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

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

Direct link...

[mutube]

Dunc-Tank.

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: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).