Interview with Debian's New Project Leader

With the recent news that Anthony Towns will be taking over as the Debian Project Leader, Linux.com took a few minutes to sit down and feel out the new DPL-elect. From the interview: "The immediate plan is to organize the various ideas I've had so that I can work out which ones are actually worth working on, and what order to do them in; and to make sure that all the people who volunteered to be DPL during the campaign, or offered their help don't go away without some good ideas about extra things they can do. "

Comments

Tools and standards versus process

[systems]

What I want is simple.

All the software packages I need, in the versions I need/want. And only that.

A distro in my understanding, is a set of packages that don't conflict, so in a way, by choosing exactly what I want I am creating my own distro.

I may also wish to run two different version of the same package.

I may also want to compile some of them to set the compile options to just what I want.

The problem I see with debian, is that it's too dependent on a process, not on tools and standards, this is why I think it will eventually fail, or at least will have variable quality, i.e. few good years and few bad ones.

I don't want a process distro, I want a tools and standard distro, the process should be managed transparently by applying the standard, debian seem to require too much effort which is hard to sustain, to keep its quality.

From where I stand I dee debian is more focused on offering the output of a process, the distros themselves, woody, sarge, etc... and not as much focused on the tools and standards to create a widely inclusive process