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Debian Project Leader election 2010
We are in the campaigning period for this year's Debian Project Leader (DPL) election; voting begins April 2, 2010. Platforms have been posted for each of the four candidates—Stefano Zacchiroli, Wouter Verhelst, Charles Plessy, and Margarita Manterola. The March archive of the debian-vote mailing list is full of questions to the candidates, and their answers. This article will summarize the candidates' answers to some of these questions.
None of the candidates plan on having a second in charge (2IC) or a DPL team this year. All agree that Debian funds should be spent on necessary hardware costs and facilitating meetings. Margarita and Stefano were both in favor of funding marketing efforts, such as booths at conferences. Stefano would also like to see the project be more transparent about the money flowing in and out.
Being a DPL takes time and no candidate is able to be a full time DPL. Stefano's job is FOSS related though, and he would be able to take some time off for DPL duties. He also said he would divert his current Debian activities into DPL activities. Wouter is a consultant with somewhat flexible hours, and plans to devote more of his free time to Debian. Both Charles and Margarita would divert the time they spend on Debian into DPL duties, but would not necessarily be able to commit to additional time. Charles, who currently lives in Japan, said he would not travel to distant timezones.
Debian is a volunteer organization, but some people have found ways to get paid for working on Debian. However, the idea of using Debian funds to pay developers was uniformly rejected. Wouter qualified his response though, citing a model used by FreeBSD. The model starts with finding sponsors to pay for a certain project and using the FreeBSD foundation to collect and hold such money specifically for that project. Then in some cases the foundation may contribute additional funds to that project. It's not something he would actively pursue for Debian, though.
Anyone who has followed Debian mailing lists (or IRC, forums, etc.) for a while knows that sometimes discussions can become very heated. There has been an overall trend toward fewer flames in recent years, but it still could be better. The candidates agree that personal attacks are never acceptable. Margarita and Stefano said they would talk privately to the participants of flamewars and politely ask them to stop. Charles said he would make an effort to prepare neutral summaries to resurrect important discussions where the productive parts were drowned in a sea of flames. There was overall agreement that Debian's culture is changing into a more polite society and the DPL can only encourage the transition and lead by example.
Debian's release cycle is unpredictable, despite the best efforts of many developers. There are technical issues that keep releases from happening, but there are also social issues. The Release Team (RT) is tasked with a difficult job and it is hard to find and keep knowledgeable volunteers. What can a DPL do?
Margarita would like to encourage more release critical bug fixing, but admits there much more to a release than RC bugs. Beyond that there's not much a DPL can do besides helping with better documentation of what needs to be done and then asking developers for their help. Stefano sees it as a cultural problem that will take time to fix. From his perception the RT often feels that the project is not interested in getting releases done, and that leads to frustrated RT members. As DPL he would prod the RT for periodic status updates and help to communicate that status to the greater development community. The development community needs to become more invested in the release process. Wouter also sees a cultural problem, where the community needs to become more welcoming in order to find and keep its valuable volunteers. Charles would like to reshape the release process, vary the definition of 'core packages' for different architectures, and make it easy to remove non-core packages from 'testing' if they have unfixed RC bugs. That would reduce the work load for the RT. He also thinks that the release process will become more social over time, with more people doing their part of the work.
The Debian community may evolve over time into a culture where releases are predictable, but should they coordinate those releases with Ubuntu? Margarita would like to see a full release every two years, with a small set of core packages updated annually. It would be good if those releases could be coordinated with Ubuntu. Stefano likes the idea of coordinating specific releases together with derivative distributions, when both distributions will benefit from the coordination. He is not convinced that Debian will benefit by trying to conform to Ubuntu's schedule. Wouter is also in favor of coordination in general, if it works out. Charles would like to see a predictable release schedule, but doesn't feel that aligning with Ubuntu is right for Debian. If anything he'd like to see stable releases happen every two years, but in between Ubuntu's Long Term Support (LTS) releases. That way Debian/Ubuntu users could install a recent release with reasonably long support every year rather than every other year. Collaboration is fine when the opportunity presents itself, but Debian should release when ready, not according to someone else's schedule. He doesn't think the current RT is communicating well enough and as DPL he would strongly encourage the RT to give frequent status reports.
The discussion continues on these and other topics. Many interested voters are already following and taking part in the discussions. Other voters are encouraged to follow the discussions on debian-vote. Hopefully this summary will help some people get a feel for the candidates and the issues they face.
New Releases
Fedora Unity Fedora Re-spin 20100303 released
The Fedora Unity Project has announced the release of new ISO Re-Spins of Fedora 12. "These Re-Spin ISOs are based on the officially released Fedora 12 installation media and include all updates released as of March 3, 2010."
FreeBSD 7.3-RELEASE Available
The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team has announced the availability of FreeBSD 7.3-RELEASE. "This is the fourth release from the 7-STABLE branch which improves on the functionality of FreeBSD 7.2 and introduces a few new features. There will be one more release from this branch to allow future improvements to be made available in the 7-STABLE branch but at this point most developers are focused on 8-STABLE."
openSUSE Education Li-f-e Update
The openSUSE Education team has announced the availability of the updated openSUSE Education Li-f-e DVD ISO. "The Linux for Education (Li-f-e) contains a wide selection of education, development, office, as well as multimedia packs to meet all possible computing needs of students, teachers and parents."
New OpenVZ kernel, new Owl ISOs and OpenVZ container templates
A new OpenVZ kernel, new ISOs and OpenVZ container templates are available for Openwall GNU/Linux (Owl). "We have updated Owl to use OpenVZ's latest kernel from their "rhel5" branch (released on 03/18), with RHEL5 patches further updated from Red Hat's latest stable kernel (released on 03/16) and with some minor changes of our own. Thus, we're ahead of OpenVZ official kernels in terms of security fixes right now, and there have been quite a few of those lately..."
Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Beta 1 released
The first beta for the Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" is out. 10.04 will be a long-term support release; it also brings a number of new features, many with a social-networking or cloud orientation, and a new "consumer friendly" interface for the netbook edition. More information can be found on the Lucid beta 1 page.Announce XtreemOS 2.1 Release
The XtreemOS consortium has announced the release of XtreemOS 2.1. This update includes an improved installer, lots of high impact bug fixes, XtreemFS 1.2, XtreemOS MD (Mobile Device), and more.
Distribution News
Debian GNU/Linux
Neil Williams: Possibilities for Emdebian Crush
Neil Williams looks at the progress of Emdebian Grip and Crush variants. "Crush 2.0 was abandoned last year when the freeze for Debian Squeeze was still scheduled to start at the end of 2009. Even with the expected delays in the timetable for the Debian release, there never was going to be enough time to get Crush 2.0 released with the resources available. Subsequent Crush releases have always been planned, only the release of Crush 2.0 alongside Debian 6.0 (Squeeze) was abandoned. However, Emdebian Grip has developed nicely and Grip 2.0 is going to be a significant advance over Grip 1.0 - lots more packages, lots of bugs fixed for smoother installations, multistrap support, etc."
Bits from the New Maintainer process
Click below for some information about Debian's New Maintainer (NM) process. Topics include thanks to Wouter Verhelst who recently resigned his Front Desk position, a new Application Manager (AM) tutorial, inactive AMs, and support in the NM process.RFH: DebConf 10 Travel Sponsorship Team
The DebConf 10 Organizers are soliciting volunteers for the DebConf 10 Travel Sponsorship team. "Ideal candidates for the team have both available time and are well connected in the Debian web of trust -- while not essential, high connectivity in the web of trust probably indicates familiarity with a broader range of potential DebConf attendees."
DebConf10: register by April 15 for sponsorship consideration
Registration is open for DebConf10, taking place August 1-7, 2010 in New York City. April 15, 2010 is the early registration deadline. "Registrations after that date will not be eligible for sponsored food, accommodation or travel."
Fedora
Paul Frields: FPL future
Fedora project leader (FPL) Paul Frields is looking for a successor. After more than two years and (almost) five Fedora releases, he is ready to move on to "other ways of championing free and open source software at Red Hat". The Fedora Board along with various folks at Red Hat will be part of the search process for a new FPL. "
This process will naturally take some time, but I'm glad that the partnership between Red Hat and the rest of the Fedora community allows me to give people an early heads-up about these plans. [...] It's important that Fedora always be able to make opportunities for fresh and energetic leadership that will help take our Project, and the distribution we make, to the next level of achievement." Former FPL Max Spevack also has some thoughts on Frields's tenure and the role of the FPL.
Fedora Board Meeting Recap 2010-03-18
Click below for a recap of the March 18, 2010 meeting of the Fedora Advisory Board. Topics include the default offering and user base.Fedora mini mailing list
A new mailing list, mini, has been created for "discussions relating to Sugar, Moblin and anything else that people think they would like to see in that arena."
SUSE Linux and openSUSE
Planet SUSE Status
Planet SUSE readers may have noticed that it been unavailable recently. This is due to some problems while renewing the domain. An alternative DNS entry for the server under the openSUSE domain has been set up. You can now reach the planet at planet.openSUSE.org.
Distribution Newsletters
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 346
The DistroWatch Weekly for March 22, 2010 is out. "Protecting one's computer against malware in our interconnected, heterogeneous and (largely) anonymous world is a complex task. Luckily, there are free tools that help save plenty of time and effort; this week we'll take a brisk tour of Dr.Web LiveCD, a Linux-based system that offers free tools for system rescue, virus scanning, and data recovery errands. In the news section, Ubuntu stirs emotions over its unexpected placement of window control buttons, CrunchBang Linux announces a switch to Debian base for its upcoming release, Debian prepares for its annual project leader election with a woman on the candidates list, and the deputy head of LiMux explains the difficulties encountered while migrating tens of thousands of Munich's computers to Linux. Also in this issue, the Questions and Answers section provides hope and suggests tools for recovering files that were deleted by accident. Finally, two interesting distributions have been added to the DistroWatch database this week - a FreeBSD-based desktop live CD with GNOME and yet another XP look-a-like, this time from China. Happy reading!"
openSUSE Weekly News/115
This issue of the openSUSE Weekly News covers the release of openSUSE 11.3 Milestone 3, and much more.Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #185
The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter for March 20, 2010 is out. "In this issue we cover: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Beta 1 released, Ubuntu Global Jam: time is ticking, Call for Community help: Ubuntu.com Website Localization Project, Launchpad's Bug Watch system and other animals, Upgrade Jams - made easy, Server Bug Zapping - eucalyptus and euca2ools, Nominate your favorite Ubuntu Server Papercuts, Full Circle Podcast #2: The Full Circle of Light (Brown), and much, much more!"
Interviews
Interview: CrunchBang Creator Explains Switch to Debian Sources (The Red Devil)
Steven Lawson talks with Philip Newborough about the recent alpha release of CrunchBang Linux. "PN: Interestingly, the CrunchBang community is not really confined to people who use CrunchBang. Our community is made up of people who use various different distributions. I think the one common interest that brings us together is our love of experimenting with Linux and having a little fun whilst doing it. I can honestly say that the best thing to come out of the project has been the CrunchBang forums. There are some really talented, friendly and knowledgeable people on the forums and it is a pleasure to be able to go there every day and share ideas."
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol
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