[sf-lug] Some Debian developers on quasi-strike?

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Jason Turner (jturner at nonzerosums.org):

> From eWeek's daily mail...
> 
> News: Disgruntled Debian Developers Delay Etch
> 
> Vexed that two Debian developers were getting paid for their work, other
> Debian programmers have either ceased or slowed down their work on the
> popular Linux distribution.
> http://ct.enews.eweek.com/rd/cts?d=186-5128-8-85-147478-587088-0-0-0-1

(Upstream original copy at:
http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS3128387759.html )

I very much like Steven Vaughan-Nichols as a reporter, especially his
go-getter attitude towards getting scoops, but sometimes he misses the
mark:  There are boring procedural reasons for the recent rescheduling
of Etch release, i.e., there are about 100 release-critical bugs, and
those simply take time to fix -- and it strains credulity that
significant numbers of developers would be throwing a hissy fit and
sitting on their asses just because two of their number are getting
financial support.  (Some Debian developers have _always_ gotten
financial support and others not:  Progeny, VA Linux Systems, etc.
It's not new, and it's not controversial among reasonable people.)

In any event, it's clear that Vaughan-Nichols severely overinterpreted
Andreas Barth's blog entry, because the latter now sports this addendum:

   Update: There are media rumours floating around that "[Etch has] been
   delayed because some developers have deliberately slowed down their
   work". This doesn't reflect what I said.

   I just noted that the dunc-tank experiment has positive and negative
   effects, and we shouldn't watch only one side - whichever that side is.
   The reasons for the release being delayed from the original planned date
   has other reasons, please read the mails on debian-devel-announce for
   details (also all linked on http://release.debian.org/). And, I'm quite
   happy with the involvement of most Developers in the release. (And this
   paragraph isn't part of what this blog posting should be about really,
   but as it is cited, it is still here ...)

-- 
Cheers,             
Rick Moen                 "Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor."
rick at linuxmafia.com                                   -- Elizabeth Tudor