REPOST: Election Platforms

[Daniel Quinlan <quinlan@pathname.com>]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

This has been requested a few times, so I'm reposting Bruce's list of
candidates.  Since I have not received any additional platforms, it is
unchanged.

- ------- start of forwarded message (RFC 934 encapsulation) -------
From: bruce@pixar.com (Bruce Perens)
To: quinlan@pathname.com, debian-private@lists.debian.org
Subject: Election platforms
Date: Wed, 22 Jan 97 22:37 PST

Here's the election stuff I have so far. If you haven't sent in your
platform or would like to declare candidacy, please send it to Dan
Quinlan. He's running the election. He gets to make the election rules.
I'll be mobile but on email.

	Thanks

	Bruce

Here are the declared candidates.

Dale Scheetz
Brian C. White
Bruce Perens
Dan Quinlan
Klee Dienes
Ian Jackson
Ian Murdock
Steve Greenland
Chris Fearnley
Christophe Lameter
Philipe Troin
Vincent Renardias - doesn't want to submit a platform.
Sven Rudolph

Here are the platforms I have so far.

DALE SCHEETZ:

I discovered Linux several years ago when someone gave me a copy of the
first issue of Linux Journal. This is the first magazine I have ever read
cover to cover. I even read the fine print on the nameplate. What reached
me more than anything else in that issue was the GNU Manifesto. After
reading this, having just received my latest upgrade to Borland C++, I
immediately packaged it up and sent it back to Borland for a refund,
ordered an Info Magic Linux CD, and have never looked back.
I am heavily committed to the Free Software Ideal, but have also desired
as much technical excellence as I can get. Not being a crowd follower, I
started out with SLS and was, mostly satisfied. When my machine was struck
by lightning, I figured I would try Slackware, but was almost immediately
put off by the fact that packages taken from the internet would not
compile because of the "non-standard" library configurations. I went
looking for something else and, remembering the Debian Manifesto from that
first LJ I went looking in recent CDs for a copy and found an ancient
release. Although many things were missing, most notably PPP, this system
could build arbitrary packages from the net, so I went looking for a newer
release on the net and found this group. I've been here ever since, and
not regretted one moment spent on this project.
I have been maintaining package for two release cycles now and feel that I
am very familiar with "The Debian Way". I bring 20 years of free-lance
programming experience to the table, as well as the experience of living
in an "intentional" community that runs, primarily, on volunteer effort.
I find the "corporate model" of management to be ugly and unuseful in this
volunteer organization and will continue to fight against corporatizing
the way Debian does business either on or off of the BOD. At the same time
I intend to work hard to increase the cohesiveness of this organization
and provide coordination for the various groups forming to deal with
testing and distribution management.
One might ask, "If he doesn't like the corporate model, then why does he
want to be on a Board of Directors?". Well, I understand the need for an
"entity" that the rest of the world can deal with, but I want to make sure
that that "entity" doesn't so overwhelm the developers that we all find
ourselves playing "drone" in an environment that has become similar to all
the other corporations "out there". I understand that we need more "legal"
structure to the organization. I just want to protect the group from being
"taken over" by management.
My main goals are:

	1. Protect the professional and technical excellence of Debian.
	2. Provide more well defined structure for the operation of
	   development, testing, and release management.
	3. Develop the marketplace for Debian in a more aggressive
	   fashion, without becoming embroiled in any business enterprise.

Note that this list is in priority order. I am definitely opposed to
getting the organization heavily involved in business ventures at the
expense of what we are here to do, and that is produce a superior product
for the Free Software community.

I would appreciate your vote and support in this effort.

Sincerely,

Dwarf


CHRISTOPHE LAMETER

Platform for the Election of Directors for the Debian Project
- - -------------------------------------------------------------

My main goals for the Debian Project are:

- - - Technical excellency and comprehensive contents of the Debian Distribution.
  Debian has the potential of being / is the most useful Unix distribution available.

- - - If we just could get those bugs out... We need to figure out ways to
  test our software better and improve our package management.
  I am using Debian to provide connectivity for a Campus of a postgraduate School
  (http://www.fuller.edu) and it is vital for us that Debian is stable.

- - - The Debian Project is embodying the Paradigm which has made Linux so
  successful: a community of independent developers/maintainers contributing
  to a common project for the common good. This basic paradigm needs to be
  protected:
  - Respect for the freedom of the individual developer within the Project
    to use his creativity in contributing to the Project.
  - The role of the Board of Directors is to guide development, not to make
    up unnecessary rules and regulations.
  - Regulations / Standards need to be simple, easy to be understood and
    universally applicable (of course all ideals to strive for)
  - Respect and accommodation for minority opinions if possible. Openness
    for the discussion / speculation of ideas out of the ordinary and maybe at
    variance with the Projects established customs.

- - - Decentralization
  Debian has grown quite a bit since I joined last summer. I would like to
  see the Debian project more spread out over multiple sites governing
  multiple aspects of the project. I would like to see Debian newsgroups on
  the Internet and multiple support sites in various countries. The Linux
  Users groups need to be connected to the Debian Project somehow.

Personal:

- - - 33 years old, married to Susanne. Two Sons Rafael and Mischael and another
  one on the way.

- - - Doing PC software professionally since 1979 (Wrote my first commercial
  application with 16...). Founding member of the PRO-Software (PRO-FIB,
  PRO-FAKT, PRO-LOHN) Commercial Software Series in Germany. Founding member
  of the Software support division at a major distributor in Germany.

- - - Linux Involvement
  Maintainer of the digiboard driver in the Linux kernel.
  Contributions to: pppd, bridging, numerous fixes to packages +
	I have a couple of packages on sunsite.

- - - Degrees:
  Diplominformatiker (Master of Science, Computer Science), University of Bremen, Germany
  Master of Divinity (Diplom-Theologe), Fuller Theological Seminary, USA, Los Angeles
  Reverend	(Licensed Minister) International Ministerial Fellowship

- - - Current:
  Employed by Fuller Theological Seminary as the Internet System
   Administrator. I have engineered Internet Services at Fuller from the start.
  Student in the Ph.D. Program Philosophy/Apologetics
   Area of study: Postmodernity, Science and Christianity
  On the Council of Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Temple City, California
  In the process of becoming an ordained Minister of the International Ministerial Fellowship


DANIEL QUINLAN

Debian is the most free Linux distribution.  It is ambitious,
contributes to the entire free software community, works well, and I
want to help keep it that way.  That is why I decided to run for the
board of directors.

I started running Linux during the 0.99 days when I installed SLS
Linux.  I was stunned when the numerous bug fixes I contributed to
Peter MacDonald were completely ignored in the following SLS version
so I dumped SLS for the cleaner and more modular MCC distribution
faster than you could say "Slackware".  Unable to resist the clutches
of Linux, I became editor of the Linux Filesystem Standard, a standard
that describes file and directory placement under Linux.  At about the
same time, Ian Murdock founded Debian, which became the first
distribution to follow the Filesystem Standard.  At that point, I
joined Debian and maintained packages such as emacs, groff, and man.
I also wrote the first version of the package guidelines.  Several
years ago, I worked for Yggdrasil Computing, a commercial vendor of
Linux CDROMs and books.  Today, I work for Transmeta Corporation,
where much of my job is to solve problems using Linux.

On the board of directors, my primary concern will be to improve the
quality of Debian and maintain its commitment to free software.  For
the most part, that means appointing good people to run the day to day
operations.  Consistently appointing good people is somewhat harder
than it sounds.  Drafting the constitution is perhaps even a more
important task and I believe my editorial experience will be helpful.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

 Daniel Quinlan



IAN JACKSON

I'm the author of most of the dpkg code and the policy and programming
manuals, currently finishing up my PhD thesis and so have not very
actively involved with Debian for a few months.  I intend to return to
the project after having written up, which I hope will be very soon.

In my view Debian is advancing very rapidly, but we have something of
a quality control and release management problem.  I see the solutions
to the release management problems as smaller target lists for
releases, earlier codefreezes and tighter and more consistent control
over changes after codefreeze.

The quality control problem (including the growing outstanding
buglist) will require some developers to have as their main task
fixing old packages with inactive maintainers rather than developing
new ones or maintaining their own.

With respect to dpkg development I would probably be opposed to an
abandonment of the existing package management framework (as you would
expect).

I'm firmly of the opinion that technical matters should be decided on
by consensus on the mailing lists, and failing that after all the
issues have been aired by fiat by an appropriate authoritative person.

Ian.



BRUCE PERENS

I'll be 40 on October 24, 1997. I'm afflicted with thrombocythemia (too
many platelets) but it doesn't seem to be malignant and it's not been a
problem so far. I'm no stranger to illness, having conquered cerebral
palsy as a child and teenager. I'm married to the wonderful Valerie
Gilbert. We reside in an obscure corner of Berkeley California where
coyotes howl and owls hoot at night.

You know enough about me. I hope the other guys in this election do
a good job, because while I'm happy to continue to work on Debian,
there's no way I can work quite so hard as I have been. It's making me
nonlinear. There are some other projects I'd like to work on, too, like
"Linux for Hams", which is supposed to be a commercial product derived
from Debian. The trouble is I've been so busy with Debian that I've had no
time to work on other projects in two years! So vote for the other guys!

	Respectfully Submitted

	Bruce Perens


BRIAN C. WHITE

Who I Am
~~~~~~~~
I have a degree in electrical & computer engineering and have been doing
serious programmer for over 12 years now.  I run my own business in which
over 60% of the machines and over 90% of the development uses Debian Linux.
I've been a member of the Debian community for about 1.5 years, now.  I
entered with 'dftp' and now maintain about a dozen packages.


What I Believe
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I don't believe that personal power has any real place in business.  I don't
believe in "empire building" and I don't believe in private agendas.  I do
believe in leadership, hard work, and cooperation.

I don't believe that everybody has to agree all of the time.  I do believe
that everybody is different and entitled to their own opinions.  I do
believe that diversity is the source of a lot of ideas.  I don't believe
everybody should agree with me.  I do believe people should treat me and my
ideas with respect, and I believe that I owe others the same.

I do believe that people make mistakes.  I don't believe in assigning
blame.  I do believe in fixing the problem.

I don't believe that Linux is for everyone.  I do believe that it could be
for a lot of people and be a better solution than what they have now.


What I Want
~~~~~~~~~~~
I have one primary goal.  Everything else is secondary[1], though there are
many smaller goals that lead towards the larger one:

  My goal is to make Debian GNU/Linux the best distribution for the largest
  number of people.  In general, I want to make Debian the largest, least
  buggy, most diverse, most flexible, most integrated, and easiest to
  install distribution available.

This is not an easy goal.  Different groups of people want different things.
End-users want something other than developers, but these desires do not
have to mutually exclusive.  Debian's packaging system and separate
stable/unstable trees already handle most of those discrepancies.

There are many reasons for this goal.

 - As a businessman:  A good product attracts more people.  The more people,
   the better the support.  The better the support, the better the product.

 - As a developer:  A well integrated system makes life easier.  When things
   come together easily, I get a good feeling and have more time to develop
   other things.  The more enjoyable the system, the more development I'll
   do.

 - As a user:  A system that works is a pleasure.  A system that doesn't is
   a pain.  If a system doesn't do what I need it to do, in an easy manner,
   then I'll go elsewhere regardless of what other features it boasts.


- - ---
[1]  "Secondary" does not mean non-important, nor does it mean that it will
always be pushed aside in favor of the primary goal.  Each situation has to
be weighed carefully.  A large impact on a secondary goal can often outweigh
a small impact on the primary goal.
                                             
                                          Brian
                                 ( bcwhite@verisim.com )


SVEN RUDOLPH

About me:

I am a student of computer science, 24 years old.


Linux and me:

In 1989 I read a UNIX book, and learned C and some shell programming,
and later I started loving the concepts of make. Unfortunately I
didn't have access to Unix machines before 1992.

In 1993 I started with Linux. MCC, SLS, Slackware. I learned more, and
I started fixing bugs in Slackware. I sent bug reports to Patrick
Volkerding, I never received an answer and 3 months later the bugs
still were there.

So I decided to look at Debian (around September 1995 ?). I discovered
the bug tracking system, later I found dpkg's concepts to be excellent.

My current Debian environment consists of ca. 15 computers running
Debian at the Operating Systems Group of the Dresden University of
Technology.


Goal:

Debian should be a high-quality user-supported free software system.

high-quality:
- - - free of bugs
- - - secure
- - - advanced architecture (dpkg, administration support for
  non-networked and networked environments.)
- - - well-documented

user-supported:
- - - We expect the user to be willing to learn.
- - - We encourage users to support the development by reporting bugs,
  providing patches.

free software:
- - - preferably GNUish, but the basic criterion is the availability of
  source code
- - - cooperate with developers of free software (FSF, *BSDs)
- - - provide a base for other free software groups (GNUstep, FSF)


Ways to achieve this goal:

For me the key point is to have many experienced developers and users:
We need experienced developers in order to have all packages properly
managed without overburdening people, and we need active people to do
more advanced work (dpkg, administration support, release management,
documentation). 
We need experienced users in order to have Debian tested on many kinds
of machines in many kinds of environments and to help Debian newbies.

It is nice to see many people using Debian, but the number of active
supporters determines the quality of Debian. We need a better
availability of Debian CDs in order to get a higher user base. 

It is not the job of Debian (Debian here means the organization) to
provide support. Instead we should provide and support infrastructure
to enable debian users to help themselves. This means: mailing lists,
user groups, directories of volunteers.

Commercial support (e.g. support contracts, phone support) could be
provided by companies independent of Debian. Debian should provide
directories of such companies and consultants; it should not sell
support services.

Debian should get financial and technical resources in a way similiar
to how the FSF does it: Many technical services are donated by
universities and companies (FTP/WWW-server, network
connectivity). Money could be gained from donations, either personal or
from companies (e.g. the FSF advices to buy CDs where on the cover is
written how much of the price will go to FSF.) Another way could be to
sell overpriced software and documentation.
I do not want to force people to pay for anything, I am afraid this 
could diminish our reputation as a `free software' organization.
(Unfortunately I am no specialist in financing free software 
organizations, and I didn't have time to follow all of the recent
discussion.) 

	Sven


STEVEN GREENLAND

When I first encounter Linux (Fall of 94, I think), SLS was safe
choice, and Slackware was the hot new thing, but luckily I happened
across a reference to Debian. Besides a cool name, it had two major
things going for it: a real packaging system, with a de-installer
that *worked*, and an open developer's organization. The first was
important because I *hate* picking through Makefiles, trying to
figure out what 'make install' did so I can undo it; the second
because I believe that's the way the Free Software community should
work.

I installed Debian 0.91 and never looked back. After a while, I
decided I needed to contribute something back, and so took on a
few packages. A lot has changed: the founder had to pass the torch,
and many other developer's have come and gone, but Debian survived.
SLS is more or less gone, and new distributions have arisen, but
Debian remains the best, both technically and spiritually.

I think that Debian should have the following goals:

1. Be the best distribution technically.
I think we are still at the top, but others are catching up. Other
distributions have fine-grained packaging systems now, and even
though I think ours is better, the differences are not going to be
obvious to the new user trying to select his/her first distribution.

2. Be the best quality distribution.
When you install Debian, it should work. No error messages during
installs, no error messages at runtime. This is key. If people tell
their friends "Install Debian. Yeah, dselect is a pain, but don't
worry, you'll have a working system if you just keep hitting
return.", then we'll survive and grow.

3. Be the best distribution to for which to "work".
The only thing we get out of contributing to Debian is the satisfaction
and joy of being part of something both worthwhile and fun. If we
can get more satisfaction out of doing something else, we will.
Therefore, Debian needs to keep it's open ideal, with everyone
welcome to contribute big or small, software or ideas, a little
time or a lot of time.

I think these goals are all equally important. For me, ego requires
the first, pride the second, and soul the third.

All that said, I believe it's not the job of the BOD to tell
developers and other contributors what to do. It the job of the
BOD to find out what the developers and others *want* to do,  and
then provide the framework for that to happen. 

Thanks,
Steve Greenland

PS. Plz elect me. Thnx!
- - --
Bruce Perens K6BP   Bruce@Pixar.com   510-215-3502
Finger bruce@master.Debian.org for PGP public key.
PGP fingerprint = 88 6A 15 D0 65 D4 A3 A6  1F 89 6A 76 95 24 87 B3 
- ------- end -------

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.3
Charset: noconv

iQCVAwUBMur2vakybebRDjw1AQHbkgP/Zkm5U2SJQ277ShGetpCwIx7IOM4AKSWN
ukFVOug9LUMB4/V7yzeq2biIE/tLoDhqsyVdHrGfpxpfPMhcmBHFo50NHbO0OHB8
APEUr+1aOAWxquxIvll2ajcmpU3hB7hcNEtA+paBSHN7cA3bPhq39Lm6Ef6yLriY
v3dgzYTL/Dc=
=OS2M
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


--
Please respect the confidentiality of material on the debian-private list.
TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to
debian-private-REQUEST@lists.debian.org . Trouble? e-mail to Bruce@Pixar.com