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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. "
I am not happy with an ftpmaster as new project leader. They were the cause why the last one gave up.
But on the other hand, there is finally a chance for some movement and some chances; both are needed by this brilliant and outstanding project which is completely stuck by politics now; just like "the real life"(tm) *sigh*.
There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want. --Calvin
One needs a stable _and_ fresh distro.
Debian is stable. period.
And bureaucratic.
and many others base their work on it and give nothing back.
and Debian moves as slowly as a rheumatic snake.
BUT
Debian is still the least bad. ( != best, that is nonexistent for years now)
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
You know what most pisses me off about Debian? I can't apt-get install mod_security because of their licencing issues.
/etc/allow-other-packages exists, it works.
I'm really glad they have principles. I really am. I admire them for sticking to their guns. But because of this, I have to jump through hoops, and use third party packages, or install the apache source packages and build against them.
It's all a lot of faffing around. Have 2 repositories. One for people that want only the most GPL'd, clean packages. And another one where they put the same packages, as well as the ones that people want.
Debian aren't going to change the world with this system, and they're just going to make it hard for people to have a complete system as they want.
Now, here come all the posts telling me "You just need to do this", or "Point your apt at this server", or x, y, z. Why not just have a setup flag or a config file - perhaps if
Get your own free personal location tracker
yes, I am aware of apt-get source -b
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
That has to be one of the most difficult jobs in Debian. I couldn't imagine having to deal with over a thousand maintainers/developers all screaming for something different. So good luck to the new DPL!
A few things that would be good for this year:
1. Get AMD64 release into the main pool, enough already. Don't wait until December or whatever for Etch - just get it done!
2. Get security.d.o mirrored on a few more servers.
3. Try and trim the releases down to every 12 months (or less!) and drop the "when it's ready" attitude because that just drives people away.
4. (related to #3) If it's broken, don't include it, but don't hold up a release because of it - put it in "proposed updates" or something when it's fixed.
5. If it's ready for most archs, but not one (i.e. m68k) release anyway and m68k can just play catch up...
YES4Adults discussion forums!
Debian is the best disro for the enterprise, for it is stable (as in "doesn't crash AND doesn't change very often).
If Debian were to make major release more often than once in two (2) years then, I guess, we would have to be looking for something more stable. One release in three (3) years would probably be the best, from our point of view.