Dunc-Tank To Help Meet Debian Etch Deadline

Da Massive writes, "Debian GNU/Linux is experimenting with a new project called Dunc-Tank, which is aimed at securing funding to pay two key release managers — Steve Langasek and Andi Barth — in an effort to ensure the forthcoming Debian 4.0, known as etch, is released on time in December." Dunc-Tank is not affiliated with the Debian Project directly, and in fact was controversial on the debian-private list.

Comments

One way...

[DreddUK]

... to do it. Can't get on the site at the mo'. Seems to have died for some reason ;) Anyone got a mirror of it?

Couldn't they ask for donations as well? I remember on of the other distro's doing this (was it Mandrake?).

Re:One way...

[Halo1]

There is virtually always a mirror of pages linked from slashdot stories at mirrordot.

Re:One way...

[DreddUK]

Brilliant, thanks for the tip!

DUNKY-TANKY

[slack_prad]

I told you it's the animal names that speed up the release process!!! Anyway it's good to see debain following ubuntu's 'adjective animal' release model.

Re:DUNKY-TANKY

[Anonymous Coward]

In case people out there are not aware of the Debian "theme" in their release versions, it is characters out of "Toy Story".

Woody, Sarge, Etch

This is what I got

[Anonymous Coward]

The connection appeared to hang waiting for the stylesheet, so this was only viewable by viewing the HTML source. Obviously relative links are all busted.

What is Dunc?

Basically, Dunc is an experimental project to try out ways of funding Debian development. Not paying for servers or bandwidth, or reimbursing expenses and flight costs, but actually paying people to sit down and do useful Debian work rather than some other day job.

Who is Dunc?

There's info about who exactly is behind Dunc at the board page.

Dunc directly supports work on Debian, and is made up of a small group of people who use Debian and who want to see Debian improve. But Dunc is not endorsed by Debian, and Debian does not exercise any control over how Dunc operates.

What about other people funding Debian work?

A number of other groups fund Debian work directly or indirectly, whether that be by allowing or encouraging their employees to contribute to Debian, or having Debian work be part of their actual job description. Dunc does not aim to compete with those groups, either in the tasks being worked on, or in the people being recruited, but rather to address other niches in the Debian ecosystem.

What does "Dunc" mean?

Dunc is an acronym standing for "Development Under Numismatic Control" -- which could equally be called "coin-operated coding". The point of the project is to try some new possibilities of funding free and open source software development and helping people work on free software development on a full-time basis.

Really, though, the name is a reference to the linux.conf.au auction in 2003, for the t-shirt signed by the speakers, proceeds from which were directed to Electronic Frontiers Australia. To make the bidding more lively a certain individual foolishly suggested that the next Debian release would be named after the winning bidder, should the bidding go above $2000. Due to the combined resources of a table of inebriated Sun folks, Duncan Bennet won the bidding, and the right to have his name associated with the next Debian release -- which, many years later, turns out to be Debian 4.0, aka etch. So yes, this is yet another free software project that has its roots in the consumption of a little too much wine at a conference dinner.

What will the future bring?

As Dunc is an experiment, we don't know what will end up happening with it. We may decide it works perfectly as is, or that it was a horrible idea that should never have been tried. In any event, we expect to review what worked, what didn't, and what should be done over the course of the first project, and have a public discussion about what to do after the release of etch.

Random factoid

This site is maintained using Joey Hess's ikiwiki.

It is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2.

Links: index Last edited Tue Sep 19 13:20:35 2006

if i win big

[FudRucker]

i like to buy a lottery ticket every week, if i win millions of dollars i will gladly donate funds to the people that develop GNU/Linux...

i know the odds of actually winning is very small...

Re:if i win big

[i_should_be_working]

i know the odds of actually winning is very small...

At a physics talk I heard a speaker explain how the chances of winning the lottery are smaller than the chance that a neutron star will pass through our solar sytem close enough to us to capture the earth and pull us away from the sun, thus dooming us to a dark and brief future.

I play sometimes too...

Re:if i win big

[lpcustom]

I've seen a lot more people win the lottery than neutron stars lately so maybe I should take a course in statistics. I don't get it.

Re:if i win big

[OrangeDoor]

While individual rich people can help many by tossing their money at projects, distributed funding methods have proven extremely effective as well. The only problem is that they only tend to work at times of crisis where sometimes it's too late (I'm talking both about non-profit/small businesses as well as natural disasters). An easy way for many people to donate small amounts of money, especially on a monthly basis, might be more reliable... searching google revealed some begging sites though, perhaps Dunc could post a page for donations there... "Open-source operating system project managers must pay bills while saving world from..."

As for the lottery, my friend calls it a tax on the mathematically challenged. We'll see what he says after I win.

Buying a single ticket is logically worth it, especially if picking numbers that will have a higher return (less likely to have multiple winners). $1 for a chance to win huge! There's a bigger difference between a zero probability and nearly zero probability than there is between nearly zero and nearly zero. It's the people who buy more than $1 that I can't really understand. That's my logic and I'm sticking to it.

I also pledge to Dunc some OS devs/pm's if I win the lotto.

Re:if i win big

[stutterbug]

The GP says the odds of you winning the lottery, not the odds of someone winning the lottery. If the person he is quoting is correct, and I won't even pretend to know whether he is, each year there must be a small number of planetary systems in the Universe 'lucky' enough to get a visit from a passing neutron star. I'm not saying the odds of winning the lottery are big, but I personally would be surprised if the odds of death by neutron star in our lifetime is anywhere near the odds of winning the 6/49. But I like the analogy a lot.

Re:if i win big

[i_should_be_working]

In addition to what RidiculousPie said, I intentionally left out the part (for dramatic effect, I was trying to be more funny than insightful) about how the neutron scenario probability was a cumulative probability. So over the next many millions of years (I forgot how many) that death by rouge neutron star is more probable than me winning the lottery today.

Re:if i win big

[lpcustom]

Personally I hate odds and statistics. Maybe the odds of me winning the lottery are lower than the neutron star but I like to think of everything as 50/50. Either I win or I don't win. I may be stupid for thinking this way, but logically speaking it's correct. It'll either happen or it won't. Now the probability is very slim. If I don't buy a ticket however I have no chance at all. Some chance is better than none. This dunc-tank idea. Do we get to put people from the #debian channel in a dunktank and then when they say RTFM, we throw the ball and hit them in the head?

Re:if i win big

[p3d0]

You seem to think the chances of winning a particular lottery are less than the chances of a neutron star pulling away the Earth during that lottery. I think what is meant is that the chances of winning a particular lottery with a particular ticket are less than the chances of a newtron star ever pulling away the Earth, but I could be mistaken.

Re:if i win big

[p3d0]

I like to think of everything as 50/50. Either I win or I don't win. I may be stupid for thinking this way, but logically speaking it's correct.

I'd like to play poker with you.

Re:if i win big

[RidiculousPie]

I like to think of everything as 50/50. Either I win or I don't win.

I propose a simple game with you. You win if a fair die is rolled and comes up 1. I win otherwise. We both put in £1/$1/1 or whatever each time. I will play until you are bankrupt.

Re:if i win big

[lpcustom]

Oh but the real odd are on whether I play or not. In that there is a 50/50 chance. So if I play your game I go bankrupt and if I don't play I keep all my money. Everything is 50/50.

Re:if i win big

[mwlewis]

Yeah, but what about neutron stars that aren't some shade of red?

Re:if i win big

[swillden]

Buying a single ticket is logically worth it

Depends on what you mean by "logically", I guess. Buying a ticket is logically worth it if a chance to rub your ticket and dream about what you'd do with all that money is worth $1 to you. It's generally not worth it if you calculate the stastical expected value of the ticket (odds of winning multiplied by the probable size of the pot). The expected value of a ticket is nearly always far less than its price, for obvious reasons.

However, there's another angle that may make it more "logical". The argument is that wasting $1 will have essentially zero impact on your quality of life. You could throw a $1 bill in the road every week and probably never notice any change. OTOH, winning the lottery would change your life immensely. So, if you can measure the values in terms of life impact, the $1 ticket has a near-zero cost, and the value of winning is huge, so perhaps the expected value of the ticket exceeds its certain cost.

Personally, I think that's crap. The value of $1 per week, if saved and invested over years, is decidedly non-trivial, so the argument can only work if you accept as a given your inability to save money.

It's the people who buy more than $1 that I can't really understand.

Why? I see three reasons to buy lottery tickets:

First, because the statistical expected value of the ticket exceeds its cost. This can happen when the pots get really big. In that case, there are lots of appropriate strategies, depending upon your available funds, but pretty much all of them would suggest buying more than one ticket.

Second, because you buy the low-impact/high-reward argument, and your perceived expected value is higher than your perceived cost. In that case the logical approach is to buy as many lottery tickets as will have no discernable effect on your finances. Perhaps you make and spend exactly the right amount of money so that $1 is that threshold, but it's more likely that the painless amount is higher or lower.

Third, because you like to dream, and like the excitement of having a chance. In that case, since you're basically spending money for entertainment, you just have to decide how many tickets give you the best bang for your buck. Most people would probably say one ticket, but a book of 50 really makes a nice slapping sound in your hand, so YMMV.

Personally, I can dream about what I'd do with millions of dollars without buying a ticket at all, so that's my strategy. Sure, I have no chance of winning the millions, but buying a ticket only changes that by a miniscule amount, and the buck can sit in the bank and gather interest.

Re:if i win big

[i_should_be_working]

For bleu stars the probability goes up by 45%, but for jaune it drops by 20%. Vert stars are so rare that the probability drops nearly to 0.

Re:if i win big

[oscartheduck]

No, some things are 50/50. If you played, you have a greater than 50% chance of losing, so that isn't 50/50. Now, I'd also argue that you can either choose to play or choose not to play and, as playinh has potential negative consequences, you're less likely to choose playing. So that wouldn't be 50/50 either.

Re:if i win big

[OrangeDoor]

You're missing another important aspect of the lottery in your reasoning. The money made from the lottery goes back to the cities. So it's not just $1 wasted, it's $1 contributed to the city (minus the operating expenses of course).

While you're dollar sits in the bank, the $5 I spend per year on playing the lottery (when jackpots get huge) will go to the city as well as giving me 5 chances to win huge and do good things with the money. What are the odds of you making a ton of money that you can put to good philanthropic causes? Probably much bigger than mine but probably still statistically insignificant.

Re:if i win big

[swillden]

You're missing another important aspect of the lottery in your reasoning. The money made from the lottery goes back to the cities. So it's not just $1 wasted, it's $1 contributed to the city (minus the operating expenses of course).

I'm not missing that at all. The city gets plenty of my money. If I want to donate $1 to a good cause (and I donate lots of dollars to good causes), I wouldn't give it to them.

While you're dollar sits in the bank, the $5 I spend per year on playing the lottery (when jackpots get huge) will go to the city as well as giving me 5 chances to win huge and do good things with the money.

More would be accomplished if you just gave the $5 to the city.

Re:if i win big

[Anonymous Coward]

"At a physics talk I heard..."

And what was the talk about? "You should develop your own common sense"?

Just think a little about this: lottery is won by somebody about each week (I don't know exactly what lottery are you talking about, but you take the idea). Now, the world population being about 6 billion people, that's the ceiling of our "universe": once a week per 6 billion. Now: let's say our solar system is about 6 billion year old (well it's quite less, but within the same order of magnitude so we can round people to years). Have you per chance had notices about a neutron star going through the solar system lately? You can take it from a different point of view. Being about 6 billion the number of stars of the Milky Way, did you per chance hear about a star collision weekly within our galaxy?

Re:if i win big

[Anonymous Coward]

While you're dollar sits in the bank, the $5 I spend per year on playing the lottery (when jackpots get huge) will go to the city...

um, no about 15 - 20 percent will go to the city and the rest will into the lottery vendor's pocket and expenses, etc. You could do more for the city with your $5 by giving it to a homeless shelter program or some such than you could ever do by buying lottery tickets.

Re:if i win big

[Kjella]

Buying a single ticket is logically worth it, especially if picking numbers that will have a higher return (less likely to have multiple winners).

Yes, people often use birthdates. That means 1-12 > 13-30 > 31 > 31+. Many people also use patterns on the lottery ticket, another bad idea. But not nearly enough to create arbitrage.

$1 for a chance to win huge!

It might be "worth it", but not it terms of expected payoff which is mathematical answer. Then again, life is about more than accumulating wealth. What's my "expected payoff" by reading slashdot? Eating at a good restaurant? Sleeping with a girl? None, yet they all seem like worthwhile activities.

There's a bigger difference between a zero probability and nearly zero probability than there is between nearly zero and nearly zero. It's the people who buy more than $1 that I can't really understand. That's my logic and I'm sticking to it.

See now, here's where I lost your post. You claim that one in a kazillion or two in a kazillion doesn't matter. Yet the very first thing you talked about is making the most of that one kazillionth. You don't care about kazillionths, but you care about fractions of kazillionths? You're sticking to something, but logic isn't it.

Re:if i win big

[el americano]

If the nuetron star is coming in one hundred million years, but I win the lottery next week, then I don't see a problem with this.

Re:if i win big

[Anonymous Coward]

The dollar doesn't "sit in the bank." It gets lent out, boosting productivity.

Re:if i win big

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to think the chances of winning a particular lottery are less than the chances of a neutron star pulling away the Earth during that lottery. I think what is meant is that the chances of winning a particular lottery with a particular ticket are less than the chances of a newtron star ever pulling away the Earth, but I could be mistaken.

Knowing my luck, if I ever were to win the lottery the Neutron Star would be by in short order...

Re:if i win big

[colmore]

I used to work in a convenience store, and let me tell you, the bulk of lottery income isn't coming from $1 a day dreamers. People -- people with college degrees -- drop hundreds of dollars a week, while I sat there staring at them scratching tickets feeling like a slot machine.

You can make all the fancy economic sounding arguments you want about playing the lottery, but most of the money is flowing in for a very simple reason: gambling addiction.

Re:if i win big

[OrangeDoor]

Logic is subjective. Or maybe you'd just prefer me using the term "rational" instead. Either way it's just my own reasoning. Mathematically it might not compute, but like you pointed out we do many things that don't make logical or mathematical sense.

See now, here's where I lost your post. You claim that one in a kazillion or two in a kazillion doesn't matter. Yet the very first thing you talked about is making the most of that one kazillionth. You don't care about kazillionths, but you care about fractions of kazillionths?

One in a kazillion I think matters because it's not zero. Two in a kazillion I think only matters as much as one in a kazillion, because again it's not zero. The only thing that matters logically to me is the difference between having a chance to win and not having a chance to win.

Re:if i win big

[swillden]

You can make all the fancy economic sounding arguments you want about playing the lottery, but most of the money is flowing in for a very simple reason: gambling addiction.

Yeah, I was ignoring the "illogical" reasons to buy lottery tickets. Not because they don't exist, but because they weren't relevant to my point. What you say seems very, very likely to be the reality of the matter, though.

Direct link...

[mutube]

Dunc-Tank.

Oddly appropriate.

[Rob T Firefly]

If you're going to attempt something like this, you might as well do it with a project named after a carnival game.

Vista anyone?

[lemur3]

I am sure paying these folk will get this Debian release out on time. Money always motivates people to work harder and faster.. and it always makes sure a deadline will be met...

Re:Vista anyone?

[nurhussein]

Oh but think about it, if Etch gets released before Vista, Debian (the distro infamous for glacially slow release cycles) will have released three times between the last 2 versions of desktop Windows.

So to all the "Linux sucks on the desktop, Windows pwns all" naysayers, even the slowest-releasing distro is improving at a rate faster than Windows. Say what you like about desktop Linux now, but it's one hell of a fast moving target, and it's only getting better.

Re:Vista anyone?

[CrankyFool]

No, it's releasing at a rate faster than Windows. There's a difference. release == improvement is a Microsoft fallacy, and using it subjects you to their licensing terms.

Re:Vista anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's improving, not just merely releasing. Just talking about the kernel, there was a lot of changes between 2.2, 2.4, 2.6. A lot.

Re:Vista anyone?

[Respect_my_Authority]

You got it wrong. It's not about greed for money becoming a motivator in developing Debian, it's about enabling some release managers to take a holiday from their day jobs and to concentrate full-time on making sure that Etch gets released according to the schedule.

I think this is a good idea. Volunteer developers don't always have enough time for their GNU/Linux work no matter how motivated they are.

Re:Vista anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, I cannot recommend the Linux-distros I have tried to my friends. They are too difficult to use and especially, too difficult to maintain. And requires too much reading of not-so-good documentation. Documentation is either not kept up to date or just sucks in terms of quality and reader-friendliness. All who disagree with this statement are hardcore nerds who only form a very, very small minority of all computer users in the world.

Re:Vista anyone?

[Kjella]

No, it's releasing at a rate faster than Windows. There's a difference. release == improvement is a Microsoft fallacy, and using it subjects you to their licensing terms.

You just have got to love how slashdot can spin anything to be Microsoft's fault. Release == improvement is a Mircosoft fallacy, from a company that hasn't had a major OS relase since 2001 and an Office release since 2003? I don't think so. What about the community where distros are often releasing at least once every six months, and where almost all software make constant point releases? I'm not going to go into the debate on whether it's a fallacy or not, but if the fallacy is to make many releases and think you're making great improvements then it is surely not made by Microsoft.

Re:Vista anyone?

[darkmeridian]

Dude, but even the latest release of Debian cannot be fairly considered a desktop operating system for the masses. I would figure that Linux desktop has not even reached Windows XP in terms of usability. I run WinXP SP2 with all the updates and I have to say that it's: stable, simpler to use in terms of installing software and hardware, simpler to configure, a more consistent GUI, and better-supported in terms of software. I run ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite, Firefox and run my system behind a cheap SPI firewall/router and that takes care of most of the security problems.

Re:Vista anyone?

[csirac]

All who disagree with this statement are hardcore nerds who only form a very, very small minority of all computer users in the world.

"hardcore nerds" is a bit of an exaggeration. I recommend and have seen reasonable success in the use of Ubuntu with about 2/3 people who have tried it. These people are not nerds, although they do enjoy exploring computers and alternative software.

They do not have the patience or depth of knowledge that a "hardcore nerd" has, but they still find it interesting/useable and in some cases even productive to the extent that it satisfies their daily computing needs without using Microsoft products.

Computing, even when running Microsoft Windows is a frustrating experience for many (most?) users. I would hazard a guess that given a situation where a professional admin can look after a user's PC, Linux can be as productive (potentially more, as I personally find it less distracting) as MS Windows.

Duck tape

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who read it as, "Duck tape to help meet debian etch deadline". Not too far of..

Re:Duck tape

[gr8_phk]

That would be "Duct Tape". What you're talking about is something you use when kidnapping a duck.

Re:Duck tape

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the original name for duct tape was duck tape. See here and here. Apparently it was originally used for kidnapping ducks and only later became used for sealing ducts.

The solution....

[Anonymous Coward]

The solution for Debian is Ubuntu. I just installed Edubuntu for a friend's kid and I couldn't believe how easy the install was and how everything just worked! It was amazing! Even the wireless PCI NIC worked out of the box. I am so impressed with Edubuntu that I switched to Ubuntu for myself. What a great distro! To me the install of Ubuntu is the exact opposite experience with Debian, not to mention when you install Ubuntu you aren't two years behind. Personally I think the Debian people should just hang it up and start working on Ubuntu.

Re:The solution....

[lpcustom]

Personally I think things are perfect the way they are in the Debian and Ubuntu Camps. I use both, Ubuntu on my desktop and Debian on my servers. They both have their place and they both do their jobs well. If anything the Ubuntu people should have called themselves Desktop Debian or something. Debian developers shouldn't hang it up. They are already working on Ubuntu directly. Ubuntu just takes their work and adds a little to it.

Re:The solution....

[swillden]

Personally I think the Debian people should just hang it up and start working on Ubuntu.

The Debian people are working on Ubuntu. And Knoppix. And <insert favorite Debian-derived distro here>.

If the *thousands* of Debian developers stopped doing what they're doing, Ubuntu would grind to a halt. So far Mark Shuttleworth has spent nearly $20M on Ubuntu, and all of that money has accomplished relatively little, from a purely technical perspective. What's great about Canonical's efforts is that what they've done has been focused on polishing the bits needed to make the non-developer's user experience better -- the bits that many (not all) developers tend to be less interested in.

Ubuntu isn't structured to manage the participation of thousands of active developers working on a dozen platforms. If Ubuntu were to restructure to meet that goal, (1) growing pains would cripple the project for a good long while and (2) the result would look a lot like Debian.

IMO, the status quo is better. Ubuntu takes a raw diamond and cuts and polishes it while Debian is busy squeezing carbon deposits into diamond.

BTW, I'm a Debian user, and a software developer, but not a Debian developer. I've tried Ubuntu a couple of times, but always found it to be lacking in software packages I need. I can pull those packages from Debian, of course, but there are always little issues with that, so I find it easier to stick with pure Debian (sid on my desktop, testing on my family's desktops and stable on my servers).

Re:The solution....

[Knuckles]

always found it to be lacking in software packages I need. I can pull those packages from Debian

May I ask which packages these were? AFAICT Ubuntu includes nearly the complete Debian repo if you enable the universe and multiverse repositories which are off by default.

Re:The solution....

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

AFAIK, the problem is that those packages are designed to work with Debian, not Ubuntu, so you end up with more problems than you'd have if you just ran Debian sid.

Personally, I feel that Ubuntu is sort of a Debian for Beginners. As soon as you're no longer a beginner, Debian proper is probably a better option. That said, I still recommend Ubuntu to people who I know are beginners.

Re:The solution....

[Knuckles]

AFAIK, the problem is that those packages are designed to work with Debian, not Ubuntu

I don't know what you mean with "those", if you mean the Ubuntu universe and multiverse repos then you know wrong - those are recompiled for Ubuntu and work (but are unsupported).

Re:The solution....

[davidbeal]

This is a great point about Debian and Ubuntu. I ran Ubuntu recently but was disappointed, so I wiped it and re-installed Debian (unstable). I didn't just re-point the repositories to Debian and apt-get dist-upgrade (ultimately), I did a complete re-install. I've been running Debian since way back when. Not to get involved in a distro war but while Ubuntu cuts the raw diamond that Debian is, it puts some pieces of diamond in its pocket and leaves the user with a smaller chunk. Ubuntu seems to have performed alchemy by converting the Debian diamond into a rhinestone. The concept seems to be that if you start tossing money haphazardly at developers, that they'll produce something better. This is readily accepted by people who come from Microsoft Windows. They seem to think that Linux is "not good" because it is "hard to use." Ask these same people what their definition of "better" is, and they'll probably break it down into "easier." They're usually satisfied when some monkey is paid to sandpaper all the sharp edges for them. Ubuntu promises to be easier, but it isn't. If it were, I would not have wiped it. Easy is a promise that Ubuntu doesn't keep, just like all other for-profit operating systems. Not saying that Ubuntu is a for-profit OS, but it apparently wants to be like one. Mark Shuttleworth's writings show me that he is looking toward Bill Gates and Microsoft Windows when planning his distribution. You don't change the way people use computers by creating a mimicry of an old standard, you create a whole new way of doing things that surpasses the accepted norm. Debian has always "just worked" and that's what made it stand out from the other distributions in the earlier days. Tossing loose change at developers accomplishes nothing but getting them their next cup of coffee (or internet bill) paid for. Paying a developer creates an agreement (implicit or explicit) between the funder and the developer. Developers produce software that is "in the public interest" because they are part of the public themselves. A paid developer produces quality software because they have an implicit or explicit committment to uphold that is bonded with monetary exchange, not because there has been some loose change thrown into their "guitar case" by a random passer-by. It is a criminal, not a developer, that will tell you that there will be better software, if only there could be "more change" in "the guitar case." Dunc-tanc is wrong because it creates committments between donors and recipients that likely don't benefit anyone but the donors and the recipients. Rushing the release of Debian 4 is wrong, and pointless. If you're so hot for new software then you can point your apt.sources to unstable, because "unstable" is what the next "stable" will be, when the name changes. Debian developers have always had a committment to producing quality software. That's what worked for Debian in the past, and it still works for Debian to this day.

Re:The solution....

[BlackCreek]

> Personally, I feel that Ubuntu is sort of a Debian for Beginners.
> As soon as you're no longer a beginner, Debian proper is probably a better option. That said, I still recommend Ubuntu to people who I know are beginners.

I use Debian for ? 11 years or something and have worked as a Debian sysadmin. So... no, I don't think I am a beginner.

I prefer (K)Ubuntu to Debian because, in my understanding, Ubuntu as a community and project understands that their main task is to control the complexity of the operating system. Period.

IMHO Debian, as a project, dont seem to get this. For me, Debian, to some extent, still fells like those old Linux people in the 90s talking about how the system should not be made easier to be used. Again IMHO, using Debian involves an unnecessary amount of effort just to get it running, simply because the mentality is that the system must be shiped naked with no configuration choices made, since after all "real linux people" should always configure the system and learn while doing it, i.e. IMHO they leave unnecessary complexity exposed to the end user.

BTW1: this is my first /. post.
BTW2: I use both Debian and Ubuntu

Re:The solution....

[swillden]

May I ask which packages these were?

Sure. I don't remember what they were, though. I use lots of different packages, installing and uninstalling frequently, and it just seems that every time I try Ubuntu I run into stuff that isn't there, even with multiverse and universe enabled.

Another issue is that Ubuntu's 6-month release cycle means that an Ubuntu system is less up to date than a Debian sid system. That usually doesn't matter, but sometimes it's important.

I also use stuff that Debian doesn't have packaged, building from source, but I'd rather do less of that, so sid seems to be my best bet.

Re:The solution....

[Knuckles]

I see. Yeah, in that case sid is surely the best option for a distro of the debian family. (The ubuntu dev versions are a much tougher ride than sid)

Re:The solution....

[turbidostato]

"I use Debian for ? 11 years (...) the mentality is that the system must be shiped naked with no configuration choices made"

You maybe used Debian for 11 years, but it's obvious you learnt almost nothing in that time.

Re:The solution....

[csirac]

I use Debian for ? 11 years or something and have worked as a Debian sysadmin. ...
Again IMHO, using Debian involves an unnecessary amount of effort just to get it running, simply because the mentality is that the system must be shiped naked with no configuration choices made

Wow. I've only been a Debian user for 5 years, some of that time as an admin.

I use Debian precisely because it saves me from having to configure stuff. I had a need to start developing with Zope the other day, I didn't have to edit a single .conf file to get it up and running - apt did everything for me.

Packages like gforge are utterly remarkable. The debian apt installer scripts ask you basic questions and will setup/configure/create (dbs, tables, domains, user accounts, etc) for every dependency: OpenLDAP, PostgreSQL, Exim, Apache... a fully working and configured system without touching a single configuration file.

For admin/dev stuff, Debian is remarkable. For the Desktop, you have to do some fiddling to get the final 1% functionality, but that's no problem for me. If a noob doesn't want to remember to install nm-applet to get a nice WLAN configuration applet, or which xmodmap commands will make his/her multimedia keys work - then Ubuntu is great.

Re:The solution....

[BlackCreek]

Yes, Debian is great for dev/admin work.

My point when saying that the system ships naked is not only package configuration but also package installation, and no, I don't mean that running "aptitude|apt-get install foo" is a problem (BTW, use aptitude); but that knowing which packages to install can be a problem.

Out of the top of my head I can only think of libpam-devperm and dash as /bin/sh. Another case is when there are 4 or 5 different choices of packages and no indication of which one you should try first.

The problem IMHO being that people assume that whoever is running/installing Debian is a trained sysadmin or developer with time to tinker, not realizing (1) how difficult the system is to untrained people, and (2) how the lack of worry with this issue leads to a system that is more complex than what it should, making it a more time consuming system (to administrate) than what it has to be.

Re:The solution....

[csirac]

Tasksel usually does a reasonable job. Laptop packages do need lots of tweaking. Even if I remember to install nm-applet myself, the security permissions for dbus means that I need to also remember that user accounts need to be members of the netdev group if they want to play with the wireless NIC.

Debian is big. Very big. It tries to be all things to all people. Indeed, it's known as the "universal operating system".

Offering multiple packages to satisfy a dependancy is a good thing: though I agree it would be nice to have a "recommended" item in these cases, it really shouldn't matter (in most cases I've seen) which one you use. And in cases where it does matter, it's usually when you're messing with dev/admin stuff that needs to be understood anyway (e.g. don't know the difference between PostgreSQL vs MySQL? Then why are you installing an SQL server at all?).

Debian's scope is so wide, that making any hard decision at the distro level to force choices onto users is not possible.

One of the hardest things to do in software is limit your scope and narrow it down to something manageable. Enter Ubuntu.

But without Debian, Ubuntu would not exist at all. Even if users aren't running it on their desktop, I think the Debian project's goals are beneficial to all of FLOSS-land, and the problems you're seeing are harder to solve than you think without damaging Debian's usefulness as it stands now.

Compared to RHEL, Slackware and Gentoo (the other distros I've worked with), Debian certainly takes a lot of complexity OUT of my life as a developer.

Debian's installation process is fantastic, as far as I'm concerned - the very same installer runs on everything from circa 1993 Mac pizza boxes to IBM AS/390 mainframes to Sharp Zaurus PDAs... remember the pre-sarge days? Nightmarish! The current install asks very few questions and comes up with a very sane default desktop system if you want it to.

Ubuntu polishes it all off nicely for the newbie, or the Debian user such as yourself who appreciates it.

Pssst

[Anonymous Coward]

is Mark Shuttleworth slipping in a few $$$ here?

debian project leader in the dunk tank

[jasontheking]

ready for a dunking

third picture down

sorry bdale :)

Lottery odds vs Neutron stars

[RidiculousPie]

The chance of some CHOSEN ticket (eg 1 2 3 4 5 6) winning is less than a neutron star, but the chance of ANY of the tickets bought in a lottery winning is much larger.

Re:Lottery odds vs Neutron stars

[Entropy]

What I'd like to know is what length of time constitutes one "ticket" .. the chances of a neutron star coming through in our lifetimes? In a decade? In a year? Per nanosecond?

Re:Lottery odds vs Neutron stars

[lpcustom]

Tell that to the people who CHOSE the winning numbers.

Maybe I need caffiene ..

[Entropy]

But in reading through the "fine" article, I still don't know what the hell "dunc tank" is. (Other than funding for Debian projects.) Anyone care to explain ..?

Re:Maybe I need caffiene ..

[Anonymous Coward]

I still don't know what the hell "dunc tank" is. Anyone care to explain ..?

They're hiring employees to work on the project, for a wage. It's really the only way their project will get done in a timely manner. (I'm having similar problems myself.)

So what is it?

[jdavidb]

After reading the slashdot writeup and the linked page, I still don't know what they're doing. I know they're trying something new for funding, and I know how it got its name, but I still don't know what new thing it is they're trying. If it was in there, it got buried under a mass of other less important details.

I think it means they are going to raise some funds (how?) to pay some developers directly to work exclusively for some time on Etch. But if so, that's not exactly innovative; other projects have done so before (Perl foundation grants, as one of many examples), and I'm surprised Debian hasn't.

oh oh...

[advocate_one]

Towns said a new version of X is expected to be included in unstable in the next day or two, which should allow Debian to support some of the compositing techniques that provide similar features to Mac OS X's "Expose".

haven't they frozen the features of Etch yet??? It's awfully short now to December...

Re:oh oh...

[krmt]

The X featureset is pretty close to frozen actually. Xorg 7.2 will release far too close to the Etch release to actually make it in, so 7.1+updates is what will ship with Etch. The only features for X that are still being considered are related to what the article mentioned (XGL, AIGLX, and compiz).

How does it work?

[Kadin2048]

I RTFAed, but I still don't understand exactly how the program is going to work, where the money is going to come from, or what the controversy is about.

They call it "coin operated coding," but are they going to let users choose what work their money gets used to fund? So if I want, say, better window transparency, then I can donate $20 and he'll spend 15 or 30 minutes working on that someday? Or is it just the electronic version of one of those "money thermometers" that everyone's seen in front of their local Lion's Club / Church / Women's Auxiliary, proclaiming how close or far away donors are from a predetermined goal that will allow something to happen?

For something that's being touted as a new method of funding, it sure seems rather vaporous to me. Anyone want to fill in on exactly how it's supposed to work?

Re:How does it work?

[xoundmind]

One way it might work: Mark Shuttleworth opens his pockets and sets up a small endowment to fund Debian release engineers.
He can certainly afford it and it would be a double payback. And very smart if he intends to have Canonical make money on the back of Debian.

Re:How does it work?

[David Greene]

They call it "coin operated coding," but are they going to let users choose what work their money gets used to fund? So if I want, say, better window transparency, then I can donate $20 and he'll spend 15 or 30 minutes working on that someday?

I don't know if Dunc-Tank will work that way, but GNU Lilypond works that way. Users write up proposals with specs and submit them to the developers, who decide on the appropriate charge for the work. Users have been known to pool resources to get some pretty amazing features added.

It's a fantastic way to develop Free Software, but it requires developers who are very responsive to users and able to look past their own assumptions and ways of doing things.

people need pay to get job done, news at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

News such as this makes me happy. Free Software has so often been about privileged kids coding in their free time for ego and CV bulking, but in the real world, people need to be compensated to dedicate sufficient time and resources to developing great products.

Which means a profit-making business model.

Or donations, which are merely redirected profits from another successful business.

Capitalism is a logical consequence of free will, guys. Embrace and enjoy it.

website design please

[asv108]

I realize that its common for developers to write barebones HTML 1.0 compliant web pages, but if your asking people for money, you need something that looks a little better than this..

If your going to ask for money on a website, have it so people have 1-2 clicks to contribute.. Even if its pledges, have it so the pledges are processed when the project is approved.. Right now they are essentially turning away thousands in contributions, especially with this type of publicity.

Re:website design please

[krunk7]

This site (Dunc Tank) has to be the downright worst attempt at fund raising I've ever seen in my life.

The ironic thing is, it's representative of far too many open source documentation projects. Not that anyone in their right mind would think you need documentation for a monatary contribution. Seriously, people don't give a crap abotu wading through a few pages of latex2html just to kick $5 (or $100 for that matter) to a decent project only to find out they need to email some guy and pledge the doe.

Here's a tip, try this out for size:

Help keep the Debian Project on track!
Every bit helps [Click Here to Show Your Support]

Of course, I'm sure Debian probably doesn't want money from people too impatient to RTFDD (read teh fucking donation documentation)

Re:website design please

[swillden]

Seriously, people don't give a crap abotu wading through a few pages of latex2html just to kick $5 (or $100 for that matter) to a decent project only to find out they need to email some guy and pledge the doe.

It's quite clear you didn't really look at the site. I looked at the home page, clicked the "contribute" link and then found, first sentence of first paragraph:

Dunc is currently waiting on a decision by the SPI board as to whether it will be accepted as an SPI project and donations may be made via SPI. Until then, we can only accept pledges, not actual donations.

If they're accepted as an SPI project, they'll be able to accept donations via the infrastructure that SPI has already set up. If not, I'm sure they'll find another mechanism, though that other mechanism may not have tax-exempt status for a while, since it takes time to do the paperwork and acquire that.

If there's a problem here, it's that this news was released before Dunc-Tank was really ready to go. According to the article, however, they've already received pledges of plenty of money, so it's not clear that there's really *any* problem.

Re:website design please

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

I realize that its common for developers to write barebones HTML 1.0 compliant web pages, but if your asking people for money, you need something that looks a little better than this.

HTML 1.0 has nothing to do with it. It's just a poor site design.

Uhm, no?

[abrotman]

I've been using Debian for quite some time, and to me the point of Debian is stability. I couldn't give a rat's ass when etch releases as long as it works the way Debian is meant to. Please don't force the release to meet a deadline. You'll only be hurting the users that depend on Debian to be a stable and functional system.

Re:Uhm, no?

[DjReagan]

Well, if you'd checked out the site, you'd have see on the project page that it states as one of the criteria:

• Must meet Debian's usual standard of releasing "when it's ready"

Etch Installed This Week...

[mpapet]

and it lives up to the Debian standard of reliable running, even in testing.

They've got a nice fully functioning gui net installer for etch that worked perfectly for me on a Dell 2300 server with raided SCSI drives. I did a basic LAMP+desktop install. They changed the default sshd install to use keys. (as in public key in ~/.ssh/known_hosts file) Excellent! I'm looking forward to finding more of my usual security tweeks configured as default.

It's testing, so the usual security warnings apply.

I think that there may be a little more sense of urgency at the Debian project with some legitimate competition from deep-pockets Shuttleworth. My etch install suggests they are responding with better product and new ideas to accelerate the development pace.

Install it today! http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

People are CHEAP

[drwho]

If this works, it's a great idea.

I've been been bankrupted by my involvement with a free municipal wifi project. For the better part of a year, I've been plugging away at developement, installation, and worst of all, attending endless meetings. The problem is that once you give the consumer (the public, the city, whomever) some free work, and talk about how you really like the open source movement, they think you'll do everything for free. They think that money just grows on trees for you, or that you are living in your parents' basement and content with it. Well, it doesn't work that way. Sure, I put in time and money towards seeing a worthy project get off the ground, but I am not going to carry the whole burden all the way to the projects completion. There needs to be some fundraising, and most especially, a system of paying for specific problems to be worked on.

I've basically dropped all work on the muni wifi project, but there's an effort on to find the next sucker to do some work on it. I doubt it's going to happen - the deadlines are long since missed, and they can't even get volunteers to update and freshen the web page. Cognitive dissonance at work here.

I really hope DUNC-TANK can reach the folks who realize that while there are many contributors, you need a few talented, full-time people to meet deadlines by coordinating efforts and delegating work. These people have real lives, and need to be paid.

'Free as in beer' doesn't work?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this is a horrificly bad idea since it would be the ultimate proof (at least in my eyes) that "Free software, as in beer" does not work.

If you're going to actually pay people to deliver your product, then whats stopping you from adding software with a "difficult" license to the repositories (it will only make the software "more usefull" afterall)? Oh, and who is going to pay for all this? I know, turn Debian into the "cheapest Linux ever! For only $0,10 you can download the entire product and help the OSS community".

I think I'll pass...

Hey Buddy, can you spare a deb?

[FishandChips]

Fine balancing act, I guess. Debian has to commit to quality because without that it is nothing - there would be no point in using it. OTOH, there are other pressures, too, not least being seen to run a well-founded ship. Users out there, particularly institutional ones, are bound to have expectations. For example, today the City of Munich announced the latest stage in its Debian rollout, but they likely wouldn't have gone for Debian to begin with if they'd thought its development process was struggling. And maybe some folks - quite understandably - want to lay a few ghosts to rest after the soap opera of the Sarge release.

So paying a couple of guys (and only if needed) to help get this huge and complex project out on time doesn't seem a big deal. If the quality is still not there, I am sure Debian will delay the release anyway. I guess what this shows is that there is a lot of competition out there now - Ubuntu, CentOS, etc - and Debian can't afford to go "ivory tower" despite what some of its developers probably think. The Dunc-Tank board has some very solid and experienced people on it. Best to wish them well. They are hardly looking to raise zillions, just a decent wage for the best talent available.