Debian @ FOSDEM 2009: Postmortem

Well, no, neither FOSDEM nor Debian are dead. But FOSDEM '09 is gone, over, and dealt with.

It was a breeze, for the most part. I'm still not very happy with the booth; that needs to be done better next year. Help and suggestions in that area are more than welcome.

One thing that more than deserves a follow-up is Lucas' post about FOSDEM:

On a more sad note, the worst talk of the week-end was without any possible doubt Frans Pop's release team bashing. Nobody is claiming that the release management of the lenny release cycle was perfect: there's always room for improvement. But given the context and the constraints, I think that they did a very good job. Frans' talk boiled down to: "The release team doesn't know what they are doing, I would have done much better because I'm so qualified."

As the person responsible for allowing Frans on the schedule in the first place, while being fully aware of the relationship between Frans and the release team (not at first, but certainly in time to kick him off if I'd have wanted to), I'd like to comment on that.

First of all, I do not agree that the last statement in the above is true. Frans showed a few stories of things that went on in the release team, and gave his opinion on what he believed went wrong. He also explicitly said, at the beginning of the talk, that none of the talk was meant personally; that he wanted to offer some constructive criticism instead. I believe he did not fail in doing that, but of course YMMV.

Secondly, and more importantly, I do not believe it is healthy for Debian (or any project, for that matter) to reject criticism. Indeed, nobody is claiming perfection. I do not believe any venue where talks can be had should be a good news show. People in a position of power—not just the release team, but also, say, the DPL, ftp-masters, buildd maintainers and whatnot—have received our trust to do what they need to do to the best of their abilities. If someone in the project would believe that I can significantly improve my work as buildd maintainer, it is not just their right, but indeed their duty to inform me of that fact. This is exactly what Frans was attempting to do, and there is nothing wrong with that.

It is also not as if he's not tried reasoning with the release team first. He has made suggestions, which have gotten ignored. I feel that talking to more people about what he feels is right, to see whether they agree with him, is the next logical step to take, and that this it is exactly what Frans was attempting to do at FOSDEM.

Having said that, I agree that finishing the talk late was a very bad thing. If anything, a talk on a subject like this should have more, not less, time for discussion. So while I do not agree that his intentions were wrong, I do agree that the execution could have been better.

There, that was criticism too. Now, what's next?

Oh yes, suggestions. If people have suggestions on how to improve the Debian presence at FOSDEM next year (especially, as above, ideas for creative use of the booth would be welcome), then please send me an email, making sure the subject contains the word 'FOSDEM', so my mailfilters know what to do with it. You'll preferably do so now, while FOSDEM is still somewhat fresh in your memory; I'll take notes and use those for doing better next year.

Thanks,