Yes, the title of this post is yet another FTWCA. The question is, do YOU still care about the Debian Project ?
I refused to take part to the recent flames, aka the FTWCA threads, but given the upcoming DPL election and the recent events, I feel it’s time to write something up about the current status of the Project. I’d like my readers to ask themselves: “Do I still care about the Debian Project, about its goals, about its spirit, about what it really is ?”. You may find that the answer to this question won’t be the one you expected, either way.
Before reading further, you may want to quickly google for “Teletubbies” if you don’t know what this thing is. It may help you better understand the rest of this post. This post is a long one, thanks in advance to all of you who will read it until the end.
I may refer to some people in this post. This is by no mean a personal attack, so please don’t take it as such.
Recent events
I mentionned “recent events” earlier, here are the events I am referring to: the FTWCA threads, DDs willing to expel Andrew Suffield because of his post to d-d-a, listmaster deciding to block Andrew from posting to d-d-a again, Raphaël Hertzog promoting his “social pressure” thing again, and some other bits that happened here and there.
The problem: a bunch of Teletubbies
The Debian Project is a technical community, which some DDs are now trying to turn into a social community. Obviously, this can’t work. Why ? For a start, because the NM process has not been designed to select people based on social abilities (there’s a minimum, though, but other than that, that’s absolutely not the point of the NM process). New developers are selected on purely technical criterions, which is what you would expect from a technical community like ours. Adding social tests and whatnot isn’t going to help; the NM process is enough of a pain in the ass already for the applicants.
We are a thousand Free Software hackers collaborating to the Project, dedicated to producing the best operating systems ever, and we want these operating systems to be Free Software, as defined by our guidelines on that matter, that is, to say, the DFSG.
We all agree with the Foundation Documents of the Debian Project, we agree with the DMUP, and that’s pretty much all we all agree with. We never agreed to be nice to each other, we never agreed to group hugs at developer’s meetings or anything else.
Our beloved Teletubbies are complaining about the “frequent” flamewars that happen on the Debian lists, and to be honest, one must acknowledge the fact that those flamewars have been a bit too frequent recently. What I find quite amusing, really, is that most of these flamewars have been started by one of the Teletubbies and mention Ubuntu.
Now the same people want to come up with a mailing-lists code of conduct, similar to the one Ubuntu has. Ironic, isn’t it ?
The same people are willing to expel Andrew for his post on d-d-a. Is it coherent ?
The whole “social pressure” thing is nothing less than intimidation, and this is not acceptable. Similarly, the reactions to Andrew’s post on d-d-a aren’t acceptable either.
Why ? Because this Project used to be open-minded. It looks like a bunch of people lost this, and I really feel sorry for them. Your reactions to Andrew’s post are really over-exagerated. You need to take a break and a reality check. If you aren’t open-minded enough to grok Andrew’s post, you’re not open-minded enough for this Project, or even for Free Software.
Some of you also need to come back down to Earth. We are a volunteers organization producing Free OSes. We are doing it all for fun, so stop being so fucking serious and pull that tree out of your ass. You’ll feel better afterwards.
It’s also quite amusing when the same people are announcing, on side channels (IRC, …), that J. Doe made it to their kill-file. I don’t use kill-files myself, because I believe that everybody has something interesting to say, because this is an open-minded Free Software Project, because the people I would kill-file might be maintaining something someday related to the packages I maintain and I’d need to work with them. No matter what I think of my fellow DDs, I never refused to work with anyone.
People please, learn to put the Project’s interests before yours.
Why ? Why now ?
Why ? Because I joined a technical community of Free Software hackers, not a social community of Free Software integrists to spend my holidays with.
Why now ? Because the vote on GR 2006_01 is currently running. Because the DPL election is on its way too, it’s that time of the year again. Because out of 7 candidates, 5 are, to diverse degrees, Teletubbies and 1 is the worst DPL candidate EVER (if you don’t know why and are a DD, log on to master and grep for his email address in the -private archives. Not his name, because his firstname at the time was Jonathan — something you must think about when you’ll vote). That leaves one sane candidate only; Bill, I hope your platform will be good.
Solutions ?
Realize that the Debian Project is the Debian Project and has nothing to do with Ubuntu, remember its goals, its spirit, remember why you joined (if you joined to get the @debian.org address, GO AWAY).
This means:
- Debian is not Ubuntu, stop trying to copy everything Ubuntu does;
- Stop the social madness, we’re a technical community;
- People need to learn to put Debian’s interests before their owns.
Remember that there is only a limited number of people making a lot of noise. So if you belong to what I believe is a silent majority, please raise your voice. Help tell those people to FOAD and let’s get back to work.
When you’ll vote for the DPL election, please, think twice. Be extra-careful, most of the candidates are really good politicians.