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New Debian Project Leader

Posted by michael on from the butterfly-ballots dept.

Carlos Laviola writes: "Ben Collins is the new DPL. The results of the 2001 leadership election have been posted a few minutes ago on the debian-devel-announce and debian-vote mailing lists. The announcement is here. Congratulations to Ben Collins and the other candidates!"

9 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Anyone change to Debian from something else? by pohl · · Score: 3
    Moving from one distribution to another is not as easy as changing a few files. You will have to install from scratch.

    However, you are free to create a tarball of your home directory and bring it with you. You can also tar up your /etc directory, in case you want to remember how some things were configured in your old distribution. (Do NOT use your /etc directory as-is in the new distribution, however -- that would cause a mess.) Anyway, it's not hard. If you want it to be as easy as flipping the "now-be-a-debian-machine" switch, on the other hand, you're screwed.

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  2. Re:Anyone change to Debian from something else? by Alan+Shutko · · Score: 3
    The way I did it:

    1. Use partition magic to split off about a gig.
    2. Install debian on that partition, sharing /home and swap partitions with rh.
    3. Upgrade to unstable (easiest way of getting all the stuff I needed, like XF4.0.2 openssh 2.3, etc. I believe there are potato packages now, but this worked for me).
    4. Set up lilo on both systems to see the other installed Linux distro.
    5. Triple-boot between win (lsl collection!), RH and Debian until Debian is set up for production use.
    6. Back up RH /etc, /usr/local and maybe something else just in case I needed them later.
    7. mke2fs the old rh partitions, copied data over. Modify lilo.conf and fstab to point at the formerly RH partitions, with orig deb partition as backup.
    8. Reboot into main debian system. Use normally. Remove transition deb partition as needed and reassign space.
  3. Air time and focus by rakjr · · Score: 5

    In looking over the past articles of Debian, RedHat, and SuSE (older stuff, search on distro name), I noticed that Debian had the most articles within the past year, while RedHat and SuSE each had about half the number of articles. I also noted that while the discussions of Debian related to the developers and the actual content of their distro, RedHat's and SuSE's articles were mainly version releases.My point being, there is a bit of a bias here. I agree with the post which has already been moderated off the list that the articles being posted seem to be showing a lopsided view. This article would have been more beneficial if it discussed the voting process and structure of Debian rather than just saying who won. This type of article posting is what gives slashdot a bad name. It would have been simple enough to add a link or two in the article which referenced some of the discussion of the candidate's views. At least then readers could also check out where Debian might be heading.The elections began on 06 March 2001. Platforms were posted by Ben Collins, Branden Robinson, and Bdale Garbee.

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    1. Re:Air time and focus by lemox · · Score: 3

      Far be it from me to deny that CmdrTaco and some of the /. crowd are Debian bigots of good standing, I'm still inclined to defend them on this. The key difference between Debian and the other distributions you mentioned is that Debian is an organization - a non-profit entity. All of the others are companies, and like most companies, they like to keep their internal stuff internal. Debian's foundation is in openness, and not just of the source variety. What news do the commercial distros release about themselves other than new releases or earnings reports.

      Also, the nature of Debian's protocols and the fact that anyone can become familiar with them without becoming a part of the project provokes a ridiculous amount of "armchair developers". That, in and of itself, is a lot of the reason people submit these things to slashdot, whether they are involved or not.

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  4. Re:Nice elections by BlaisePascal · · Score: 3

    Well...

    In most Debian votes, the ballots are revealed afterwards. The same is true (IIRC) with Usenet new group votes, etc. There is nothing specifically undemocratic about non-secret votes.

    In fact, revealing the votes can make the process more fair, because then everyone who voted can verify that their vote was recorded correctly, and that the vote was tallied correctly. That openness helps ensure that the vote remains fair.

    However, the person running this particular vote made a mistake -- DPL votes are supposed to be kept secret. He didn't read the constitution properly while tired. He has already apologised to the Debian Developers.

  5. First Place Is One Week as Debian Project Leader.. by quakeaddict · · Score: 3

    Second place is two weeks :)

    Congratulations and best of luck.

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  6. Re:Nice elections by Foochar · · Score: 3

    That's already been commented on in the debian-vote list in several places. Most notably here and here with a direct reference to the Debian constitution.

    It's probably an honest mistake made with the intention of being open and transparent, although it went a little far. Its too late to get rid of it, I just hope that everyone will ignore it so that people aren't punished or rewarded for the way they voted. This is probably too much to hope for though, human nature being what it is.

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  7. Re:Keep up the good work by SquadBoy · · Score: 3

    I think he is talking about the install problems. I just built a new box this morning and noticed that some of them have been fixed. I do not know on what he bases the statement that Branden as gone AWOL as there was a new version in Woody last week and there seems to be a new version in Sid again. I'm thinking the first poster wants X to come up with no effort on his part and in Debian that is not going to happen and I for one like it that way.

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  8. Anyone change to Debian from something else? by JWhitlock · · Score: 3
    I've heard great things about Debian, and a non-violent change of power makes it look pretty stable on the administrative end.

    So, if I want to try it out, how do I convert my Red Hat box to Debian? Kill everything and start over? Change some core files? Or is it unadvisable?

    It is often said that the many Linux distributions is a strength. I'll believe it if it is possible to move between systems. Any ideas?

    BTW, background info, I'm running Red Hat on a laptop, dual-booting with Win98. Newer hardware requires the latest kernel as well as at least XFree 4.0.