La Salle Debain

Hi, Julien,

I agree that Debian is not dying and it was a bad PR move for Lucas to suggest it is, but what makes you think your response is any better from the PR perspective? I too have represented Debian at trade shows, LUGs etc. and I've had to deal with this topic before. My response is not to berate the holders of misinformation (and while I believe you when you say you were only aiming at Lucas, you used the plural so it would be easy for readers to be misled into thinking you meant multiple people.) but to emphasize that Debian is unique. Noone has conducted a social experiment of this type on this scale before and it is only natural for experiments to occasionally result in explosions and bad smells. Adopting this angle does not make us look bad and steers the questioner away from negative lines of thinking without belittling him. Much better PR don't you think?

Don't worry. I have a pro-death penalty post coming up to realign the cosmic balance.

Yeah the "oh noes Debian is dying!!1!!" meme is overwrought and annoying but why did you have to insult people who were pointing out a legitimate bug in Debian structure? I'm glad that (hopefully) this issue is resolved but the length of time it took to resolve is hardly something to be proud of. We who are sitting smugly inside the club should not look down on those waiting at the velvet rope in the rain.

For the second year in a row, I didn't vote in the DPL election. Not because I have lost interest in Debian affairs but because nothing is really going on that demands my attention. All three of the candidates who ran this year were eminently capable of representing of Debian and its ideals, all three had more or less the same vision for the role of DPL (IMO. See here for platforms,) and all three are, as far as I know, nice people. Organizational and social problems that previously existed have been fixed. The only problem I have with Debian these days is a lack of time but I can hardly expect the DPL to do anything about that.

However, a recent post from Lucas reminded me that there is one group for which all is not fine and dandy. Given that this is the same complaint that has been made for atleast five years nows, one has to wonder why it remains singularly unfixable? Well I don't know but this delegation makes me confident that we will finally see the end of this last bottleneck too. Joerg is the one who sped up NEW package processing and I am sure he will have account creation humming along in no time.

I sympathize with the frustration people stuck in NM feel, but I would like to remind them that Debian acts the way Winston Churchill observed the United States does:

"Americans can always be depended upon to do the right thing—after they've tried everything else."

:-(

$comment

Another awards show took place today but nobody is paying any attention to that. All of Hollywoods elite can be found at the King Plaza Buffet in Jersey City for the 80th annual Things Jaldhar Discovered Last Year That Every Else Knew About Already Awards. (Known in the industry as "the Golden Sombreros") Here is a list of the winners.

Game: Hungry Hungry Hippos This game is awesome! But don't play with three year olds. They cheat.

Book: Discworld series by Terry Prachett When The Color Of Magic came out in 1983, I dismissed it as merely "The Hichhikers Guide to Mordor" but last year I read it again and this time it grew on me. Since then I've been steadily reading the whole series since June at an average of one a week.

Music: Rammstein Smell the umlauts! I have no idea what they are actually going on about but this is what Metal is supposed to sound like.

Mental Condition: Oedipus Complex All of sudden last October or so, my son started screaming and crying whenever I got anywhere near my wife and he would cling to her like the proverbial limpet. Then three months later, just as suddenly, he stopped. Very strange, not to mention creepy.

Linux command: grep --color=auto Everyone knows GNU ls can be colorized but did you know the same is true of GNU grep? I didn't. Why wasn't I informed of this earlier?

L. Ron Hubbard Lifetime Achievement Award: Coke Zero I used to drink way more Coke than was good for me so I decided to give it up. Diet sodas don't taste very good so I was resigned to not drinking soda at all. Luckily for me Coke Zero has no calories or sodium but does have caffeine and a taste like actual Coca-Cola. Perfect!

New Jersey is one of the states holding presidential primaries on this Super Tuesday and since you asked, I voted for John McCain.

The chief reason for my vote is of course the war against Islamic terrorism. Now that we are finally gaining the upper hand in Iraq, we can't afford to elect someone who will fail to see victory through. Mind you this isn't necessarily a reason not to vote Democrat. The anti-war wing of that party has been thoroughly marginalized. Hillary atleast has a commendable reputation for viciousness. Even Obama has made some encouraging remarks (ok that was probably a red herring but I have the audacity to hope you see.) But while the Democrats do not take the anti-war crowd seriously, they do depend on them for a great deal of their funding. A Democratic president might feel the need to throw them some bones inadvertantly screwing up things in the process. On the Republican side, Huckabee might leave tactical planning to Jesus. Romney would toe the line but there is no sign that he has any original thoughts on the matter. While I continue to support the President, it must be admitted that this whole war is stretching out as long as it is because mistakes were made. We need options beyond "staying the course" and "cutting and running" and McCain a military hero and early supporter of the surge could be the one to find them.

The other big issue is supreme court appointments. One, possibly two justices may need to be replaced in the next four years. We need to ensure that the court does not veer leftward again as it will inevitably do during a Democratic administration. Here there is a big split in the Conservative establishment. Ideologues consider McCain to be insufficiently pure and worry he will end up appointing another Souter or O'Connor (both appointed by Republicans it should be noted.) Pragmatists point out that McCain is viewed more favorably than Romney or Huckabee amongst the independent and moderate voters who will be crucial to victory and that even the slight chance of a bad choice is better than the certainty of a bad choice if Clinton or Obama get to make it.

Social issues are important to many Republican voters and in this area too there is some grumbling about McCain being too liberal. Some have even suggested that if McCain beats Huckabee or Romney, a Democratic victory and four years out of power would be preferable in order to bring the GOP back to the straight and narrow. Although this contingent is loud I frankly don't think they have the influence people think (As evidenced by the actual performance of Huckabee or previous champion Fred Thompson.) When push comes to shove, they will rally behind the party candidate especially if McCain makes a bona fide social conservative (Huckabee himself?) his vice-president.

On economic issues, the president's job is to not interfere and let business run itself. I don't see any of the Republican candidates being much different in this regard. Or the Democrats for that matter.

[Careful readers will have noticed I have avoided mentioning Ron Paul. Paulestinians, consider this carte blanche to send me your long, rambling, incoherent screeds about how Dr. Paul has the answers to everything. Because God knows I haven't read enough of them lately.]

Update: Kevin asks what I think about the candidates in terms of "geek" issues such as net neutrality, DMCA etc. IMO there is not a whole lot of difference between the major candidates on these issues. Republicans one would think would be more beholden to corporations in general. Democrats on the other hand have a closer association with the media who are behind many of the sillier IP laws. Overall, I don't think it ought to be much of a factor in choosing the president even for Free Software types. Rather we should focus on the legislative branch (in Congress as well as the states) which holds the real power here and in the court of public opinion.