Introduction / Biography

I am the main APT maintainer. I have been a Debian Developer since 2008, focusing on package management, initially bringing the Ubuntu tools like gnome-app-install and later software-center to Debian; and eventually became the lead APT maintainer.

I sort of brought the APT work with me when I joined Canonical in 2018, I had some interesting side quests with boot loader maintenance and Ubuntu’s autopkgtest infrastructure maintenance over the years, but these days have found a renewed focus on APT and package management topics as well as some organisational bits like running meetings, mentoring people, and helping us plan our roadmaps.

DebConf attendees will also know me as the cow bearer. I first attended DebConf in 2015, when DonKult brought his plush cow, and have been bringing my own plush cow since 2016 to represent APT as a mascot.

I’m also a member of a whole bunch of other organisations:

However, I am not particularly active in any of these groups, so the DPL would be my first social governance challenge, and not compete with DPL for my time.

Major Goal / Meat of the platform

Being deeply rooted in both Debian and Ubuntu gives me the means to bridge gaps between the communities. One thing I see is that Ubuntu has much stronger community growth than Debian, and I’d love to see what we can do to make Debian more attractive to people from Ubuntu (and other systems).

I do not believe that a single person should be significantly load bearing in a sense, and I’d like to explore how we can delegate more responsibilities away from the DPL.

This could take the form of establishing a DPL advisory council that can make binding decisions for the DPL. 3 people making a decision is generally better than 1 person making it, unless it’s so urgent you can’t get 3 people to vote on it.

Diversity, equity and inclusion are very important to me. I believe everyone should be free to be themselves and Debian should be a safe space for them to express their individuality.

Some of this stuff seems obvious:

Some stuff you might not notice and is more hidden, but poses challenges nonetheless. Like the DebConf attendee who’s autistic and needs a single room, allergies, special dietary needs, or not having enough money to attend DebConf.

There’s much more, of course, this is by no means an elaborate list. I think all of these voices deserve to be heard, and we need to ensure that we provide safe environments for them to thrive in.

I’d be interesting in exploring the idea of a regular office hour on Jitsi, where DDs can come and discuss topics. I think sometimes we get lost in endless conflicts on mailing lists, and some face-to-face talk could remove a lot of tension.

Meetings of course suffer from their own problems, such as finding times that work for all interested people, and some people just prefer asynchronous communication, which is their right and privilege, and it’s a careful balancing act to make sure everyone’s voice is heard, and heard equally.

Ultimately though, in the grand scheme of things, what matters more to me are three simple questions to you:

I believe that this is ultimately what leadership should be about, helping people achieve their goals, and not personal interests.

Addressing concerns

I’m concerned about creating conflicts of interests between my work and the DPL hat; so when concrete decisions need to be made that could be considered a conflict of interest, I’d like to delegate those concrete decisions (boiled down to yes/no) to someone else, and then merely execute the decision.

I care very deeply about Debian and I am sometimes overcommitting a bit; this results in a bit of burnout and in me not picking the best words when trying to respond as quickly as possible.

That being said, I believe my level of passion for Debian is also a bonus point; as is my ability to be a bridge to the Ubuntu world.

Capacity

I will of course be attending DebConf; but with all the other conferences and internal events to travel to for work, it would be a bit challenging to attend all the various MiniDebConfs.

I am currently reachable on IRC around 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Sometimes I am cycling or working and won’t pay attention right away. But if you ping me too much I’ll turn off my IRC notifications on my wearables :D