[Solar-general] Fwd: [Softwarelibre] Noticias sobre demoras de Etch :(

[Diego Saravia]

Dec. 18, 2006

  Debian GNU/Linux 4.0,   codenamed Etch, had been due to arrive by
December 4, 2006, but it's been   delayed because some developers have
deliberately slowed down their work.

According   to a blog   note by Andreas Barth, Debian developer and
release manager, the delay has   resulted because "Some people who
used to do good work reduced their   involvement drastically. There
was nothing I could do about, and that   happened way before I started
full-time on release, but on the global picture   that still counts."

  It appears that these developers have pulled back from working on
Debian because of their   objections to Barth and fellow release
manager, Steve Langasek, being paid to   work on Debian by the
Dunc-Tank.org.

  Dunc-Tank.org is a group of Debian developers that set about
raising funds to   be used for "financially supporting the volunteers
working on managing   the release process, allowing them to devote
their full attention to that task."   Specifically, the group's goal
was to raise enough funds to pay "both   release managers enough to
work exclusively on the release of etch for a   month each, having
Steve Langasek available full-time during October and   Andreas Barth
available full-time during November, with the release expected   to
follow soon after in the first week of December."

  The group wanted to do this because Debian has a long history of
being late.   That, in fact, is one reason why the Debian-based Ubuntu
distribution was started.

  Dunc-Tank's membership includes Anthony Towns, the Debian Leader,
Steve   McIntyre, the assistant to the Debian Leader, prominent Debian
developers   Raphael Hertzog and Joey Hess, and well-known Debian and
Linux kernel   developer Ted Ts'o.

  Many Debian developers denounced   the Dunc-Tank proposal. Some
even demanded that Towns be removed as   leader because he supported
Dunc-Tank. Their objection was that by   financially supporting
developers, Debian would become a two-class system and   that, in
turn, would be destructive to the Debian community.

  When the matters came up for a vote in October, the Dunc-Tank
plan won approval and the attempt to remove Towns failed.

  That, however, did not turn out to be the end of the matter. Many
developers,   led by Joerg Jaspert,   a well-known Debian maintainer
and programmer, issued a position statement on October 26. In this
statement, which was   published on the Debian developers'
announcement list, the developers spelled   out why they objected to
the Dunc-Tank initiative.

  Jaspert also said that Dunc-Tank "has demotivated a lot of people
who   now either resigned, simply stopped doing (parts of their)
Debian work or are   doing a lot less than they did before DT was
started. The freeze got delayed   and getting the release out on
schedule has become nearly impossible. We are   unable to see any good
virtue in this 'experiment.' "

  "The heated discussion DT has consumed an incredible amount of time
and   energy that could also have been used in a much more productive
way,"   Jaspert added. "This was probably expected from the DT
initiators but   didn't keep them from setting off this discussion at
such an important time   -- shortly before the release. Why they
didn't introduce DT *after* the   release, or much earlier in this
release cycle, when there is/was time and a   lengthy discussion would
not have taken otherwise needed time is not   understandable."

  It's turned out that Jaspert was correct. The next release of
Debian has been   delayed because developers have stayed away from
working on Debian because of   their objections to two of the
developers being paid.

  As Barth wrote, "So, looking at the status changes during the time
I   spent full-time on release issues I think it worked well. Of
course, not   everything is perfect, but there is a clear improvement.
On the other hand,   there was a large disadvantage of the whole
experiment."

  Barth also announced that Etch is now fully frozen. He did not say,
however,   when Etch will finally be released.

  -- Steven   J. Vaughan-Nichols
-- 
Diego Saravia
Diego.Saravia en gmail.com
NO FUNCIONA->dsa en unsa.edu.ar