blog/archives/2013/04zack's home pagehttp://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/archives/2013/04/zack's home pageikiwiki2013-04-16T14:52:48Zbits from the DPL for March-April 2013http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2013/04/bits_from_the_DPL_for_March-April_2013/2013-04-16T14:52:48Z2013-04-16T14:52:48Z
<p>Dear Project Members,<br /></p>
<pre><code> "Now that I have your attention, I would like to make the following
delegations:"
</code></pre>
<p>... nah, scrap that. In my last day in office I first of all owe
you a report of DPL activities for the last reporting period of
this term, i.e. March 8th until today. Here it is!</p>
<h1>Highlights</h1>
<ul>
<li>
<p>At LibrePlanet (see below) I've discussed at length with Karen
Sandler as GNOME representative the possibility of Debian
participation in the <a href=
"https://live.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen">FOSS Outreach
Program for Women</a>. I've then <a href=
"https://lists.debian.org/debian-women/2013/03/msg00013.html">proposed</a>
that we do participate and, as you might have read <a href=
"https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2013/04/msg00001.html">
on d-d-a</a>, we're now doing that. Many thanks to the volunteer
co-organizers for Debian participation in the program: Mònica
Ramírez Arceda, Ana Guerrero López, and Patty Langasek.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>A couple of years of work with the auditors has come together.
At <code>elgar.debian.org:/srv/accounting.debian.org/ledger/</code>
you can now find Debian monetary transactions for the 2010-2013
period. Note that:</p>
<p>1) They are not <em>all</em> of our transactions, most notably
because we haven't yet managed to get access to all our bank
transactions at SPI (while we do have access to other transactions
there, e.g. donations). Given the relevance of the missing
transactions for our budget, this is a blocker for producing
meaningful public periodic reports of Debian finances. This is
clearly annoying, but I'm confident that our feedback to SPI over
the past years has helped them better understand our needs and
improve. I hope this could be finally solved during the next DPL
term. And,</p>
<p>2) Donor names have been anonymized in the ledger files, in wait
of a donation system that allow to express privacy preferences.
Complete donation information is available in the companion
ledger.git repository, which is accessible to auditors only.</p>
<p>I'd like to thank the Debian auditors, and in particular Martin
Michlmayr, for their amazing work on this over the past 3
years.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>As you might have noticed, we now have an <a href=
"http://bits.debian.org/">official Debian Project blog</a>, finally
entering the brave new Web 1.5 era <img src=
"http://upsilon.cc/~zack/smileys/smile.png" alt=":-)" /> I've only helped
"politically" here and there with this over the years, and I'm
happy to see it live. Your thanks for this should go to the blog
editors---Francesca Ciceri and Ana Guerrero Lopez---and to DSA for
making it real. A proper delegation for the editors is pending and
I'm confident the next DPL will pick it up.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h1>Talks</h1>
<p>Over the past month or so I've attended and spoken on behalf of
Debian in the following occasions:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>"Debian: 20 years and counting" talk at the <a href=
"http://www.nylug.org/">New York Linux User Group</a>; <a href=
"http://upsilon.cc/~zack/talks/2013/20130320-nylug.pdf">slides</a>
are available. Many thanks to Brian Gupta and Tom Limoncelli for
inviting me.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>"Debian and GNU" talk at <a href=
"http://libreplanet.org/wiki/LibrePlanet2013">LibrePlanet 2013</a>;
<a href=
"http://upsilon.cc/~zack/talks/2013/20130324-libreplanet.pdf">slides</a>
are available. Many thanks to John Sullivan and the Free Software
Foundation for inviting me to talk at their main conference. My
presence there has also been a chance to reassess the status of
collaboration with FSF (see <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/fsf-collab-discuss/2013-March/000383.html">
John's brief summary</a>) and discuss further technical
collaboration with the Trisquel maintainers.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>"Legal issues from a radical community angle" keynote at the
yearly workshop of <a href=
"http://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/ftf.en.html">FSFE's European Legal
Network</a>; <a href=
"http://upsilon.cc/~zack/talks/2013/20130404-fsfe-legal.pdf">slides</a>
are available. The talk has also been covered by a <a href=
"https://lwn.net/Articles/546411/">LWN feature article</a> last
week (the link should become unembargoed for non-LWN subscribers
starting tomorrow).</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h1>Assets</h1>
<p>I've approved the budget for the following forthcoming <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/Sprints">sprints</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/GroupwareMeeting2013-04-12to14">6th Debian
Groupware Meeting</a> (~500 EUR)</li>
<li><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/Sprints/2013/DSASprint">DSA
sprint</a> (~3'000 EUR)</li>
</ul>
<p>Also, we've bought a 3-year warranty pack for the disk array
that powers ftp-master.d.o (~900 USD).</p>
<p>On the income side, Brian Gupta has started an interesting
<a href=
"http://blog.debconf.org/blog/2013/03/20#dr_dc13_matching_fund">matching
fund experiment</a>, in order to raise funds for the forthcoming
DebConf13. The matching fund will be open until April 30th, so your
help in spreading news would be welcome. Many thanks to Brian for
the idea and to his company, Brandorr Group, for funding it.</p>
<h1>DPL helpers</h1>
<p>Three more DPL helpers IRC meetings have been held; <a href=
"http://meetbot.debian.net/debian-dpl/2013/debian-dpl.2013-03-12-17.59.html">
minutes</a> <a href=
"http://meetbot.debian.net/debian-dpl/2013/debian-dpl.2013-03-26-17.59.html">
are</a> <a href=
"http://meetbot.debian.net/debian-dpl/2013/debian-dpl.2013-04-09-16.59.html">
available</a> at the usual place.</p>
<h1>Legal Spring Cleaning</h1>
<p>I've finally cleaned up the pile of pending legal matters (but
I'm sure new ones will show up for the delight of the next DPL
:-P)</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>one is merely internal for trademark@d.o: our procedures for
(n)acks on incoming requests has now been vetted by our legal
advisors</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>the second one is relevant for our mentors.debian.net service:
one of the blockers to officialize it as mentors.debian.org have
historically been DMCA-related concerns. We now have a DMCA policy
for (wannabe) mentors.d.o, which I've shared with the service
maintainers and DSA. This specific part should no longer be a
concern.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>the last one concerns the possibilities of playing DVDs with
Debian. We now have legal guidelines on how to include
<em>installer</em> packages that allow to do so; that should allow
us to have a decent solution for our users in the Jessie time
frame.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Once again, I'd like to thank SFLC for the pro bono and very
high quality legal advice they keep on offering to Debian.</p>
<h1>Miscellaneous</h1>
<ul>
<li>I've mentioned last month that, as a Debian representative,
I've joined a working group by the Italian public administration
(PA) that should define procurement rules for software in the PA at
large, together with representatives of other well-known FOSS
initiatives (e.g. KDE, FSFE). The first meetings have now been held
and I've participate in some, for the moment on my own budget. I'll
check with the next DPL the feasibility of keep on doing so on in
the future.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<p>Now, before I get sentimental, let me thank Gergely, Lucas, and
Moray for running in the recently concluded DPL election. Only
thinking of running and then go through a campaign denote a very
high commitment to the Project; we should all be thankful to
them.</p>
<p>Then I'd like to congratulate Lucas for his election. I've known
him for a long time, and I can testify about his clear vision of
the role Debian has to play in Free Software and on what Debian
needs to improve to do so. Best wishes for the term ahead,
Lucas!</p>
<p>Finally, I'd like to thank you all for the support you've shown
me over the past 3 years. Serving as DPL is a great honor, but also
a very demanding job. Thank to you all, and to how cool Debian is,
it has been for me an incredibly rewarding experience. I had no
idea what I were doing when I embarked on this adventure, but in
hindsight I don't regret any of it. See you around, as I don't plan
to be anywhere far away from Debian anytime soon.</p>
<p>Cheers.</p>
<hr />
<p>PS the day-to-day activity logs for March and April 2013 are
available at the usual place
<code>master:/srv/leader/news/bits-from-the-DPL.txt.20130{3,4}</code></p>