I wasn’t even here

But I did bring Debian to my Wedding

Buster

• Better than ever with almost 30,000 source packages
• Secure boot and apparmor by default
• Huge strides in reproducible builds
• Current release schedule seems to work really well

Finances

• In the past, generous hardware donations from HPE have been essential to our ability to refresh our infrastructure
• We were concerned we didn’t have money to refresh our hardware without these donations
• Donations from handshake.org and another large sponsor combined with contributor support have us in a great position financially
• Many people value Debian; they are there for us when we need them!

Recommending Dh

• Accomplished one of my campaign promises!
• Led a discussion around how much we should use debhelper’s dh
• Serves as a good model for positive rapid change in the project

Maintainers: Good, Bad and Evolving

• Maintainers are our strength: they have the power to act decisively for their own packages
  • 30,000 source packages with a few thousand active contributors

Anti-Harassment Team

• Earlier in the year we deferred discussions surrounding how we want to handle conduct issues
• I spent June understanding where we are:
  • Reading a few years worth of DPL interactions
  • Talking to lots of people and collecting feedback
• We’re discussing what the project wants
• Soon I think we’ll know what the team can deliver; then we reconcile

Gratitude and Happiness

• Emphasize the positive
• Deal with the negative

Debian Heros

Each of us has experienced a hero: someone in our community who made it more awesome for us. We can let them know.

Empowering Debian

My goal as DPL is to help us understand how we can grow Debian by:

• Working to drive change
  • And emotional healing
• Using approaches and techniques that we can all learn and repeat
• Perfecting methods so we can all move forward

Technical Discussions and Consensus Calls

• Have a facilitator start the discussion
• Throughout the discussion comment on points where there is agreement and points where additional input is needed
• Publish a proposed understanding of any consensus
• See if it sticks or if people disagree

Emotional Discussions and Hearing All Sides

• Listen to all sides
• Show understanding especially of points different than your own
  • Echo an explanation back to someone with a different POV until they say you have understood
• Work so that people feel their ideas are considered

How to make change

In driving change we combine the emotional with the technical.

• Make sure the discussion progresses. If there isn’t support to make the change, realize that rather than dragging for ever
• Proposals evaluated by respected bodies
• People who don’t like the outcome should understand their recourse and how strong of a showing they would need to get a different outcome

Making Mistakes

When we try to change the world, we will make mistakes. I’ve been practicing that this week.

Working with Upstreams

Debian matters. Many upstreams understand the value that Debian brings.

• Sometimes we talk about upstreams as if we cannot influence them
• When we engage constructively and explain our needs, upstreams are likely to listen
• Especially when our developers are key members of upstream communities

Our Strengths

Debian has a huge collection of free software for which we provide stable releases.

• License Review and the DFSG
• A trusted repository
• Uniform bug interface

Weaknesses

Call to Awesome