blog/archives/2012/11zack's home pagehttp://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/archives/2012/11/zack's home pageikiwiki2012-11-26T13:28:06Zmini debconf paris 2012http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2012/11/mini_debconf_paris_2012/2012-11-26T13:28:06Z2012-11-26T13:28:06Z
<h1>rc bugs, cloud, and getting involved</h1>
<p>This past week-end has been rather intense. In addition to
another, non free software related <a href=
"http://partitodemocraticoparigi.org/blog/?page_id=1182">event</a>
I was volunteering for, I had the pleasure to participate in the
2nd <a href="http://fr2012.mini.debconf.org/">Paris mini
DebConf</a>.</p>
<p>Once again, the organization has been great and the average
quality of the talks have been very high. I'd say talk quality is
now totally up to par with the yearly full blown <a href=
"http://www.debconf.org">DebConf</a> (and yes, talks have been in
English <img src="http://upsilon.cc/~zack/smileys/tongue.png" alt=":-P" /> ).
If I had to single the talk that intrigued me the most, I'd name
Joss' talk on <a href=
"http://fr2012.mini.debconf.org/slides/LargeGnomeDeployment.pdf">large
GNOME deployments</a>: it's full of insights on the GNOME
architecture and of <a href=
"http://identi.ca/notice/98075569">tips</a> useful to all power
users, no matter the size of your GNOME "deployment". For more info
on the talks have a look at the <a href=
"http://fr2012.mini.debconf.org/#schedule">program</a>. To catch up
with the talks you missed you can peruse the slides there and/or
keep an eye on <a href=
"http://video.debian.net">http://video.debian.net</a>, where we
usually post conference videos "when they are ready".</p>
<p>At the conference I've also witnessed the usual healthy mix of
country origins that <a href=
"http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2010/10/mini_debconf_paris_-_success/">I
remember</a> from the previous Paris mini DebConf. Once again I've
been happy to meet (and host!) Debian friends from many countries
including Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Finland, … you name
it. Kudos to the organizers (hi <a href=
"http://sylvestre.ledru.info/blog/sylvestre">Sylvestre</a> and
<a href=
"http://blog.dogguy.org/search/label/planetdebian">Mehdi</a>!) and
to all the volunteers who made this possible.</p>
<p>On my part, I didn't have any full blown talk scheduled
(<code>ETOOMANYTALKS</code> struck me this month…) but I did book
two lightning talks slots that I've used for:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href=
"http://upsilon.cc/~zack/talks/2012/20121125-minidc-rcbugs.pdf">rambling
on <strong>RC bugs</strong></a> and the effects of long freezes on
Debian</li>
<li>presenting the <a href=
"http://upsilon.cc/~zack/talks/2012/20121125-minidc-cloud.pdf"><strong>
debian-cloud</strong></a> initiative, which is rather new but
incredibly active and effective despite its infancy</li>
</ul>
<p>On the subject of lightning talks, I also recommend to promote
Lucas' talk on <a href=
"http://www.lucas-nussbaum.net/blog/?p=741"><strong>how to get
involved</strong> in Debian</a>. It's dense and straight to the
point, able to both convey useful tips and point wannabe
contributors to the most useful contributions they can make to
Debian.</p>
Debian newcomer experience surveyhttp://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2012/11/Debian_newcomer_experience_survey/2012-11-12T21:12:18Z2012-11-12T21:06:42Z
<p>In recent times we have worked quite a bit to improve the
<a href="http://nm.debian.org">NM process</a>, i.e. the process
newcomers go through to become members of the Debian Project. As it
happens, I've just read <a href=
"http://people.ubuntu.com/~nhandler/blog/archive/2012/11/Debian_Developer.html">
Nathan's recent post</a> on his NM experience and I think it is a
perfect example of the joining experience we are trying to offer to
<em>all</em> newcomers.</p>
<p>But examples, be them positive or negative, are only anecdotal.
To evaluate a process one needs actual data and someone analyzing
them, ideally with a scientific approach. This is why I'm happy to
host below a <strong>guest blog post by Kevin Carillo</strong>, who
is doing a pretty thorough scientific study about how newcomers
join a wide range of Free Software projects, including <a href=
"http://blog.lydiapintscher.de/2012/11/08/guest-post-newcomer-experience-in-kde-and-other-foss-communities-survey/">
KDE</a>, <a href=
"http://news.opensuse.org/2012/11/07/newcomer-experience-in-opensuse-and-other-foss-communities-survey/">
OpenSUSE</a>, <a href=
"http://blogs.gnome.org/gnomg/2012/11/07/newcomer-experience-survey/">
GNOME</a>, and Debian, of course!</p>
<p><strong>TL;DR</strong>: if you started contributing to Debian
after January 2010, there's a <a href=
"https://limesurvey.sim.vuw.ac.nz/index.php?sid=65151&lang=en">survey</a>
for you; participating will help us improving the NM process even
further.</p>
<p>Kevin's guest blog post follows.</p>
<hr />
<h1>Newcomer experience in Debian and other FOSS communities -
Survey</h1>
<p>My name is Kevin Carillo. I am a PhD student currently living in
Wellington (New Zealand) and I am doing some research on Free/Open
Source Software communities.</p>
<p>If you have started contributing to the Debian project after
January 2010 (within approximately the last 3 years), I would like
to kindly request your help. I am interested in hearing from people
who are either technical or non-technical contributors, and who
have had either positive or negative newcomer experiences.</p>
<p>The purpose of the research is to work out how newcomers to a
FOSS community become valued sustainable contributors.</p>
<p><a href=
"https://limesurvey.sim.vuw.ac.nz/index.php?sid=65151&lang=en">The
survey is online</a> and will be available until Tuesday, 27
November, 2012.</p>
<h2>Inspiration from Debian New Member</h2>
<p>Debian is a successful community that keeps attracting new
contributors and that relies on a very unique way to handle the
integration of new contributors: the <a href=
"http://nm.debian.org">New Member process</a>.</p>
<p>The idea behind the NM process is that it is some sort of
filtering procedure allowing to only retain the individuals who
have the potential to become valued sustainable contributors in
Debian. Within Debian, there is a lot of enthusiasm and pride
around the NM process as it seems to be functioning pretty well but
the question is: Is this really enough to ensure that Debian
remains a healthy and growing community? How does it compare to the
way newcomers are integrated in other large projects such as KDE,
GNOME, or in other non-Linux related communities such as
Mozilla?</p>
<p>I have to admit that the Debian NM process has been among the
main sources of inspiration that made me embark in this research
project. I have kept being quite impressed when talking to people
who had gone through the process as all of them came out of it with
a real passion for the project and love for its community.</p>
<p>When reflecting on the reasons why the NM process succeeds, I
have a feeling it is some instance of ritualized socialization. In
other words, barriers and initiation rituals that require some
effort from newcomers, generate members with higher commitment and
sense of identification towards the Debian community.</p>
<h2>What do newcomers really experience?</h2>
<p>The main assumption that motivated this project is that
attracting new members has become crucial for a large majority of
FOSS communities but this is not a sufficient condition to ensure
the success and prosperity of a project. A proportion of a
community's newcomers must contribute to the well-being and growth
of the community.</p>
<p>Keeping all that in mind, FOSS projects have thus to do a good
job at "socializing" their newcomers and turning them into 'good'
contributors. Doing a good job here means that FOSS projects shall
ensure that they help generate citizenship-like behaviors from
newcomers by designing appropriate newcomer programs and
procedures.</p>
<p>FOSS communities rely on a wide array of initiatives to
facilitate the integration of newcomers but it seems like the other
side of the coin is less understood: What do newcomers really
experience? And how does this influence their contributions and
actions within a project?</p>
<h2>How is this study going to help Debian?</h2>
<p>The data will help gain insights about the experience of
newcomers within the Debian community. In addition, it will allow
to understand how to design effective newcomer initiatives to
ensure that Debian will remain a successful and healthy
community.</p>
<p>The dataset will be released under a share-alike <a href=
"http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/">ODbL license</a> so
that Debian contributors can extract as much value as possible from
the data. Since this survey also involves other large FOSS projects
such as Mozilla, KDE, Gnome, Ubuntu, Gentoo, OpenSUSE, and NetBSD,
it will also be possible to compare practices across projects in
order to identify what works from what does not work when
facilitating the integration of newcomers.</p>
<h2>About the survey</h2>
<p>This survey is anonymous. The raw dataset of everything one
fills in the survey will be released under the ODbL. Since all the
questions but one are optional, one is free to control the amount
of information they are giving away about themselves.</p>
<p>I expect the survey to take around 20 minutes of your time.</p>
<p>If you know members of the Debian community who you think would
be interested in completing it, please do not hesitate to let them
know about this research.</p>
<p>I will post news about my progress with this research, and the
results on <a href="http://kevincarillo.org">my blog</a>. Don't
hesitate to <a href="mailto:kevin.carillo@vuw.ac.nz">contact
me</a>.</p>
<p>--- Kevin Carillo</p>
bits from the DPL for October 2012http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2012/11/bits_from_the_DPL_for_October_2012/2012-11-06T18:10:57Z2012-11-06T18:10:57Z
<p><a href=
"https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/11/msg00000.html">
Freshly baked</a>, bits from the DPL for October 2012.</p>
<hr />
<p>Dear Project Members,<br />
another month, another periodic report of DPL-ish activities, this
time for October 2012.</p>
<h1>Highlights</h1>
<h2>Debian on public clouds</h2>
<p>I've spent quite some time to improve Debian presence on the so
called "public clouds". Following up to an inquiry of a fellow
developer, I've reached out to Microsoft to investigate the
possibility of having Debian as an option on Windows Azure. Around
the same time, I've been approached by Amazon to have Debian as an
option on the AWS marketplace. In both cases, we will need to
overcome challenges of various kinds, at the technical (e.g. image
preparation), bureaucratic (e.g. terms of the agreements we'll need
to accept to be present), and political (e.g. chain of trust,
platform freedom) levels.</p>
<p>Up to now, discussions have been going on mostly in private,
simply because they started as 1-to-1 inquiries and continued from
there, but there is no good reason they should remain so. Hence,
thanks to the listmasters and in particular Alexander Wirt, we have
setup the new <a href=
"https://lists.debian.org/debian-cloud/">debian-cloud mailing
list</a>. If you are interested in these topics please join the
list.</p>
<p>For both Azure and AWS there is good progress on the technical
part already; summaries will soon be posted on the list so that we
are all on the same page. Similarly, I'll post there status reports
about the bureaucratic requirements. And of course there is no
reason to focus on specific clouds, if you'd like to support others
and are willing to put some work to that end, please join the list
and let us know.</p>
<h2>DPL helpers meeting</h2>
<p>I've already bothered you—at least in my last platform and
<a href=
"http://upsilon.cc/~zack/talks/2012/20120708-dc12-dpl.pdf">DebConf13
talk</a>—with observations about how non-scalable the DPL job is.
After having collected applications of DPL helpers for a while,
I've finally sat down and tried to put those applications into good
use. The idea is simple: to the extend of possible, we should shift
from a one-man-band job to a more "board-like" job, with people
sharing an agenda, a list of outstanding tasks, and public
communication. We have started slowly, setting up the #debian-dpl
IRC channel and running periodic bi-weekly meetings there. You can
find the meeting minutes and full logs at the <a href=
"http://meetbot.debian.net">usual place</a>.</p>
<p>We are still ramping up, so we don't have yet "fancy" stuff like
a mailing list or an issue tracker entry, but they're in the
working. Some of the outcome are starting to show, too (e.g. as
part of recent discussions on 3rd party orphaning, or on our
inbound trademark policy, or even in the forthcoming DMCA policy to
make mentors.d.n an official project service).</p>
<p>It's an experiment and a big challenge. I'm, for one thing, not
yet convinced there are enough people interested in sharing the
load of DPL duties (that look boring, for many tech geeks) in the
long run. But I'm also convinced that the sustainability of the
Debian organization model depends on this, so it's worth trying. If
you're interested in the challenge and willing to volunteer some of
your time, please join us on #debian-dpl . I'll take care of
keeping the project informed of further evolution, in particular
about the communication channels we will pick for day to day
activities and accountability.</p>
<h1>Events / public communication</h1>
<p>I've spent most of my remaining Debian time in October attending
events on behalf of the Project, in particular:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>I've attended and delivered a Debian speech at ACM <a href=
"http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/conference/2012/index.php">Reflections
Projections conference</a> in Urbana-Champaign, USA. <a href=
"http://upsilon.cc/~zack/talks/2012/20121006-uuic.pdf">Slides</a>
and even a <a href=
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huAREHKaUDE">video</a> of my talk
there are available.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>I've attended and delivered a Debian speech at the yearly
LinuxDay event in Turin, Italy. <a href=
"http://upsilon.cc/~zack/talks/2012/20121027-linuxday.pdf">Slides</a>
of my talk are available</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>I've then attended the by-yearly Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS)
in Copenhagen, representing Debian there. I've met a bunch of
people there, generally vouching for more (and more (and more…))
collaborating at the Debian-Ubuntu border. I've also attended the
traditional Debian-Ubuntu "health check" session, presenting there
the topics <a href=
"https://lists.debian.org/debian-derivatives/2012/10/msg00015.html">
I've collected</a> on the -derivatives list. A report of the
session is pending, but I should have successfully talked Stefano
Rivera into posting it to -derivatives soon <em>g</em>.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>On the topic of public communication, I've also coordinated with
the press team an answer to a press inquiry about Secure Boot
(which has become part of <a href=
"http://www.itwire.com/business-it-news/open-source/57003-debian-undecided-on-method-for-secure-boot">
this article</a>), and happily <a href=
"http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2012/10/put_some_Debian_salt_in_the_Ubuntu_charity_marathon/">
vouched</a> for the Ubuntu charity marathon, adding some Debian
challenges to it.</p>
<h1>Delegations</h1>
<p>As largely overdue matters, I've finalized the delegations
mentioned last month, namely: <a href=
"https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/10/msg00004.html">
FTP masters</a>, <a href=
"https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/10/msg00005.html">
New Members Front Desk</a>, and <a href=
"https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/10/msg00006.html">
Policy editors</a>.</p>
<h1>Assets and legal stuff</h1>
<ul>
<li>
<p>on the logo relicensing, one pending matter from last month was
the non-free-ness of the so called "official" logo. <a href=
"https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2012/10/msg00002.html">Discussion</a>
continued, but we had no consensus in ditching it completely.
Rather, I've proposed to bless as "official" Debian logo the free
one, and rename the other for what it is, a "restricted" Debian
logo. The change was consensual and has been implemented</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>our account creation request to softchoice.com has been
approved, meaning that we can now more easily buy hardware in North
America, reducing a bit the bureaucratic burden associated to
individual purchases. Thanks to DSA, and Luca Filipozzi in
particular, for his help with this matter</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>there are a couple of legal matters on which there have been
progress, but still inconclusive. Just to mention that they haven't
been forgotten, they are the DMCA policy for mentors.d.o and the
appropriate presentation for a forthcoming libdvdcss installer
package in the archive</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h1>Miscellanea</h1>
<ul>
<li>
<p>sadly, we have found no volunteer admin for the Google Code-In
initiative, so we won't participate this year</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>the end of 2012 is approaching, <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/Sprints">sprint</a>-wise, we have had
roughly the same number of sprints than the previous year (8 vs 9).
Please start planning your sprints for 2013, so that we can
minimize travel costs and bring more people at the event!</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Now let's all go back to RC Bug squashing to make Wheezy a
reality. SPAM-my link of the month is <a href=
"http://udd.debian.org/bugs.cgi">http://udd.debian.org/bugs.cgi</a>
and its various "views" at the bottom of the page.</p>
<p>Cheers.</p>
<hr />
<p>PS the day-to-day activity log for October 2012 is available at
the usual place
<code>master:/srv/leader/news/bits-from-the-DPL.txt.201210</code></p>