Older blog entries for mdz (starting at number 34)

Management and information distortion

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so”
– attributed to Mark Twain

There is a lot that I don’t know about what goes on in my organization. This isn’t only because I can’t observe everything, or because it’s too complex, or because I make mistakes. These are all true, of course, but they’re also obvious. Much more devious is the way the flow of information to me is distorted. It’s distorted by me, and by the people around me, whether any of us are aware of it or not. This is most apparent in considering how people feel about their managers: this is why I have a deeply flawed view of what it’s really like to work for me.

My theory is that power bends information like gravity bends light. The effect is more pronounced with people of greater mass (more authority), and lessened with distance (less direct influence). The more directly you influence someone else’s fate, the more it is in their self-interest to be guarded around you. This means that the people closest to you, who you receive the most information from, may have the most difficulty being open with you, especially if it’s bad news. It also means that the higher your standing in the corporate hierarchy, the more influence you wield, the more people are affected by this.

Pretty scary, right?

Some managers respond to this terrifying reality by trying to collect more information. They’ll quietly cross-check what people are telling them, asking people in different levels of the organization, routing around managers, hoping to get “the real story”. This usually backfires, because it signals distrust to the people involved and makes the distortion worse.

Another common response is to check in constantly, trying to monitor and control the work as closely as possible (so-called micro-management). This is even worse; not only does it signal distrust, but managers who do this become more personally attached to outcomes, and lose perspective on progress and quality due to information overload, self-enhancement bias, and neglect of managerial work. The more it becomes “your” work rather than the team’s, the harder it is to see it objectively.

So what’s a better way to respond to this phenomenon? Here’s what I try to do:

• Accept it – You’ll never have certainty about what’s happening, so get used to it, and don’t let it paralyze you. Learn decision making strategies which cope well with information noise, and allow you to experiment and adapt.
• Admit it – Everyone else knows that you have this distortion field around you. If you pretend it isn’t there, you’ll appear deluded. Acknowledge that you don’t know, don’t understand, and can’t control.
• Trust – The more you trust someone, the more they trust you. The more someone trusts you, the more confident they can be in telling you what they think. Be grateful for bad news, and never shoot the messenger.
• Delegate – Enable people with a less distorted view of the situation to make local decisions. Don’t make people wait for information to propagate through you before acting, unless there is a clear and sufficient benefit to the organization.

I was inspired to think and write about this today after listening to Prof. Robert Sutton’s speech at the California Commonwealth Club, which Lindsay Holmwood shared with me.

Syndicated 2010-11-09 17:00:51 from We'll see | Matt Zimmerman

Weathering the Ubuntu brainstorm

In our first few years, Ubuntu experienced explosive growth, from zero to millions of users. Because Ubuntu is an open project, these people don’t just use Ubuntu, but can see what’s happening next and influence it through suggestions and contributions. The volume of suggestions quickly became unmanageable through ad hoc discussion, because the volume of feedback overwhelmed the relatively few people who were actively developing Ubuntu.

In order to better manage user feedback at this scale, Ubuntu Brainstorm was created in 2008. It’s a collaborative filtering engine which allows anyone to contribute an idea, and have it voted on by others. Since then, it’s been available to Ubuntu developers and leaders as an information source, which has been used in various ways. The top ideas are printed in the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter each week. We experimented with producing a report each release cycle and sharing it with the developer community. People have been encouraged to take these suggestions to the Ubuntu Developer Summits. We continue to look for new and better ways to process the feedback provided by the user community.

Most recently, I asked my colleagues on the Ubuntu Technical Board in a meeting whether we should take responsibility for responding to the feedback available in Ubuntu Brainstorm. They agreed that this was worth exploring, and I put forward a proposal for how it might work. The proposal was unanimously accepted at a later meeting, and I’m working on the first feedback cycle now.

In short, the Technical Board will ensure that, every three months, the highest voted topics on Ubuntu Brainstorm receive an official response from the Ubuntu project. The Technical Board won’t respond to all of them personally, but will identify subject matter experts within the project, ask them to write a short response, and compile these responses for publication.

My hope is that this approach will bring more visibility to common user concerns, help users understand what we’re doing with their feedback, and generally improve transparency in Ubuntu. We’ve already selected the topics for the first iteration based on the most popular items of the past six months, and are organizing responses now. Please visit brainstorm.ubuntu.com and cast your votes for next time!

Syndicated 2010-11-03 11:55:50 from We'll see | Matt Zimmerman

Looking forward to UDS for Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty)

For some time now, we’ve been gearing up to begin development on Ubuntu 11.04. While some folks have been putting the finishing touches on the 10.10 release, and bootstrapping the infrastructure for 11.04, others have been meeting with Canonical stakeholders, coordinating community brainstorm sessions, and otherwise collecting information about what our priorities should be in the next cycle.

We’re using what we’ve learned to plan the Ubuntu Developer Summit next week in Orlando, where we’ll refine these ideas into a plan for the cycle. We’re organizing UDS a little bit differently this time, with the main program divided into the following tracks to reflect the key considerations for Ubuntu today:

• Application Developers – Making it faster, easier, and more enjoyable to develop and distribute new applications on (and for) Ubuntu
• Cloud – Delivering the best experience of cloud computing, whether hosting in a public cloud or building your own private cloud
• Hardware Compatibility – Measuring and improving compatibility with a wide range of laptops, netbooks, servers and desktops
• Multimedia – Formulating the best software stacks for graphics, audio and video in Ubuntu
• Package Selection and System Defaults – Choosing the right components to keep Ubuntu lean, flexible and ready-to-run, while ensuring that the pieces fit and work together cleanly
• Performance – Squeezing the best performance out of today’s free software stack, from the Linux kernel and GNU toolchain through user interfaces
• Ubuntu the Project – Continuously improving the way we work together to produce Ubuntu, both within the project and with our upstream and downstream partners

You can click on the links above for a preview of the schedule for the week, with links to more detailed blueprints which will develop during and following UDS. If you’ll be joining us in person, then I’ll see you there! If not, be sure to review Laura’s guide on how to participate remotely.

Syndicated 2010-10-21 12:29:00 from We'll see | Matt Zimmerman

Ubuntu and Qt

I like to think that in the Ubuntu project, we’re pragmatic about technology. This means keeping an open mind, considering alternatives, and evaluating them objectively. It means bearing in mind the needs of the user, and measuring ourselves based on how well we solve their problems (not merely our own).

It is in this spirit that I have been thinking about Qt recently. We want to make it fast, easy and painless to develop applications for Ubuntu, and Qt is an option worth exploring for application developers. In thinking about this, I’ve realized that there is quite a bit of commonality between the strengths of Qt and some of the new directions in Ubuntu:

• Qt has a long history of use on ARM as well as x86, by virtue of being popular on embedded devices. Consumer products have been built using Qt on ARM for over 10 years. We’ve been making Ubuntu products available for ARM for nearly two years now, and 10.10 supports more ARM boards than ever, including reference boards from Freescale, Marvell and TI. Qt is adding ARMv7 optimizations to benefit the latest ARM chips. We do this in order to offer OEMs a choice of hardware, without sacrificing software choice. Qt preserves this same choice for application developers.
• Qt is a cross-platform application framework, with official ports for Windows, MacOS and more, and experimental community ports to Android, the iPhone and WebOS. Strong cross-platform support was one of the original principles of Qt, and it shows in the maturity of the official ports. With Ubuntu Light being installed on computers with Windows, and Ubuntu One landing on Android and the iPhone, we need interoperability with other platforms. There is also a large population of developers who already know how to target Windows, who can reach Ubuntu users as well by choosing Qt.
• Qt has a fairly mature touch input system, which now has support for multi-touch and gestures (including QML), though it’s only complete on Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.6. Meanwhile, Canonical has been working with the community to develop a low-level multi-touch framework for Linux and X11, for the benefit of Qt and other toolkits. These efforts will eventually meet in the middle.

Overall, I think Qt has a lot to offer people who want to develop applications for (and on) Ubuntu, particularly now. It already powers popular cross-platform applications like VLC, not to mention the entire Kubuntu distribution. I missed it when this happened last year, but Qt is now available under either the LGPL 2.1 or the GPL 3.0, which should make it suitable for virtually any Ubuntu application. It has strong commercial backing as well as a large developer community. No single solution will meet all developers’ needs, of course, and Ubuntu supports multiple toolkits and frameworks for this reason, but Qt seems like a great tool to have in our toolbox for the road ahead.

Syndicated 2010-10-20 10:08:29 from We'll see | Matt Zimmerman

Tips for frequent international travel

I travel pretty regularly, about 35% so far in 2010. When it goes wrong, travel can be exhausting, frustrating, complicated, stressful and even debilitating. I’m always looking for ways to make my trips run more smoothly. On a recent flight to Taipei, I wrote down a few of the techniques which I’ve successfully put into practice and found helpful. This is not an exhaustive list; I’ve omitted a lot of the common and obvious tips I’ve seen elsewhere.

1. Make a packing list. This one may be obvious, but a lot of people neglect it. Perhaps they think making lists is boring and fussy, but really, it isn’t. Without a packing list, it’s easy to forget to do the things which will make your trip better. Use it every time, and bring a copy with you (or store it online) so you can add the things you wish you had brought or done. A simple, ever-improving packing list is the most effective technique I have found for making travel less stressful and more enjoyable.
2. Carry a water bottle with a tight-fitting lid. I use a 32oz Nalgene bottle, which fits nicely into the seat next to me or under an armrest, and gives me enough water for even the longest flights. I fill it up after passing through security, at a cafe, bar or lounge, and generally decline the beverages offered by the cabin crew. Staying hydrated helps me feel better during the flight, and leaves me with less malaise when I arrive. I don’t need to manage a tray table or armrest full of cups and other debris, so I can sit more comfortably, with the tray table folded away.
3. Consolidate essential items using multipurpose equipment. For example, invest in a power adapter which has USB sockets onboard, and carry USB cables instead of wall chargers. Versatile items like this save on space and weight. I can charge two devices this way, but the equipment is smaller and lighter than even a single wall charger.
4. Learn how to sleep on an airplane. Getting some sleep on a long flight really helps to offset the effects of traveling. There are several resources out there with practical advice on how to do it. One thing which really helped me was to buy a high quality eye mask which blocks out all of the light in the cabin. The one I use looks a little funny and is not cheap, but is very comfortable and effective. It’s made of memory foam with a soft, washable cover and works much better than the ones the airlines give away for free. I no longer bother with a neck pillow, and use the flaps built into the seat to lean my head against. I’m surprised at how many people don’t know about this common aricraft feature: virtually every long-haul seat has something like this, even in economy, though it may not be obvious how to use it.
5. Buy duplicates of things like toiletries, and keep them in your travel kit so you don’t need to pack your everyday items (and risk forgetting them) each time. The less packing you need to do, the less time it will take, and the less opportunity there is for mistakes. This also saves time unpacking when you get home, and lets you buy a smaller size of the item where available.
6. Optimize border crossings Carry the forms you’ll need for customs, immigration, etc. in your carry-on. They don’t always provide them at the counter or on board the plane, and it’s a hassle to rush to fill in the form at the last minute. If you have a few of them with you, you can fill them out early (perhaps even before you fly) and then hustle to the front of the queue. For countries you enter frequently (especially your home country), programs like Global Entry (US) and IRIS (UK) will save you a lot of time by allowing you to use an automated kiosk to cross the border.

Syndicated 2010-10-03 17:33:48 from We'll see | Matt Zimmerman

Traveling at home

For me, the most enjoyable part of traveling is the inspiration that I derive from visiting different places, talking to people, and generally being outside of my normal environment. This bank holiday weekend, when so many Londoners visit faraway lands, my partner and I stayed in London instead, and my sought inspiration closer to home. The city has been delightfully quiet, and in contrast to the preceding week, the weather was mostly pleasant, apart from the sudden downpours the BBC described as “squally showers”.

We spent Saturday afternoon in Richmond Park, a 2500-acre nature preserve easily accessible via public transport from London. The plentiful oak trees, fallow deer, and various species of water fowl made it easy to forget the city for a while. Having visited a few times on foot, I think it would be fun to cycle next time, and see different areas of the park.

Afterward, we had dinner at a tapas restaurant in Parsons Green which offered notably excellent service as well as good food. By this time, it was nearly 7:00pm, and we took a chance on getting last-minute theatre tickets to see Jeff Goldblum and Mercedes Ruehl in Neil Simon’s The Prisoner of Second Avenue. We arrived at the theatre just in time for the show, which was not sold out, and in fact had quite reasonable seats available. The show had several good laughs, holding up fairly well after nearly 40 years since the original Broadway production.

On Sunday, we visited the Design Museum for the first time. Having been disappointed by the nearby Fashion and Textile Museum, our expectations were not too high, but it turned out to be very worthwhile. The Brit Insurance Designs of the Year exhibition showcased designs from architecture, fashion, furniture, transport and more. Some of my favorites were:

• Pachube, a system for sharing real-time sensor data and fostering a community around its uses
• Grassworks, a line of flat-pack, self-assembled furniture constructed entirely from bamboo, without glue or fasteners
• The Gocycle, a lightweight (16kg) electric bicycle for city dwellers
• The Eyewriter, a low-cost eye tracking system powered by open source software
• The Land Glider, a small (1×3 meters), enclosed electric vehicle which maintains stability by leaning into turns
• Analog Digital, a clock which is operated by a person covering and revealing segments using paint
• BMW GINA, a fabric-skinned shape-shifting car concept

I was delighted to see that there were a half dozen or so exhibits which related to open source software.

Even including the theatre tickets, it was a very inexpensive holiday compared to traveling overseas, and generated a lot less CO2. I was more than satisfied with the inspiration available within a relatively small radius. I don’t think I’ll give up traveling, as I really enjoy seeing friends who live far away, but I think I’ll be more inclined to stay home during peak travel times and enjoy local activities.

Syndicated 2010-08-30 13:17:38 from We'll see | Matt Zimmerman

DebConf 10: Last day and retrospective

DebConf continued until Saturday, but Friday the 6th was my last day as I left New York that evening. I’m a bit late in getting this summary written up.

Making Debian Rule, Again (Margarita Manterola)

Marga took a bold look at the challenges facing Debian today. She says that Debian is perceived to be less innovative, out of date, difficult to use, and shrinking as a community. She called out Ubuntu as the “elephant in the room”, which is “‘taking away’ from Debian.” She insists that she is not opposed to Ubuntu, but that nonetheless Ubuntu is to some extent displacing Debian as a focal point for newcomers (both users and contributors).

Marga points out that Debian’s work is still meaningful, because many users still prefer Debian, and it is perceived to be of higher quality, as well as being the essential basis for derivatives like Ubuntu.

She conducted a survey (about 40 respondents) to ask what Debian’s problems are, and grouped them into categories like “motivation” and “communication” (tied for the #1 spot), “visibility” (#3, meaning public awareness and perception of Debian) and so on. She went on to make some suggestions about how to address these problems.

On the topic of communication, she proposed changing Debian culture by:

• Spreading positive messages, celebrating success
• Thanking contributors for their work
• Avoiding escalation by staying away from email and IRC when angry
• Treating every contributor with respect, “no matter how wrong they are”

This stimulated a lot of discussion, and most of the remaining time was taken up by comments from the audience. The video has been published, and offers a lot of insight into how Debian developers perceive each other and the project. She also made suggestions for the problems of visibility and motivation. These are crucial issues for Debian devotees to be considering, and I applaud Marga for her fortitude in drawing attention to them. This session was one of the highlights of this DebConf, and catalyzed a lot of discussion of vital issues in Debian.

Following her talk, there was a further discussion in the hallway which included many of the people who commented during the session, mostly about how to deal with problematic behavior in Debian. Although I agreed with much of what was said, I found it a bit painful to watch, because (ironically) this discussion displayed several of the characteristic “people problems” that Debian seems to have:

• Many people had opinions, and although they agreed on many things, agreement was rarely expressed openly. Sometimes it helps a lot to simply say “I agree with you” and leave it at that. Lending support, rather than adding a new voice, helps to build consensus.
• People waited for their turn to talk rather than listening to the person speaking, so the discussion didn’t build momentum toward a conclusion.
• The conversation got louder and more dense over time, making it difficult to enter. It wasn’t argumentative; it was simply loud and fast-paced. This drowned out people who weren’t as vocal or willful.
• Even where agreement was apparent, there was often no clear action agreed. No one had responsibility for changing the situation.

These same patterns are easily observed on Debian mailing lists for the past 10+ years. I exhibited them myself when I was active on these lists. This kind of cultural norm, once established, is difficult to intentionally change. It requires a fairly radical approach, which will inevitably mean coping with loss. In the case of a community, this can mean losing volunteer contributors cannot let go of this norm, and that is an emotionally difficult experience. However, it is nonetheless necessary to move forward, and I think that Debian as a community is capable of moving beyond it.

Juxtaposition

Given my history with both Debian and Ubuntu, I couldn’t help but take a comparative view of some of this. These problems are not new to Debian, and indeed they inspired many of the key decisions we made when founding the Ubuntu project in 2004. We particularly wanted to foster a culture which was supportive, encouraging and welcoming to potential contributors, something Debian has struggled with. Ubuntu has been, quite deliberately, an experiment in finding solutions to problems such as these. We’ve learned a lot from this experiment, and I’ve always hoped that this would help to find solutions for Debian as well.

Unfortunately, I don’t think Debian has benefited from these Ubuntu experiments as much as we might have hoped. A common example of this is the Ubuntu Code of Conduct. The idea of a project code of conduct predates Ubuntu, of course, but we did help to popularize it within the free software community, and this is now a common (and successful) practice used by many free software projects. The idea of behavioral standards for Debian has been raised in various forms for years now, but never seems to get traction. Hearing people talk about it at DebConf, it sometimes seemed almost as if the idea was dismissed out of hand because it was too closely associated with Ubuntu.

I learned from Marga’s talk that Enrico Zini drafted a set of Debian Community Guidelines over four years ago in 2006. It is perhaps a bit longand structured, but is basically excellent. Enrico has done a great job of compiling best practices for participating in an open community project. However, his document seems to be purely informational, without any official standing in the Debian project, and Debian community leaders have hesitated to make it something more.

Perhaps Ubuntu leaders (myself included) could have done more to nurture these ideas in Debian. At least in my experience, though, I found that my affiliation with Ubuntu almost immediately labeled me an “outsider” in Debian, even when I was still active as a developer, and this made it very difficult to make such proposals. Perhaps this is because Debian is proud of its independence, and does not want to be unduly influenced by external forces. Perhaps the initial “growing pains” of the Debian/Ubuntu relationship got in the way. Nonetheless, I think that Debian could be stronger by learning from Ubuntu, just as Ubuntu has learned so much from Debian.

Closing thoughts

I enjoyed this DebConf very much. This was the first DebConf to be hosted in the US, and there were many familiar faces that I hadn’t seen in some time. Columbia University offered an excellent location, and the presentation content was thought-provoking. There seemed to be a positive attitude toward Ubuntu, which was very good to see. Although there is always more work to do, it feels like we’re making progress in improving cooperation between Debian and Ubuntu.

I was a bit sad to leave, but was fortunate enough to meet up with Debian folk during my subsequent stay in the Boston area as well. It felt good to reconnect with this circle of friends again, and I hope to see you again soon.

Looking forward to next year’s DebConf in Bosnia…

Syndicated 2010-08-25 16:57:03 from We'll see | Matt Zimmerman

DebConf 10: Day 3

How We Can Be the Silver Lining of the Cloud (Eben Moglen)

Eben’s talk was on the same topic as his Internet Society talk in February, which I had downloaded and watched some time ago. He challenges the free software community to develop the software to power the “freedom box”, a small, efficient and inexpensive personal server.

Such a system would put users more in control of their online lives, give them better protection for it under the law, and provide a platform for many new federated services.

It sounds like a very interesting project, which I’d like to write more about.

Statistical Machine Learning Analysis of Debian Mailing Lists (Hanna Wallach)

Hanna is bringing together her interests in machine learning and free software by using machine learning techniques to analyze of publicly available data from free software communities. In doing so, she hopes to develop tools for studying the patterns of collaboration, innovation and other behavior in these communities.

Her methodology uses statistical topic models, which infer the topic of a document based on the occurrence of topical words, to group Debian mailing list posts by topic. Her example analyzed posts from the debian-project and debian-women mailing lists, inferring a set of topics and categorizing all of the posts according to which topic(s) were represented in them.

Using this data, she could plot over time the frequency of discussion of each topic, which revealed interesting patterns. The audience quickly zoned in on practical applications for things like flamewar and troll detection.

Debian Derivatives BoF (Matt Zimmerman)

I organized this discussion session to share perspectives on Debian derivatives, in particular how we can improve cooperation between derivatives and Debian itself. The room was a bit hard to find, so attendance was relatively small, but this turned out to be a plus. With a smaller group, we were able to get acquainted with each other, and everyone participated.

Unsurprisingly, there were many more representatives from Ubuntu than other derivatives, and I was concerned that Ubuntu would dominate the discussion. It did, but I tried to draw out perspectives from other derivatives where possible.

On the whole, the tone was positive and constructive. This may be due in part to people self-selecting for the BoF, but I think there is a lot of genuine goodwill between Debian and Ubuntu.

Stefano Zacchiroli took notes in Gobby during the session, which I expect he will post somewhere public when he has a chance.

Syndicated 2010-08-05 15:10:07 from We'll see | Matt Zimmerman

DebConf 10: Day 2

Today was the first day of DebConf proper, where all of the sessions were aimed at project participants.

Bits from the DPL (Stefano Zacchiroli)

Stefano delivered an excellent address to the Debian project. As Project Leader, he offered a perspective on how far Debian has come, raised some of the key questions facing Debian today, and challenged the project to move forward and improve in several important ways.

He asked the audience: Is Debian better than other distributions? Is Debian still relevant? Why/how?

Having asked this question on identi.ca and Twitter recently, he presented a summary. There was a fairly standard list of technical concerns, but also:

• A focus on quality, as defined by Debian’s highly modular approach. Each package maintainer is an expert on the software they package, and Debian as a whole offers a superior repository of packages.
• The principles of software freedom, as embodied in Debian’s Social Contract. The Debian community’s current interpretation is a purist one, and Stefano cited the elimination of non-free firmware as a milestone in the upcoming Squeeze release. I wonder, though, how many of the audience, tapping away on WiFi-connected laptops, were able to do so without such firmware.
• The project’s independent status, supported by donations and volunteers, which empowers it to make its own decisions, free of external impositions.
• Debian’s ability to make decisions, as embodied in the constitution. This happens mostly through do-ocracy (individuals are empowered to decide questions concerning their own work), though larger scope issues are decided democratically. This one evoked a bit of a chuckle, as decision making in Debian is not always perceived as fully effective.

He pointed out some areas which we would like to see improve, including:

• Developers accepting shared responsibility for the release as a whole. Making one’s own packages ready for release is necessary, but not sufficient. He cited evidence that the culture around NMUs is changing: historically, due to the do-ocratic system mentioned above, Debian developers have been somewhat territorial about their packages, and non-maintainer uploads were seen as stepping on their toes. However, recent experiments have indicated that this may no longer be the case, and Stefano encouraged more developers to help each other through NMUs.
• When making decisions, we should seek consensus, not unanimity. In a project with thousands of contributors, whose operations are open to the public, there will never be unanimous support for a proposal, and seeking unanimity leads to stalled decisions.
• In order to gain more contributors, Debian needs to welcome new and inexperienced contributors, as well as users (who can grow into contributors. He suggested reaching out to derivatives to find more of both. He decried the conventional wisdom that a “thick skin” should be a prerequisite for joining the project, pointing out that this attitude simply leads to fewer contributors. This point was met with applause by the DebConf audience.

All in all, I thought this was an accurate, timely and inspirational message for the project, and the talk is worth watching for any current or prospective contributor to Debian.

Debian Policy BoF (Russ Albery)

Russ facilitated a discussion about the Debian policy document itself and the process for managing it. He has recently put in a lot of time working on the backlog (down from 160+ to 120), but this is not sustainable for him, and help is needed.

There was a wide-ranging discussion of possible improvements including:

• Editing the policy manual so that it is more readable start to finish as a document, rather than a reference
• Creating a closer linkage between lintian and the policy manual, so that best practices from lintian get documented, and policy changes are accompanied by new checks
• Separating the normative and informative parts of the policy manual

There was also some discussion in passing of the long-standing confusion (presumably among people new to the project) with regard to how policy is established. In Debian, best practices are first implemented in packages, then documented in policy (not the reverse). Sometimes, improvements are suggested at the policy level, when they need to start elsewhere. I’m not very familiar with how the policy manual is maintained at present, but listening to the discussion, it sounded like it might help to extend the process to include the implementation stage. This would allow standards improvements to be tracked all the way through from concept, to implementation, to documentation.

The Java Packaging Nightmare (Torsten Werner)

Torsten described the current state of Java packaging in Debian and the general problems involved, including licensing issues, build system challenges (e.g. maven) and dependency management. His slides were information-dense, so I didn’t take a lot of notes.

His presentation inspired a lively discussion about why upstream developers of Java applications and libraries often do not engage with Debian. Suggested reasons included:

• They are not interested in Linux as a target platform
• Although their code is released under a free license, they are not interested in meeting Debian standards for freedom and license correctness
• They use Java because it is cross-platform, and so do not want to concern themselves with platform-specific issues
• Because Java applications are easy to download and run manually, they perceive relatively little value in the Debian packaging system

Collaboration between Ubuntu and Debian (Jorge Castro)

Jorge talked about the connections between Debian and Ubuntu, how people in the projects perceive each other, and how to foster good relationships between developers.

He talked about past efforts to quantify collaboration between the projects, but the focus is now on building personal relationships. There were many good questions and comments afterward, and I’m looking forward to the Debian derivatives BoF session tomorrow to get into more detail.

Tonight is the traditional wine and cheese party. When this tradition started, I was one of just a handful of people in a room with some cheese and paper plates, but it’s now a large social gathering with contributions of cheese and wine from around the world. I’m looking forward to it.

Syndicated 2010-08-02 23:23:24 from We'll see | Matt Zimmerman

DebConf 10: Day 1

This week, I am attending DebConf 10 at Columbia University in New York.

The first day of DebConf is known as Debian Day. While most of DebConf is for the benefit of people involved in Debian itself, Debian Day is aimed at a wider audience, and invites the public to learn about, and interact with, the Debian project.

These are the talks I attended.

Debian Day Opening Plenary (Gabriella Coleman, Hans-Christoph Steiner)

Hans-Christoph discussed Debian and free software from a big picture perspective: why software freedom matters, challenging the producer/consumer dichotomy, how the Debian ecosystem hangs together, and so on.

Steps to adopting F/OSS in government (Andy Oram)

Andy discussed FLOSS adoption in governments, drawing on examples from Peru, the city of Munich, the state of Massachusetts. He covered the reasons why this is valuable, the relationship between government transparency and software freedom, and practical advice for successful adoption and deployment.”

Pedagogical Freedom (panel, Jonah Bossewitch et al)

The panelists discussed the use of technology in education, especially free software, some of the parallels between free software and education, and what these communities could learn from each other. This is a promising topic, though the perspectives seemed to be mostly from the education realm. There is much to be learned on both sides.

Google Summer of Code 2010 at Debian (Obey Arthur Liu)

This talk covered the student projects for this year’s Summer of Code. Most of the students were in attendance, and presented their own work. They ranged from more specialized projects like the Hurd installer, to core infrastructure improvements like multi-arch in APT.

Beyond Sharing: Open Source Design (Mushon Zer-Aviv)

Mushon gave an excellent talk on open design. This is a subject I’ve thought quite a bit about, and Asheesh validated many of my conclusions from a different angle. I’ve added a new post to my todo list to go into more detail on this subject.

Some points from his talk which resonated with me:

• When collaborating on code, everyone must reason with one collaborator: the computer. This forces a level playing field and a common encoding.
• Collaborating on other types of creative work is more difficult in part because of the differences encoding/decoding information between different individuals
• Making this easier for design work requires improving motivational factors and language as well as tools and processes
• Many design decisions are actually rational, and are compatible with a group consensus project. Too often, I hear that design can’t be done collaboratively, citing “too many cooks in the kitchen” analogies, but I have never believed it.
• Mushon’s own project, shiftspace.org, seems to be a browser-plugin-based system for collaboratively remixing web applications. I haven’t looked at it yet.
• Leadership and openness are not mutually exclusive. This is another pet peeve of mine, and there are so many examples of open leadership in the free software community that I don’t see how anyone can think otherwise.
• Mushon’s presentation is available in revision control so that it can be freely used and improved

How Government can Foster Freedom in Technology (Hon. Gale Brewer)

Councillor Brewer paid a visit to DebConf to tell us about the work she is doing on the city council to promote better government through technology.

Brewer seems to be a strong advocate of open data, saying essentially that all government data should be public. She summarized a bill to mandate that New York City government data be public, shared in raw form using open standards, and kept up to date. It sounded like a very strong move which would encourage third party innovation around the data.

She also discussed the need for greater access to computers and Internet connectivity, particularly in educational settings, and a desire to to have all public hearings and meetings shared online.

Why is GNU/Linux Like a Player Piano? (Jon Anderson Hall, Esq.)

Jon is a very engaging speaker. He drew parallels between the development of player pianos, reproducing pianos, reed organs, pipe organs…and free software. He even tied in Hedi Lamarr’s work which led to spread spectrum wireless technology. To be quite honest, I did not find that these analogies taught me much about either free software or player pianos, but nonetheless, I couldn’t help but take an interest in what he was saying and how he presented it.

DebConf Opening Plenary (Gabriella Coleman)

Biella and company explained all the ins and outs of the event: where to go, what to do (and not do), and most importantly, whom to thank for all of it. Now in its 11th year, DebConf is an impressively well-run conference.

I’m looking forward to the rest of the week!

Syndicated 2010-08-02 00:50:44 from We'll see | Matt Zimmerman