DebConf6, Hot and Spicy

What do a space tourist, a skinny dipper, politics, and code have in common? This year's DebConf, of course! Robin 'Roblimo' Miller has the writeup over on NewsForge (Also owned by VA). From the article: "Shuttleworth was back in Oaxtepec Wednesday, hanging out and chatting with individuals and small groups, checking his email, and otherwise behaving like most other DebConf attendees. It was obvious that even if not all of them loved him -- or Ubuntu, or his for-profit company, Canonical Ltd. -- he considered this small group important enough to be worth more of his time than the 14,000 people who went to JavaOne."

Comments

free

[billmcnamara]

as in free beer?

Ubuntu Logo separate from Debian?

[c41rn]

Using the Debian logo for this story makes sense, but it has also been used on Slashdot for stories about Ubuntu exclusively. I think it's about time that Ubuntu have it's own logo for Slashdot stories in a similar manner to other distros. I know Ubuntu comes from Debian, but it has reached a unique prominence on it's own. Some of the content of the article would seem to support the idea of having an Ubuntu logo to differentiate Ubuntu stories from those about Debian.

Re:Ubuntu Logo separate from Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu also tends to become more and more the evil guy, too.
Especially considering the recent stink with Sun's Java license, when certain high-ranked Debian Developers who just happen to be Canonical employees pushed through an obviously non-fit piece of software few days after a Sun-Ubuntu deal.

Ubuntu has a lot of followers here, but let's not forget, it's primarily a corporation rather than a volunteer organization.

Re:Ubuntu Logo separate from Debian?

[BkBen7]

What the heck does this have to do with it getting its own icon?

Re:Ubuntu Logo separate from Debian?

[henriquemaia]

I have said this before and I say it again: I agree with this idea.

Re:Ubuntu Logo separate from Debian?

[henriquemaia]

Even if that was true, in what way does that influence this unique logo suggestion? Better that way, because Debian logo would remain immaculately free (as in Freedom).

Re:Ubuntu Logo separate from Debian?

[omeg]

The Ubuntu logo is a registered trademark of Canonical Ltd. Debian's logo may be used in all situations, provided that the logo is used to refer to the Debian project.

Of course, that doesn't really matter. It's good fair use to put a logo of Ubuntu here.

Re:Ubuntu Logo separate from Debian?

[BiggyP]

You must remember that Ubuntu is largely developed by people in the employ of Canonical Ltd., a for profit company both founded and funded by Mark Shuttleworth. Not that there's anything wrong with this, it's just that an awful lot of people seem to have had this romantic view of Ubuntu as the little guys and, while this was certainly the case initialy, they have always had an awful lot of resources available to them, by employing the right developers it was just a matter of time before they made a solidly desktop friendly debian derivitive.

This doesn't mean i dislike Ubuntu, i have been using the distro as my primary OS for a while now and while hoary was a more than a little rough around the edges I have been reasonably impressed by 5.10 and look forward to trying the next release, although hardly predictably at this point, at least it means they've realised that rushing a broken OS isn't a clever idea, maybe they've picked up some tips from vista's scheduling.

Not that this really has much bearing on the assignment of an individual /. topic for ubuntu/canonical but i certainly think it does Debian a disservice to have their new items swamped by increasingly unrelated Ubuntu goings on.

Re:Ubuntu Logo separate from Debian?

[pedalman]

Some of the content of the article would seem to support the idea of having an Ubuntu logo to differentiate Ubuntu stories from those about Debian.

You mean like this? http://www.flickr.com/photos/86444323@N00/81971182 /

Seems they forgot

[Anonymous Coward]

To report tat 2-time DPL candidate Jonathan/Ted Walthers was thrown out of the conference for being an asshat.

Re:Seems they forgot

[Anonymous Coward]

Not thrown out of the conference - he was thrown out of the Debian project itself.

heh..

[Mgns]

What do a space tourist, a skinny dipper, politics, and code have in common?

  They mostly don't do well upon close inspection 8)

Aww, he loves me. Not.

[dedazo]

he considered this small group important enough to be worth more of his time than the 14,000 people who went to JavaOne

This is childish. What is the point of such a comment? How a fully-developed adult can think this - let alone put it in print - just boggles my mind. Very unprofessional.

Re:Aww, he loves me. Not.

[bladesjester]

Could have something to do with the fact that Sun has started pushing Ubuntu on its server hardware.

Just a guess.

Re:Aww, he loves me. Not.

[Kangburra]

This is childish. What is the point of such a comment?

You must be very new here! ;-)

Re:Aww, he loves me. Not.

[nuzak]

> This is childish. What is the point of such a comment?

I don't think you're getting the right connotation. It was intended to be a paean to Shuttleworth's loyalty and attachment to his own community, that he chose them over some big spectacle. It seems out of place (Shuttleworth isn't a big Java booster by any stretch), and I agree it looks really bad in print, but I really don't think snideness was intended.

Re:Aww, he loves me. Not.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it's the "last word" on this topic, but it does attempt a short exploration. It's difficult to know if this will help you (or anyone else), but I thought it might be worth a try...

      http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0515/p13s01-stct.htm l

"It's all about me: Why e-mails are so easily misunderstood"

regards,
gerry

Shocking

[Ajehals]

..."he considered this small group important enough to be worth more of his time than the 14,000 people who went to JavaOne"...

Im shocked,

Its not like ubuntu is based on debian.

As far as who Shuttleworth spends his time with and what conferences he attends, well its not that surprising he went to this one is it, if Gates and Ballmer had attended however that would be news.

Seriously though, I dont like Ubuntu and I wouldnt use it, frankly I prefer debian proper, but if someone who had never touched a *nix asked what to install I'd give them one of the nice Ubuntu CD-roms I had shipped to me and tell them to knock themselves out, and chances are they'd get on well with it. NIDNRTFA - Sorry

What about the fight?

[Beniamino]

This article bizarrely fails to mention the fight involving one of the Debian Project Leader candidates (and self proclaimed "Debian Pope") Jonathan Walther which disrupted the inaugural dinner. The Debian high-ups seem to be doing their best to keep it quiet: a few Debian bloggers wrote about it, others hinted but said nothing concrete, some entries on planet debian were later redacted, and all the DebConf organisers had to say was this.

It makes you wonder (a) what kind of lunatics are running Debian these days, and (b) whether Debian can hold together as an organisation.

Re:What about the fight?

[KiloByte]

Well, it makes you wonder whether you have been to any conference that included even a small social-like part where no one causes some stir. Usually, with alcohol involved.

Considering the amount of people involved in DebConf, it is pretty strange that there was only one scuffle.

I wish I was there and got a chance to cause some mayhem (not a fight, but surely something reportable :p)

Re:What about the fight?

[slashflood]

It seems that he called a local businesswoman a prostitude.

Re:What about the fight?

[JanneM]

Well, it makes you wonder whether you have been to any conference that included even a small social-like part where no one causes some stir. Usually, with alcohol involved.

I've been to any number of conference dinners large and small, and you'd be amazed how often people do not start fights. I have never seen that happen, in fact.

Re:What about the fight?

[Xtifr]

> "one of the Debian Project Leader candidates (and self proclaimed "Debian Pope") Jonathan Walther"...

Any member of the project (about 800-1000 people worldwide at this point) can toss their hat into the ring. Saying that he was a candidate is true, but the implications may not be as serious as they seem. Mr. Walther was the first person ever to be ranked below "None of the Above" in a Debian Project Leader election (in the 2005 elections) In the 2006 DPL election, two candidates came in below "None of the Above", but one of them, Ari Pollak, was running as an openly "joke" candidate; his platform involved allowing his cat help him make decisions, and putting snakes on Plan9 (don't ask). Despite this, Mr. Pollak still managed to garner more votes than Mr. Walther, who was again, dead last.

I wouldn't worry about the Debian leadership until someone like Mr. Walther can at least beat "None of the Above" in an election. :)

Re:What about the fight?

[LarsWestergren]

Well, it makes you wonder whether you have been to any conference that included even a small social-like part where no one causes some stir. Usually, with alcohol involved.

Well, I just got back from a six-day conference with more than 14000 people (guess which) and I didn't see any bad behaviour once, even on evenings when there was a lot of free booze.

Re:What about the fight?

[greenrd]

Mr. Walther was the first person ever to be ranked below "None of the Above" in a Debian Project Leader election (in the 2005 elections)

That's not all that surprising, given that Mr. Walther is alleged by some to be a fascist, racist kook. (Unfortunately he has since deleted some of the self-incriminating evidence from his website.) Of course Debian doesn't have any "no platform for fascists" principles, so they couldn't consistently exclude him from the event even if they wanted to. It does however raise the possibility that some members of ethnic minorities might have been unwilling to attend.

Re:What about the fight?

[Anonymous Coward]

How much of a fight could it have been between a pair of geeks?

Re:What about the fight?

[John Sokol]

As someone who actually prevented the Fight. There were no punches actually thrown.

First I want to say that this was my first experience with the Debian community and I knew almost nobody at all.
I have known Ted a long time and we shared a room there.

Throughout the conference there was a small group (about 10) that seemed to be out to get Ted Walther any way possible. Probably because he is outspoken and not afraid to say what many others were thinking but afraid to say. Or that he had sent some E-mail's that challenge the Debian management. I don't know or even really care, because it shouldn't matter really.

So last Thursday night, way the hell out in the middle of no where at a resort 1.5 hours south of Mexico City they had "formal dinner" with rumors of a dance afterwards. Ted decided to invite a lady, a friend of the local ISP's owner, named Hilda.

  This group, after spreading many rumors about Walther that were totally false, one of which that his date, Hilda (a local entrepreneur in a very small town where everyone knows everyone and runs a dental administration company) was accused of being a prostitute, and this was because Ted couldn't possible get a woman on his own. Being that I was there when Ted met her at the local Internet cafe, this vicious rumor is definitely not true.

After rumors failed, 7 guys tried to rush him and became quite agitated and violent. I am a fairly big guy and happen to be standing in the doorway at the time of the attack against Ted.
Several people where behind him and they would have pushed Walther and several innocent bystanders over the 2 foot ledge that lead to the street, probably injuring some of them.

I actually stepped in between and told them, "Do you want to get physical?" not really knowing what the hell was taking place, but that it wasn't good. The group backed off very quickly.

The management assured me they would listen to all sides and make a decision.

That night at 4 am a group was in the hallway talking and I approached them and introduced myself,"hello, we haven't been introduced, my name is .." when I was screamed at by man with oddly colored hair (who I am told is)Holger Levsen, to shut the F**K up. and he motioned a threat to hit me.

But the next morning at 7am the Andreas Schuldei entered our room and demanded Walther leave the premises immediately for his own safety. That his presence would provoke violence, and promptly dumped him out on the street, broke and stranded out in the middle of nowhere.

They then removed him totally from the Debian project, his accounts, E-mail and even blog posts and photo from the groups mugshot collections.

I am incredibly offended by the management decisions to punish the victim and not the perpetrators and the way they went about this in secret!

Re:What about the fight?

[John Sokol]

Ted decided to invite a lady, a friend of the local ISP's owner, named Hilda. a local entrepreneur in a very small town where everyone knows everyone. She runs a dental administration company in the town we were in.

  Several people were spreading many rumors about Walther that were totally false, one of which that his date, was a prostitute, and this was because Ted couldn't possible get a woman on his own.

Being that I was there when Ted met her at the local Internet cafe, this vicious rumor is definitely not true.

Re:What about the fight?

[ISayWeOnlyToBePolite]

http://www.aigarius.com/2006/03/10/interview-with- ted.html So the people "running debian" are "lunatics" and Ted, Jonathan or whatever-his-name-is Walters, is what? I don't really see how you can spin this.

Re:What about the fight?

[Trogre]

There's a pre-fight interview with Ted here. His straight-up opinions may have offended some of the political correctness proponents that seem to have infected Debian lately.

I wonder if the group that tried to attack him was made up of PC thugs?

Of course it may have nothing to do with that at all. For all I know the guys that attacked him may have been Muslims upset with his support of Judaism.

Re:What about the fight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Much strange material is still on his reactor-core.org site, but it also now includes details of his extremely Bible-literal religious views.

Re:What about the fight?

[John Sokol]

I really love slashdot. While the Debian guys are privately slandering Ted, and modding my posts down, others keep modding them back up. It's been exciting watching the posts go to 5 then down to 3 then 4 then 3 then 4 then 5 then 4 then 5. I have 5 posts and they have been modded 20+ times.

It's good to know there are others out there that support us or at least my efforts to be honest and not let this get squelched.

Mad Duck one of the Debian developers there posted in his blog.
http://blog.madduck.net/debian/2006.05.23-post-deb conf ... when suddenly I saw one of Debian's troublemakers, Jonathan/Ted Walther, running at me, chased by three developers and found myself amidst their altercation before I could do anything. People screaming, one reaching over my shoulder to push Ted, it was all too much. I told everyone to calm down, to which Jonathan/Ted reacted, vigorously shaking and foaming, with a "get out of my f**king way, you f**king Nazi" and I knew that stuff had gone wrong. I withdrew, and in an attempt to find out what had happened managed to piss off one of the three involved developers, who'd then later refuse to hear me out for an explanation. All that really left me in a depressed state mainly because I simply hadn't expected Debian developers getting physical at each other, and this time it was Erinn Clark who consoled me and turned the night around for the better.

There are a number of inaccuracies in his blog post.

7 Men, no boys / Nerds / Asshats attacked him. I know because I push then all of them back. It really reminded me of a school yard scuffle in 3rd grade.

Ted Yelled "Get off me you F*cking Nazi" while being attacked. He was being held! Ted was not running but had been grabbed from his seat across the room and carried / thrown by his arms towards the door when I intervened. I think anyone would react in a similar way while being assaulted by a group of German/Europeans. I'm sure it was the first thing that popped into his head.

It's not clear what Mad Ducks role was, but he wasn't there before Ted arrive at the door, and was there when I stopped it. So if he wasn't physical, he was walking with those who were.

Actually the indecent took place before there was any rain.

It really was impressive. One minute the air is still and quiet then in a few seconds a terrific ferocity of rain pouring down immediately at the conclusion of the scuffle. Almost like the GOD himself was lending in his opinion. I'm sure it was just a coincidence, but I have never seen rain come down so hard ever and for only about 10 Minutes and then it ended just as fast as it began. Doors blew open, thunder and lightning cracked, and a torrent of water poured down one of the walls at an incredible rate forming a column of water 6 inches think and 10 feet wide from the 25 foot tall ceiling down towards of the food tables.. Then the lights shorted out in the building, leaving just a few distant street lights as the only thing keeping us from total absolute darkness.

I have been through several large hurricanes and this made them look like mere showers.

Somehow I was able to enjoy my meal in the dark and actually found the chaos comforting.

Anyhow, they still consider Ted as having ruined the dinner and not the rain.... Go figure.

I still find my self asking what the Hell did Ted do that was so offensive as to get attack and then remove from the conference and the whole Debian project....

I mean, I am his Boss, he works for me. I spent $2000 to go down there and back.

He is my employee If I though for one minute he, flew his boss down to Mexico did something wrong and cause him to get thrown out, I'd be super pissed at him. But I was there next to him the entire time. From what I saw it seemed totally unprovoked. I mean a plastic crown and foam bat, that he didn't use on anyone (had he I'

Re:What about the fight?

[AigariusDebian]

I was the one doing the interview. I must say that Ted was clearly trying to make his arguments look as reasonable as possible and was (barely) succseeding at it, but even I was dissappointed at his attitude at the conference itself. What should have been an event for him to show up as a resonable man that people can chat with and have fun with turned out to become a farce.
He managed to piss off enough people by almost everything he did or said. That is a rare talent. He actually managed to even piss me off which I considered to be impossible before that.
You can read my account of that day here: http://www.aigarius.com/2006/05/27/debconf6-day-5. html

ISO 9001

[mangu]

Shouldn't Debian make an effort to conform to the ISO 9001 standard for quality management? I read TFA and thought that many of the problems mentioned is that they don't have a well-managed (from a QA manager's pov) quality assurance system. Perhaps if people in the Debian high-level hierarchy did a detailed study on the ISO 9001 they could get some useful tips.

Re:ISO 9001

[wobblie]

Huh? First there is little, if any at all, "heirarchy" in debian, it is fairly close to direct democracy. WTF does ISO9000 have to do with anything? It's corporate managerial BS.

Did anybody else...

[Anonymous Coward]

Misread that as 'Defcon 6'?

This Shuttleworth guy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Did anybody motice that he has four wristwatches, two in each arm?

Re:This Shuttleworth guy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps so he can sell them as "had them with me in space" on ebay? :-)

reading comprehension skills

[theantix]

No, that entry says that his dinner companion, who he called a "local businesswoman", was a prostitute. I'm not remarking on the truth of the situation, I have no idea. But you are completely misrepresenting what that link actually says.

Re:reading comprehension skills

[slashflood]

You're right. It's late over here in Europe...

:O

[scott_karana]

Holy hell, a for-profit company?!

5/12 of laptops running Ubuntu

[Ossifer]

"...five out of 12 laptop screens in my line of sight were running Ubuntu."

That is because Debian won't install on modern laptops! Well, not without grand efforts.

Seriously though, it seems that many Debianites begrudge Ubuntu for being what they don't want Debian to be: up to date.

Re:5/12 of laptops running Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

That is it. The thing (Debian) didn't install on my PowerBook. Ubuntu did.

Re:5/12 of laptops running Ubuntu

[identity0]

Amen to that. To rehash what I said in a earlier thread, I bought a wifi card which had an GPL driver provided by the manufacturer themselves, only to find that it had not been merged into the Debian kernel or made into a binary deb file, and I had to apt-get install the source and compile the damn thing myself. Barely an improvement on downloading a tar.gz from the vendor's site.

Meanwhile, Ubuntu 5.10 supported the card out-of-the-box. No compiles, re-configurations, or downloading additional software needed.

Nearly 7 months later, Debian *still* doesn't have binary driver packages for the Ralink card, even though they've discussed it since last year. I know Debian's slow and conservative, but not shipping a driver for a card where a GPL driver already exists is extremely unhelpful. Especially when a vendor provides a GPL driver like we've always asked them to, it makes the community look bad if the distro doesn't actually merge it.

Re:5/12 of laptops running Ubuntu

[thomasweber]

I've only skimmed the discussion, but it seems to boil down to this:
Nobody is willing to take the extra burden of another driver outside of the vanilla kernel and for some reason, the module is not included in the vanilla kernel. While I agree with you that it would be nice to have such drivers, I also see the maintainers' point of not letting more work on their shoulders.

Re:5/12 of laptops running Ubuntu

[realnowhereman]

I've recently bought a Belkin card which is based on a RaLink chip. Debian doesn't have binaries, but that's because they would need a binary package for each driver for each kernel in the archive - completely pointless considering that it's a snap to make your own binary with instructions from the driver homepage.

It boils down to

apt-get install module-assistant rt2500-source
module-assistant prepare
module-assistant auto-install rt2500-source

Which gets the correct kernel headers for you, builds the driver, and installs it.

The Debian guys do a very good job of this sort of thing, the problem I've found is that no one actually knows how easy they've made it. If you don't know about module-assistant you can be tempted to download source, and kernels and do all your own compilation.

Re:5/12 of laptops running Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

Those stupid Debian people not supporting a GPL driver. What reason could they have? I bet they're being needlessly stodgy and difficult. They keep this up they'll enter the distro graveyard populated by FreeBSD and Slackware. I mean, Ubuntu is the distro flavor du jour for reasons other than linux users have the attention spans of goldfish and will latch on to Gentoo, Fedora, or whatever's being hyped. Let's see Debian them defend their actions.

> Well, there is already a debian package that includes the rt2500
> sources. This driver works pretty well and is in GPL, but does not
> respect kernel standards (code organisation, private ioctl, access to
> the filesystem from the module, ...), so it will never be merged in the
> kernel.
> However, some cool guys are developping a new driver from scratch with
> some help from ralink. See http://rt2400.sourceforge.net/ . This driver
> is called rt2x00 as it supports rt2400, rt2500, rt2560 and rt2600 chips.
> This driver is coded cleanly, but still does not work very well. However
> the netdev kernel guys already said they will accept this driver
> directly in the kernel when it will be working correctly.
>
> Giving the speed at which the rt2x00 driver is developped, I am pretty
> sure the driver will be merged in the kernel before the etch release.
Awsome, I think the best thing to do with regards to this bug
is find out what needs to be done to make that happen, and if
possible, help out.

Those monsters. How dare they value stuff like "kernel standards" and listen to these "upstream kernel devs." The helping out part is FUD. Debian's not about community or volunteer effort. That's not a way to build a good OS. That OS may be stable but unless you're not afraid of breaking your kernel a little. Who's going to use it? It'll never overtake the desktop at that rate. Wait! This argument reminds of another one having to do with linux. Fancy that.

Sheesh, nothing against or for Ubuntu, it seems with any Debian/Ubuntu article, someone has to comment how awesome Ubuntu is and that Debian is dying and nobody uses it anymore. As a person who put Debian on 4 laptops and a server, I now know how the FreeBSD guys felt.

Re:5/12 of laptops running Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

You can do better than that! You can also do:

apt-get install module-assistant
m-a a-i rt2500

The auto-install (a-i) will automatically run the prepare step and download the source code for you.

Re:5/12 of laptops running Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't like Ubuntu because it sacrifices quality and principle to be up to date.

Re:5/12 of laptops running Ubuntu

[Ossifer]

Are you sure envy doesn't come in to play?

Re:5/12 of laptops running Ubuntu

[Trogre]

What's really quite sad is that at LCA2006 nearly half the laptops delegates brought were Apple.

Re:5/12 of laptops running Ubuntu

[The Warlock]

It's kind of difficult to apt-get some packages to get your network card working when your network card isn't working. For something like a video card this would be excusable, but network devices really have to work out of the box, because otherwise it's difficult to download the stuff to make them work.

No, seriously

[StarKruzr]

What does Debian have over Ubuntu?

Re:No, seriously

[gomoX]

Debian Packages that work for everything.

Hot and spicy?

[Enrique1218]

It's Linux. There is nothing hot an spicy about that. Just take a look at this guy. I going to have to immerse myself in porn for a day to get that image out my head. Disturbing

Re:Hot and spicy?

[Anonymous Coward]

If that image is so disturbing, why did you expose the rest of us to it?

Re:Hot and spicy?

[Enrique1218]

I wanted to be concise. You know what they say, " a picture is worth a thousand words". Not to mention, it would not have had the same effect to describe Linus' man boobs jiggling has he descends... Oh, wait... back to the porn.

Who cares about JavaOne anymore

[wysiwia]

..."he considered this small group important enough to be worth more of his time than the 14,000 people who went to JavaOne"...

Im shocked,

Why are you shocked? Java has lost it's hype, isn't the only and not anymore the best solution for cross-platform and has never done anything for OpenSource. Mark did right when choosing a small but important group above some Java managers and their forced followers.

O. Wyss

Re:Who cares about JavaOne anymore

[LarsWestergren]

[Java] has never done anything for OpenSource.

Well, it is difficult for inanimate objects to "do" something in that sense. Sun however, have donated more code than most companies to open source.

Also, Java is the most popular language on Sourceforge these days, so you obviously don't know what you are talking about.

Re:Who cares about JavaOne anymore

[Ajehals]

I mostly Agree totally,

However you missed the Sarcasm in the parent post.

Gee, thanks

[LarsWestergren]

he considered this small group important enough to be worth more of his time than the 14,000 people who went to JavaOne.

Gee, thanks for that little dig. I was at Java One this year and was delighted to see Mark Shuttleworth there and hear that Sun are going to support Ubuntu on their servers. Many others liked it too considering the applause he got (much more than Marc Fleury for instance...). On Netbeans day (day before the official start of Java One), when Jonathan Schwartz asked Rich Green on stage "So, are you going to Open Source Java?" as his first question, there was a lot of applause and laughter.

Also Sun announced loads of stuff that was open sourced at the conference. The Java Studio Creator, Mobility pack, Matisse, JMS, etc. Licensing for Java has been changed to make it easier to distribute it with Linux. I have considered doing a writeup of Java One for Slashdot, but then I realise, what is the use. Positive stuff about Sun or Java doesn't have a snowballs chance in hell of being accepted by the editors. Lets just say it was educational and lots of fun. Jamie and Adam from Mythbusters were at the after dark bash. PDFs of all the session are available for free here.

Debian and Ubuntu

[wysiwia]

It will be tough for Debians to accept Ubuntu but there's no alternative. While Ubuntu has made the deb package format state of the art, it will also squash Debian out of the market. It's just a matter of time until Ubuntu will become the single most important distribution. So instead of cursing about this fact Debian developers should just go over to Ubuntu and accept it. It might not make everybody happy but that's normal in real live.

O. Wyss

Re:Debian and Ubuntu

[Killeri]

Why would Debian users and/or developers have to accept Ubuntu? Ubuntu doesn't have as many supported packages as Debian and it has far less supported architectures. I think there is room for both Ubuntu (providing easy-to-use distro with a limited set of supported packages) and Debian (trading easy-to-use for a larger set of supported packages and archs).

Re:Debian and Ubuntu

[Respect_my_Authority]

On the contrary. Ubuntu users should accept what Ubuntu developers have accepted from the beginning: Ubuntu is a distro that cannot stand on its own feet. If Debian died today, Ubuntu would die within one year. Or, at least, Ubuntu would become a mere shadow of what it is now. But if Ubuntu died today, that wouldn't have any effect on Debian.

Person'lly, I wouldn't mind if Ubuntu died today. :-P

Re:Debian and Ubuntu

[delire]

You are an idiot. Ubuntu 'competing' with Debian is like you competing with your own spine.

Ubuntu has some 50 package maintainers riding on the work of some 5000 in Debian that actually compile software and prepare it in packages ready for use downstream by distributions like Ubuntu. Ask any of the Ubuntu developers or maintainers altogether and they will say "If it wasn't for Debian we wouldn't be here."

Secondly, Debian couldn't give a damn about being a 'desktop' OS. They don't call it the "Universal Operating System" for nothing. Ubuntu only testifies to Debian's great success.

Re:Debian and Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

Debian may have a slight bug squashing problem. But judging by the chart, the new submission rules are leveling this out. IF this was a stock chart I would say "BUY!"

And a small stab at ubuntu, the little disk I got had the (IIRC) exploitable password problem. (good thing it was being tested in a VM) Anyway, that did that for me. The disk was purposly shreded after that.

My understanding is that Ubuntu is based on Debian. Not vice-versa. Sort of like Suse is based on Slack. FC on RH.

I use debian on all my linux desktop boxes, except for the video editing box still needs xp cause cinelerra still ain't there yet--(not a debian problem though.) and servers I use fbsd. Use what works. If DSL 2.0 on your flashdrive works, use it, if you need to boot on a knopix disk, why not!? If your grandmother loves suse, go for it. If your girlfriend likes xp, then great. (hint make it dual boot.)

peace in - bush out

Re:Debian and Ubuntu

[lord_rob the only on]

Person'lly, I wouldn't mind if Ubuntu died today. :-P

While being a Debian user that has never tried Ubuntu, I think Ubuntu is great for Debian. Ubuntu devs help Debian growing faster.

Real concerns, poorly expressed

[FishandChips]

The article passes on rather a lot of sour comments about Ubuntu. But carping is no substitute for analysis. Ubuntu is here to stay and most would regard it as a huge success. There are important things that need to be worked out, though, around conflicts of interest when you have a lot of folks who are both Debian and Ubuntu devs and who in some cases might received money from Ubuntu. For example, whose packages and bug fixes do they process first, Debian's or Ubuntu's? The side that comes second is bound to complain.

The worry expressed by Joey Hess is a real one: that Debian could become like a supermarket or trade warehouse where distro-assemblers acquire their wares, leaving Debian without direct contact with an audience of its own and so fading as a user-based distro. But that is up to Debian to sort out, not Ubuntu. I don't think Debian has really risen to this challenge yet, but sooner or later they must. Personally I am not a fan of international businessmen come jet-setters mingling with Debian and rather wish they'd take a lower profile. Exactly what, after all, are they trying to do by turning up at a DebConf in the first place? The "social contract" is the heart and bedrock of Debian, and if this starts to become polluted by money and fame then Debian really will be in trouble. Perhaps it already is.

thanks for mention of Mark Shuttleworth

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember that Mark Shuttleworth paid to go into space --
I didn't know about his connection to Linux distributions.

Re:Your sig...

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

Thank you for your constructive critisism.

Ted was not a saint

[Anonymous Coward]

First, there are two issues here: Ted's expulsion from (and the mess he was involved in) Debconf6, and the second (believe it or not) separate issue of he being expulsed from the Debian project itself.

The Debconf6 events are not clear, and I am not in a position to talk about them other than to say that not everyone agrees with how it was handled (and that I personally don't agree on how these events were handled, either).

But if you are kicked from Debian, we do it right: you are NOT given a time window to do damage: your access rights are immediately revoked, as we can always reinstate them if the expulsion is undone for any reason. All Debian resources, including the email address, are solely for uses related to the Debian project. Duh. I have no idea about the deal with mugshots, though.

Anyway, the Debconf6 events were *not* the reason Ted was swiftly kicked out of Debian. He was thrown out because, after years of dealing with it, the project had enough: he finally managed to break the camel's back. Mind you, it is *QUITE* difficult to get thrown out from Debian: Ted managed something only a warez loser had managed to do before. If you doubt this, ask any Debian developer.

On the other hand, IMHO, Ted should not have been thrown out of Debconf6 at all, and the people involved in these events should have been subject to a throughout dressing down. You don't do that to someone even if he deserves it (and it is becoming clear he didn't in this particular case).

Re:Ted was not a saint

[Anonymous Coward]

Who was the camel, and what was it that broke their back? Twice the Debian project as a whole refused to sponsor a GR (General Resolution) to remove Ted, which is the mechanism the project has in place to remove people for social reasons. In the past, the DAM's have only used their powers for people abusing Debian resources. This has happened three times in the past; Ted makes the first time these powers were used for non-technical reasons. In fact, in Ted's case NO reasons were given, even to other Debian Developers, apart from the fact that a core clique of people didn't like him. The cabal not only exists; it has created an atmosphere of fear and suspicion in Debian that makes people afraid to speak their minds for fear of retribution.

Re:Ted was not a saint

[John Sokol]

Again, no one has been willing to state a real reason why he was attacked or kicked out of the project. Even when I tried to personally inquire in a polite and honorable fashion, then wouldn't tell me or just make some mention of emails accusing them of being unfair, which at this point is starting to seem very much true.

Even a wacky conspiracy theorist starts to look credible when some one trys to assasinate him.

  Does kicking someone out of the project involve not telling them at all. Or for what reason even after the fact.

  They invited him there! He went there at great expense with the sole intention of trying to make peace and mend relationships. It seems as though the intention was to lure him there and beat him senseless in the middle of some forign country!

He didn't do anything while at Debconf to provoke anyone as far as I can see. Please someone tell me a specific case if he did do anything, but wearing a plastic crown and carrying a foam rubber bat, that was just a prop to be the jester of the crowd. Isn't cause or provocation. He didn't hit anyone with the bat, nor did he act agressive or even speak to any of his attackers.

Had this been in the US, I'm sure police and lawyers would be involved.

Re:Ted was not a saint

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sorry, but I don't buy the "Ted was injustly expulsed from Debian" ticket. Apparently, the majority of the project either doesn't care, or is happy to see him go. Although I do agree he was probably injustly expulsed from Debconf6, and that it was handled quite poorly from an outside view (I was not there).

And the reasons I believe so are the very GRs you bring up.

The GRs are a way for anyone to request the DAMs to do an expulsion, just that. The well-defined technical reasons (such as breaking the DMUP or the Social Contract) are criteria by which you *have* to be thrown out immediately, even if the DAMs would rather you were not kicked out. They have no other choice, as far as I know.

A GR *can* bring you back if the expulsion did not happen because you broke the Social Contract (and at the same time it will have to remove the DAMs who expulsed you from their position, the whole "lost the faith of the public" issue and all that).

If Ted was thrown out by a "cabal minority", there is absolutely *nothing* holding back a GR to bring him back, the entire GR process is done through public mailing lists, from instant zero. And it takes very few people to get a GR proposal to the it-must-be-voted status, so don't give me the weak excuse of "people are afraid to propose it". If debian developers do believe Ted was undully thrown out, such a GR will happen.

Re:Ted was not a saint

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you mean lack of GR's? There weren't enough people (17) interested in kicking Ted out to be able to move a GR to vote. That indicates a very small group who wanted him gone. Why is it that less than 17 people were able to kick out a Debian Developer without any cause? And why do these people feel they don't need to be accountable to the other developers?

Re:Ted was not a saint

[The Vorlon]

Even a wacky conspiracy theorist starts to look credible when some one trys to assasinate him.

Err... what part of suggesting that people tried to assassinate Ted is not a wacky conspiracy theory in its own right?

They invited him there! He went there at great expense with the sole intention of trying to make peace and mend relationships. It seems as though the intention was to lure him there and beat him senseless in the middle of some forign country!

Who are you claiming invited Ted to DebConf? The conference was widely announced in the Debian developer community, with information on how to register and apply for travel sponsorship; obviously these announcements didn't claim "Ted need not apply", but did he receive a personal invitation from the organizing committee that none of the rest of us did? If not, in what sense was he being "lured" to Mexico? It would require a remarkable degree of naivete for him to believe he would be welcomed warmly by everyone on the organizing committee, after making unsubstantiated claims of sponsorship favoritism based on fabricated details, accusing the organizers of religious discrimination for being unable to accomodate his singular dietary requirements, and describing the venue as a "second-rate hotel in a third world country."

While some of the behavior I witnessed at the formal dinner was disappointingly uncivilized, it does say something about how much he actually "mended relationships" there that people found the rumors credible enough to warrant attempting to eject him from the dinner. (No, not "assassinating" him, not "beating him senseless" -- generally if you're trying to injure someone you don't do so by pushing them towards the door on the far side of the building...) I don't know if someone in Ted's company thought it would be funny to let people think he had brought a prostitute, but evidently others at the event didn't find this idea humorous at all.

Re:Ted was not a saint

[Anonymous Coward]

Apathy or the inability to choose a side does not justify anything. Note that many people have spoken up in favor of people being threatened with explusion in the recent past. This is not happening right now at all, except to say that the process needs clarification, which is an entirely different issue.

Re:Ted was not a saint

[Anonymous Coward]

Again, no one has been willing to state a real reason why he was attacked or kicked out of the project.

There was an extensive email sent to debian-private detailing this, so we all know why. Leaking this information is a violation of the rules of the project that we all abide by, so you'll have a hard time getting it. The reason why this isn't posted publicly is out of respect for the person being kicked out, so they aren't ostracized by future friends/employers/etc for past behaviors.

I believe that Jonathan/Ted was CC'ed on the email, so he can share it with you. I'm surprised he hasn't already actually. However, given his known penchant for editing text, as well as lying to people (like the Debconf6 funding committee) I wouldn't trust what you read if you get it from him.

He went there at great expense with the sole intention of trying to make peace and mend relationships.

He obviously failed in this task. Perhaps honest apologies for past offenses (and he's offended a lot of people in the project) rather than snarky gestures like being the self-appointed cluebat holder would have been a better method?

Re:Ted was not a saint

[John Sokol]

I have seen the debian private list posts, Ted isn't the only friend I have on the inside there.

I still fail to see a real reason. How can holding a foam rubber bat be so offensive to people that they should try to beat him up or remove him from debian?!

If you read Anthony's letter it never states specifics just "disruptions", "disturbances", "provoke"

As example requesting Kosher Food. Oh my god! If requesting Kosher food is disruptive then ... Well draw your own conclusions.

For me personally I don't eat Pork and it was impossible to tell what the meals were made of some really look like pork. Being Pork free in Mexico and at the Debconf when you don't speak the language was a serious problem.

Then later claims such as "Nazi propaganda and Holocaust denial information" this is based on them never having read what he had, or the context that it was in, which was in a very pro-jewish, we must never let it happen again light. I also believe that people need to see these documents! That hiding them will only doom us to repeat the past.

Well which is it Anthony? Is he a NAZI or a JEW!

"Why Didn't King Solomon Kill The Two Prostitutes".
Did anyone bother to read this one!!!
It's all bible quotes. But for many I'm sure the bible is too offensive!

From that very blog post:
You cannot hit one party with the full penalty then let another get off free for the same crime. It is better to err on the side of mercy, so if you do not convict one, you should not convict another. This is violated daily by un-Godly governments who selectively enforce their laws to "make examples" of people. Such selective enforcement is neither fair or just.

How appropriate since they did just what he spoke against the very next day.

from the Debian private list that I am not bound to silence on

Anthony Towns
to debian-private
Hi,

It's my regret to report that the Debian Account Managers, James Troup
and Joerg Jaspert, have decided to expel Ted Walther (aka Jonathan
Walther, with IRC nicks SirDibos, SirDinosaur, Dinosaur, and account
name krooger@debian.org) from the project.

Ted has been a continuing source of disturbance within the project, and
whether deliberately or accidently has repeatedly acted in ways to provoke
other members of the project and make their participation in both the
project at large and DebConf 6 in particular difficult and uncomfortable.

The triggering event for this expulsion was a disturbance at the DebConf
Formal Dinner, which I'll detail as best I can in a separate mail.

This has followed a number of other incidents at DebConf 6. The first
of these that has been communicated to me were a number of disruptive
communications with the travel sponsorship team in April, where Ted
attempted to override the deadline for travel sponsorship in various ways
[0].

This was followed in the next few days by complaints regarding the lack
of food conforming to his dietary requirements, which he described as
the "Karaite Jewish version of kashrut" in contrast to Jewish kosher
food. When informed that the vegan/vegetarian menu would conform with
his requirements, and that the hotel would not be able to conform with
his requirements otherwise, he responded by accusing the organisers of
"kosher discrimination", and booking a "second rate hotel in a third
world country" where the cooks are "not worth their salt".

In order to ensure that the debconf lists remained useful, his posts
were moderated, with only the mails containing a question others might
be interested in, or some information others might find useful being
allowed through.

Ted's conference registration was accepted, and he obtained room and
food sponsorship for the period of his stay.

After arriving at DebConf, Ted brought along a foam rubber bat
labelled with "clue", and hit a number of organisers and delegates
with i

Re:Ted was not a saint

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read Anthony's letter it never states specifics just "disruptions", "disturbances", "provoke"

Perhaps you need to re-read what you just posted. Let's get started, shall we?

The first of these that has been communicated to me were a number of disruptive communications with the travel sponsorship team in April, where Ted attempted to override the deadline for travel sponsorship in various ways

Yes, fucking with the volunteer organizers in an attempt to get funding counts as a diruption.

he responded by accusing the organisers of "kosher discrimination", and booking a "second rate hotel in a third world country" where the cooks are "not worth their salt".

Yes, insulting the organizers and the hotel staff counts as a disruption.

Prior to DebConf 6, Ted has been central in a number of other disruptions to the project, including making available Nazi propaganda and Holocaust denial information associated with his debian.org address

You address this with a strawman attack on Anthony, but the fact is that everyone (but you apparently!) who saw these documents when they were up felt that they clearly showed Jonathan to be racist and that he was representing the project very poorly.

discouraging the Debian Women project before it had even begun and continuing that activity afterwards resulting in being banned from that list.

Trolling the Debian Women mailing list, which was hosted on Debian servers and had several Debian Developers involved is clearly a disruption.

During the 2006 DPL elections, he claimed religious discrimination in an apparent attempt to further disrupt that process

Spreading paranoiac lies about being discriminated against in order to defame your competitors and mess up the DPL campaign is a disruption.

Finally, it has become clear that his honesty is questionable. His leadership of the Xouvert project was brought in to question during the DPL campaigns of the past two years, and he did not have satisfactory answers to questions related to the invisible "releases" that he claimed to have made but were never found, for instance. He also attempted to tyrannically appoint a panel of people to address concerns about Debian without even asking them. And that's just what I personally remember off the top of my head.

I realize you're his friend, but apparently you're seeing Jonathan/Ted in a very different light from everyone in Debian, because not one of the 1000 developers in the project has spoken up publicly in his defense. Even though he's your friend, you have to recognize that his actions have angered a lot of people. This didn't come out of nowhere.

Re:Ted was not a saint

[John Sokol]

Where do I begin, there is just so much wrong with what your saying.

  http://www.aigarius.com/2006/03/10/interview-with- ted.html Aigars interview with Ted, I think really clarifies his thought process.
  Aigars by the way is not a fan of Teds, but is honest and I have a lot of respect for him. He even told Ted to his face that "you're getting under my skin", but have respect for that.

Aigars article really explains the Debian woman situation, and having experienced first hand the clique around Amaya, that would talk behind every ones back and spread rumors and conjecture, and work them selves into a frenzy, as well as act as the PC police. Other than that I thought she was pretty cute.

1) Ted never asked for travel funding, I had already agreed to cover him. He was defending others who were having sponsorship problems, and who still are.

2) Again the context is missing. What he said that if what the organizers was telling him was true then, this must be a "second rate hotel in a third world country" where the cooks are "not worth their salt". , This is because their answers to him were deceptive and conflicting.

3) His documents were on his personal web site and not associated with Debian. And he is far from a racist and Nazi, if he were I'd beat his ass for you.

4) Tyrannically? What are you smoking?

5) Many people have contacted both myself and Ted, privately offering support, but seem to be afraid to come out publicly because of the climate of fear within the debian community. Ted is opposed to some of the things the leadership of debian are doing, and this is real reason for his being attacked and picked on at every turn.

From the Aigars interview about Debian:
Finally, a place free of affirmative action and limits on free speech; just a bunch of people doing their best to make something great. You stand or fall on your own merits. Freethinking and refusal to compromise with political correctness was the order of the day. I was in heaven.

It was this change away from these values and ideas that Ted was attempting to reverse. This change is a part of the new (current) debian leadership. I sense a group of SysAdmin type paranoid thinkers, certainly not kernel hackers.

It's where things are misrepresented, out of context, and done secretly behind peoples backs that I just can't tolerate. I have been though too much of this crap in the past.

Debian started as a democratic organization, and still pretends to be one, but clearly this only superficial now.

Joerg assured me after the fight that I would be include in the discussion of what transpired that evening before a decision was cast. But this never took place, 7am Ted was tossed out, and I left with him.

The leadership has no Honor, or Balls, It did things privately and in secret in a most undemocratic, closed, and totalitarian fashion. I had been keeping and open mind about the whole situation and really remaining unbiased until that point. I really lost all respect for these guys, and after hearing from many South and Central Americans how they where also upset with the way debian was being run, I am totally convinced it's all true and at least as bad as I was hearing.

How can Ted get a GR when he has been silenced and cut off from the community?

Ted may not be leadership material, but neither is Anthony. Ted is one of the most loyal hard working employees I have ever had, he has been thorough a lot with me over the years. He has a very deep sense of honor and speaks his mind when he feels something need to be said even when it's unpopular and might get him into trouble.

But I can respect it.

Re:Ted was not a saint

[Anonymous Coward]

This email was cc-ed to Walther's personal email address, so the claim of having more friends inside Debian willing to leak information should be taken with a grain of salt...

Hear, hear!

[nathan s]

I found myself forced to do a kernel upgrade over the weekend, and module-assistant made it shockingly trivial to install my IPW2100 wireless drivers, as well as my ATI drivers, on an HP NC8000 laptop. This was a huge change from the last few times, when I had to manually compile and install those drivers.

It is MUCH easier than it used to be.

MOD UP - Eyewitness account (purportedly) NT

[HighOrbit]

NT

Mod parent up!

[jZnat]

Oh my god, this is exactly the problem! How the fuck do you expect to get networking working on any Linux distro without a network connection? Downloading and burning like 20 CDs isn't a viable solution for this problem, so to Ubuntu we go for networking support.

Doesn't matter.

[StarKruzr]

If by "for everything" you mean "across platforms," what if I don't care about platforms other than x86 and PPC?

NOW what does Debian have over Ubuntu? An older kernel and worse hardware support? No thanks.