in Debian! Men are not women! Get a hobby! *Andreas... I hate to bust your balls but the concept of a Debian Developer skinny dipping party turns my stomach. I cannot resist its comedic lure. On Wednesday 09 March 2005 5:52 pm, MJ Ray wrote: > In fact, I suspect the correlation is not very strong. > > > [...] more of a personal issue "ok, so there's the linuxchix, what's > > wrong with Debian?" > > linuxchix specifically exclude men from some meetings and > facilities. Absence of a similar group was a feature. It's a > shame that things deteriorated to the point one was created. > > > [...] As there's is absolutely no seggregation in the debian-women > > environment, men can benefit, and I'm sure *do* benefit, from this > > wellcoming climate too. > > Is a bus with a whites-only section at the front segregated? > > Really, it is simple to make the debian-women project not > segregated, but it seems clear from > http://lists.debian.org/debian-women/2004/08/msg00100.html > that segregation is intended for some parts. Why wouldn't > profiling friendly male contributors help? -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Question for A. Towns - NM
So then you are back to some kind of yardstick determining the freedoms of everyone. Who will set the mark? On Wednesday 09 March 2005 10:08 pm, Matthias Urlichs wrote: > Well, for me there's a difference between the freedom to share your ideas > with others and the freedom to communicate anything whatsoever, even if > it's detrimental to the communication. So, sorry, but your "we" isn't > exactly the same as my "we". -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Another Q for Andreas Schuldei
When we go on our required Debian Skinny Dipping Adventure(tm) will we also be required to form into "small groups?" Will what remains of Debian-Women still be allowed to exclude men? Dark prospects indeed . . . -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Question for A. Towns - NM
On Thursday 10 March 2005 6:53 pm, Anthony Towns wrote: > Personally, I don't see any reason why having filtering on the client is > better than having it on the server -- even if just to stop people > from getting confused at the "debian-devel" they read being different to > the "debian-devel" others see. For those who read our mailing lists via > the web archives, client side filtering isn't really possible, in any case. Because filtering on the client is configurable by the client and not by some mysterious person who has their own private biases. You have a good point on the web archives. If we had a collaborative mail-filtering system (like Razor) then we could use the "concensus" arrived at by the system's users. That would be a more suitable solution than, say, using your own private Spam Assassin ruleset. > No, the central motivation for the project is to make a good, free > operating system. The "Deb" stands for "Debra", not "Debating". So, is that "free as in beer"? If freedom of expression isn't a priority then what exactly is Software Libre? I do agree with you that endless debate for the sake of lip-flapping is one of the project's biggest challenges. I just think you are over-simplifying the solutions. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Question for candidate Walther
Graydon Hoare. I hear that he has apologized for that whole thing. On Friday 11 March 2005 3:54 am, Brian Kimball wrote: > > We will extract the X server source from the XFree86 CVS > > repository, and make it compile stand-alone. Then we will > > package it together with the latest video drivers and bugfixes > > to coexist with current distributions of XFree86. We hope to > > incorporate the DRI and Utah-glx work by release time, but if > > will definately have it incorporated shortly after release. > > Who was responsible for the Berlin Consortium? I vote for that guy. > > Manoj, did you tally that? Thanks. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: DPL election IRC Debate - Call for questions
On Tuesday 15 March 2005 06:05 am, Anthony Towns wrote: > Hrm; from my archives of spi-private, I'd been complaining about the > lack of transparency in financial mangement since 13th Jan 2003, at > which point, aiui, donations had not been accepted at all for over six > months. SPI members who are subscribed to spi-private and care, can > probably follow: > > http://lists.spi-inc.org/cgi-bin/private/spi-private/2003-January/83.ht >ml Yes. You and Branden are the only candidates who have shown a genuine interest in the financial problems. Branden is arguably in the lead from a "hands-on/work-done" perspective and you've seen how much slack I cut him. Still, I commend you for being aware and persistant. > I think Martin's done exactly the right thing here, which is to > diversify Debian's holdings on a country-by-country basis -- both > because it means we're not putting all our eggs in one basket, and > because it keeps the funds close to where they're going to be spent. > Debian is a global organisation, and collecting all our funds in the US > isn't really a very sensible thing to do, no matter how well it's > managed once it's there. I agree with your approach. It mitigates the risk of organizational failures and there are legal reasons that make it worth spreading the assets around. However, there are a number of implications to this policy. - It begins to appear that Debian is a legal entity distinct from SPI that has international monetary holdings. Either that or there are a number of legal entities which a Debian participant may choose as its "hosting authority" for legal and financial representation. In either case, there seem to be complex issues at stake that are not addressed by Debian policy. As DPL, would you assemble a finance and operations committee to address these matters and make them part of Debian policy? - We need to insure that our money is as safe in the hands of other organizations as it is in SPI's (ha ha). What standard is there for the behavior and structure of these hosting organizations? Who do they execute a binding contract with so that if someone within Debian (an organization of nebulous legal status) tells them to do something with the money they must in fact do it? > I've had the opportunity to help that process from the other end by my > involvement in Linux Australia, Inc recently, and I'm pleased that > that's already resulted in some progress [0]. Fortunately, the LA > treasurer, Mark Tearle, will be doing all the actual work. :) Excellent news. See above. > Beyond that, though, I think SPI's problems are something the SPI board > will have to work out themselves, and from what I've seen, things do in > fact seem to be improving. I hope that continues. Really, considering that Debian lost enough money to buy a multi-terabyte storage array do you honestly feel this is a "problem that will work itself out"? When a person cares enough about the project to sit down and write us a check I do not think we can fail to process those monies. A donation is the most serious contribution a non-technical user can make to our effort and that contribution deserves the highest respect. The accounting solution at SPI is still tenuous. Illness, accident or simple boredom could still easily lead us to the situation we had before. The solution you've outlined could work but it increases complexity rather than removing it. I don't know what it takes to make this clear but non-professional, volunteer accounting help is not working for Debian. It has never worked well and it is just barely working now. Shifting responsibility to multiple organizations will only create more problems unless there is some measure of quality in place that these organizations must meet. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
