Can the new broom halt the decline of Debian?

[J G Miller]

Even the newly elected leader, Assistant Professor Lucas Nussbaum, University
of Lausanne, of the Debianistas Party acknowledges that not all is as it should
be in Debian land.

From <http://www.debian.ORG/vote/2013/platforms/lucas>

QUOTE

However, I often have the impression that the project is losing momentum,
positive energy, and slowing down.

It feels like we are living on the benefits of the past.

UNQUOTE


So the critical question is does he have the managerial skills to
reinvigorate the Debian project and encourage package maintainers to
act promptly in resolving bugs and updating versions?

And just as importantly the desire to encourage new people to Debian to
take on the task of package maintenance in view of the increasing number
of orphaned packages, or worse abandoned but not officially orphaned packages?

Do college lecturers make great project managers?

Or is the DPL merely a cheerleader whose primary function is
to make press releases?

[J G Miller]

On Tuesday, April 16th, 2013, at 23:50:42h +0000, J G Miller wrote:

> Even the newly elected leader, Assistant Professor Lucas Nussbaum, University
> of Lausanne, of the Debianistas Party acknowledges that not all is as it should
> be in Debian land.

I failed to mentiom that the other contenders for the role of DPL were
more forthright and candid (frank and earnest) in their assessments.


From <http://www.debian.ORG/vote/2013/platforms/algernon>

QUOTE

... pretty much every team is suffering from lack of people,
and we seem to be slow and ineffective in recruiting new contributors
(either from within the project, or outside of it), and even worse
at keeping them motivated.

This is not new, I worried about it last year, and I'm not the only
one to see things this way, respectable members of the project
expressed their pessimism publicly too.

This is our biggest issue.

We can be excellent at the technical level, but not being able to
keep people motivated, failing to find new contributors is hurting
us more and more, and it is my firm belief that without quick
improvement in these areas, it won't be just me virtually walking the plank.

UNQUOTE


The other contender expressed amazement that the Debian project still exists.

from <http://www.debian.ORG/vote/2013/platforms/moray>

QUOTE

To me it is indeed surprising that Debian has lasted, and prospered,
this long.

UNQUOTE

as well as recognising the increasing problem of abandoned packages --

QUOTE

We should have a process, preferably mostly automated, to spot
abandoned-but-not-yet-orphaned packages and to try to resolve the situation.

Volunteers can't be obliged to work on packages they have lost interest in,
but it would be better for the distribution's quality if they recognised it
sooner when they lose interest, before the package becomes stale.

UNQUOTE


Hopefully the statements above and in the previous posting from the contenders
for the post of Debian Prokect Leader will be considered a sufficient response
to Richard Kettlewell's question of 2012-11-04, 09:05h in comp.os.linux.misc

>> J G Miller writes:
>>> Bad Sector pondered:
>>>
>>> Correct me if I'm wrong, I believe Debian has a _huge_ volunteer base
>>> (not same as user base).
>>
>> Correct, but more and more of those volunteers are going AWOL
>> and this is resulting in a noticeable decline in the quality
>> of Debian.
>
> Your evidence for these claims?

Why else would Alan Moray write "This is our biggest issue"?

[J G Miller]

On Wednesday, April 17th, 2013, at 00:19:46 +0000, J G Miller demanded:

> Why else would Alan Moray write "This is our biggest issue"?

Apologies that was a misattribution.

Why else would Gergely Nagy (Algernon) write "This is our biggest issue"?

Source : <http://www.debian.org/vote/2013/platforms/algernon>