![Debian Debian](http://a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/debian_64.png)
![GNU is Not Unix GNU is Not Unix](http://a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/gnu_64.png)
![Software Software](http://a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/software_64.png)
![Linux Linux](http://a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/linux_64.png)
Debian Project Nominations Opened 106
robstah writes "The Debian project have announced the opening of nominations for this year's Debian Project Leader (DPL) elections. The first nomination, that of Matthew Garrett (of Dasher fame) has also been announced on Debian Planet."
RMS? (Score:4, Insightful)
Let Freedom ring!
Re:RMS? (Score:1)
Re:RMS? (Score:1)
Re:RMS? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:RMS? (Score:1, Troll)
People look at linux and say "it doesn't even PLAY MP3s!" Yes, yes, we all know you can just install mplayer or something like that but it's stupid.
Re:RMS? (Score:2, Informative)
OK, I'll bite. When you install Debian you have two independent choices to make: (1) do you want non-free packages? Y/N, and (2) do you want non-US packages? Y/N. There are tens of MP3 players in the standard place. The MP3 encoders are in the non-US section (which is transparen
Re:RMS? (Score:2)
Re:RMS? (Score:1)
All of the Mandrake and Red Hat systems that I've built for the past 6 1/2 years have been able to play MP3s.
WTF's wrong with you?
LK
Re:RMS? (Score:1)
Re:RMS? (Score:1)
Re:RMS? (Score:1, Insightful)
RMS plays an important part in the free software world, but he would not be suited to a role such as leading Debian. Leadership of such a project requires compromise, and RMS freely admits that he is not going to compromise his Free Software ideals (and he is right not to).
I think you know this too, and are just tryng to start a shit fight. Get lost.
Re:RMS? (Score:2)
Why? They are fundamentally the same, as they both readily admit...
From the links: DFSG:
Re:RMS? (Score:2)
Re:RMS? (Score:5, Interesting)
Guess that depends on what you mean by freedom. Richard Stallman disagrees quite publicly with the Debian Project in the matter of the GNU Free Documentation License the Project does not consider it sufficiently free.
Some of you will think it is heresy to regard a license from the Free Software Foundation as insufficiently free. Heresy or not, though, I agree with the Debian Project: the GFDL imposes some onerous restrictions [debian.org] on what users can do with the licensed work, and Stallman seems unwilling to drop some of these restrictions.
As it happens (bringing us back on topic), the first nominee for Debian Project Leader 2005, Matthew Garrett, features prominently in the above document detailing why RMS's documentation license is not free enough.
if not GFDL, then what? (Score:2)
But anyway, if Debian doesn't like the GFDL, what does it like better? Th
Re:if not GFDL, then what? (Score:2)
Even if it were true, that nobody uses them is irrelevant. If someone specified "GFDL with no invariant sections or *-cover texts" then Debian is okay with that anyway.
Re:if not GFDL, then what? (Score:2, Insightful)
Several GNU manuals include the GNU Manifesto as an invariant section -- in fact, I can't back this up, but it certainly appears that the main motivation for the invariant section clause was specifically to prevent people from removing the GNU Manifesto from GNU manuals.
As others have said, there are quite a few onerous and ambiguous clauses in th
Re:if not GFDL, then what? (Score:2)
In the meantime, they treat GFDL docs the same way they treat propriety software. Which is the only thing they can do. Although IMO something with no invariants is currently free, just could become non-free, and should be treated like BSD-licensed software.
why every year? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like democracy on steriods. large projects need benevolent dictators!
Re:why every year? (Score:2)
Re:why every year? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:why every year? (Score:5, Insightful)
On a different scale, the Apache project is quite successful without a benevolent dictator, and it's just one of many.
Re:why every year? (Score:2)
I'll readily agree that Debian could be much, much more efficient. But it should be remembered that they're trying to do quite a bit more than most other projects.
Re:why every year? (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, I got an idea! Maybe they should work out a system where Debian has three presidents, one elected per year for a three year term on a quasi-lazy Susan, stack-based basis.
The newest president would be called Testing and everybody would go to him for real everyday issues. The second president (second year in office) would be called Unstable and he would work with the greybeards out in the field helping tham to keep their ancient computers running. Then, in the last year in office, the president would be called Stable and he (or she) appears on panels at universitys and trade shows and awards dinners.
RTFC (Score:2, Informative)
Or a well-formed constitution: http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution [debian.org]
Damn that's SMALL LINUX (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Damn that's SMALL LINUX (Score:1)
Politics... (Score:5, Funny)
I forgot who said it. Doesn't matter anyway.
Re:Politics... (Score:1)
Re:Politics... (Score:1)
As far as I'm concerned, Debian is a joke precisely because they put so much damn emphasis on politics. It's pathetic, really.
Re:Politics... (Score:4, Informative)
Testing and unstable, on the other hand, are more current versions of software.
Re:Politics... (Score:1)
</joke>
Re:Politics... (Score:2)
Re:Politics... (Score:2)
Right, Fedora is more stable than Debian unstable. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that Fedora Core releases are... releases? Go track rawhide for a few months and tell me some stories about it. I certainly have my share - I use rawhide at work. I use unstable at home (I have only one machine). One definitely breaks more than the other. And about 'sta
Re:Politics... (Score:2)
Therefor, your wise man is an utter moron who hasn't the faintest clue about Software in the Public Interest's ambition. Debian is the largest software distribution out there, on 13 architectures and three kernels. It takes a long time to port and test all that.
Re:Politics... (Score:2)
Re:Politics... (Score:2)
Re:Does this mean... (Score:3, Informative)
Don't let that stop you trolling, though.
Only developers? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Only developers? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Only developers? (Score:4, Informative)
"Developers" really means "members of the Project". The term refers to the reality that Debian is a technical project and doesn't have a lot of need for people who can't do actual software development.
As for why only Project members can be the Project Leader, that's pretty common in organisations of all sorts.
The question is: (Score:2, Interesting)
Or is this going to become some "Real Soon Now" / "When It's Done" thingie?
Re:The question is: (Score:2, Insightful)
Some developers are obviously frustrated. They have worked hard on their packages, and have even helped on other packages. Other developers simply don't care if Debian ever releases again.
Re:The question is: (Score:4, Interesting)
The DPL does not have near as much control as someone might imagine. The single most important power of the DPL is the power to appoint developers to admin positions. Debian is less of a democracy than it is a bureaucracy. [debian.org]
The Debian Constitution [debian.org] specifies how certain positions are appointed, and if you read carefully you'll see that many of these positions are completely immune to the DPL. The Project Secretary, for instance, has to agree with the DPL for a new Project Secretary to be appointed. OTOH, the Project Secretary can "delegated authority for a decision" without any outside review. They could, in fact, keep the title and appoint whoever they want to do the actual work.
The Technical Committe is another group with no meaningful outside review. The DPL can only appoint Developers to the Technical Committe when the Committe itself recommends them. If the DPL refuses to appoint the members they recommend for so long that the committe gets down to 5 members, the committe can appoint new members without any input from the DPL.
What about the other delegated positions? Technically the DPL appoints and removes these people without restrictions, but in reality his control over every single delegated position is limited. The Constitution states explicitly, "The Project Leader may not make the position as a Delegate conditional on particular decisions by the Delegate, nor may they override a decision made by a Delegate once made." Ok, so he can't fire someone because he disagrees with their decisions. But the constitution says delegates "may be replaced by the Leader at the Leader's discretion", so what does that mean? Quite simply it means that delegates are appointed for life. New DPL's don't get to appoint new delegates. To get rid os a delegate the DPL would have to come up with precise reasons for removing them that are unrelated to the technical decisions the delegate has made.
And where do you really see this in action? The single delegate most often complained about is the DAM. He has complete veto power over who gets to join the project and can kick any developer out of the project. For up to six months at a stretch the DAM will refuse to do any work related to the position he has been delegated. In fact, it got so bad recently that the DAM allowed another developer to take over all of the actual DAM work while still remaining in the DAM slot.
And where do the unacountable delegated positions fit into the organization of Debian? Everything that Debian does gets passed through a delegate at some point. The FTP-Masters have veto power over every package. The DAM has veto power over who gets to join the project. The Technical Committe has veto power over policy decisions. And even worse than that, many of the different delegate positions are held by the exact same people. Pick a few members out of the organizational list and look at all of the different positions they hold....now try to imagine any DPL attempting to oust one of these developer from one of their delegated positions.
So....will a new DPL be able to work harder and get Sarge out the door? Of course not. They can beg or whine about it, but Debian's bureaucracy holds all the real power to make things happen. The DPL title is a little perk that core members of the bureaucracy [debian.org] pass around from time to time.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to suggest that all of the delegates in Debian are evil people or anything like that. I'm simply pointing out that voting != democracy and DPL != control.
Re:The question is: (Score:5, Informative)
I seem to recall a breakage some time ago... think think think... it was a naming conflict between djbdns and the Courier MTA both wanting to install some support program or other. It was an easy enough fix. Other than that, I've had no trouble out of it in either server or workstation usage.
Re:The question is: (Score:2)
Re:Distribution Names (Score:5, Insightful)
Sigh, the folks who modded this funny have obviously never used Debian Sid for awhile.
Look, for cryin' out loud people, there are people like me who been running on Debian Sid (unstable) for YEARS. At least 5 so far, long enough that I can't even keep track, and in all that time I can count the number of serious problems on just one hand (and yes, I only have 5 fingers per hand just like all other humans).
All it takes is some common sense to have great stability with the up2date software you want. The rule is really simple, if a little heretical: DON'T USE APT-GET. Use aptitude; upgrade what you need and keep everything else on hold until upgrades are forced because of dependencies. Don't bloody update everything everyday, thats just asking for trouble. Only upgrade on significant version changes, don't upgrade large packages when they first hit debian.org, wait 24-48 hours and see if anything bad shakes out. Really people, its not that hard.
Sorry, for the tissy response, but those of us who KNOW FROM EXPERIENCE that Debian Sid is not "broken" are getting really tired of the lame jokes.
'unstable' (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the reasons people use distributions is to get a stable set of packages that work with one another, instead of having to pick them all out by hand. Your method above is basically reverting to hand selection, and is not really something that is acceptable outside of a hobbyist setting. One of the reasons for Ubuntu's instant success is that they QA'd a bunch of recent packages, and released them as a distribution.
Re:'unstable' (Score:2)
Now, it's interesting you mention Ubuntu... as I really opted for it six months ago... I am posting this from a Warty+KDE machine and my laptop is a Hoary machine, ie, Sid.
Re:Distribution Names (Score:2)
No, its only "broken" if the breakage reaches your machine. In your example, use aptitude and put all packages that
Re:Distribution Names (Score:2)
Me too. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, just put all the affected packages on hold until the broken package is fixed.
It takes a little time to get up to speed with aptitude (its UI is very functional but not exactly user-friendly), but once you do, its easy to "hold" packages so that nothing breaks on your system until the dependencies are fixed on debian.org, at which time you just "un-hold" the affected packages and let them upgrade as normal. Aptitude lets you walk
Re:Distribution Names (Score:2)
I would have to agree that installing a package as soon as it hits unstable is a bad idea. You can go to packages.qa.debian.org [debian.org] to see how long it's been since a package was uploaded
Matthew Garrett (Score:2)
I'll admit Dasher is kinda cool but its really not all that complex. It'd be like MS putting the guy who thought up MouseKeys in charge of Windows.
Re:Matthew Garrett (Score:2)
Release Sarge? (Score:2)
I like Debian's reliability and I've used debian as my primary OS since around '96. I also live in the real world where non-OSS commercial software gets used. The libraries in Woody have gotten too far behind current. Sarge needs to get out the door soon if Debian is going to remain viable outside of the core clique of maintainers.
What is happening with Debian, really? (Score:2)