Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > linux.debian.project > #12228 > unrolled thread

Creating a Debian Spending proposals and discussion mailing list

Back to article view | Back to linux.debian.project

This discussion starts older than the indexed window; earlier articles aren't shown. The article labeled Started by below is the oldest one visible, not the original post.

Contents

  Creating a Debian Spending proposals and discussion mailing list Phil Morrell <debian@emorrp1.name> - 2021-04-02 23:30 +0200
    Re: Creating a Debian Spending proposals and discussion mailing list Raphael Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org> - 2021-04-04 12:10 +0200
      Re: Creating a Debian Spending proposals and discussion mailing list Phil Morrell <debian@emorrp1.name> - 2021-04-04 17:00 +0200
        Re: Creating a Debian Spending proposals and discussion mailing list Raphael Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org> - 2021-04-06 22:20 +0200
          Re: Creating a Debian Spending proposals and discussion mailing list Phil Morrell <debian@emorrp1.name> - 2021-04-19 19:20 +0200
            Re: Creating a Debian Spending proposals and discussion mailing list Raphael Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org> - 2021-04-19 21:10 +0200

#12228 — Creating a Debian Spending proposals and discussion mailing list

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

Hi all, moving off -vote and heavily trimming, original thread here:

https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2021/03/msg00007.html

On Thu, 18 Mar 2021, Philip Hands wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Mar 2021, Jonathan Carter wrote:
> > I think as things stand now, every DD pretty much already has the entire
> > Debian budget available at their disposal if they can think of a way to
> > spend it that benefits the project.
> 
> I was reflecting on the way the Peertube funding was achieved.
> There were enough people keen on that happening that if we'd each had an
> earmarked e.g. 1k budget to allocate, we could have just agreed it
> amongst ourselves, and done it

On Sun, 21 Mar 2021, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Mar 2021, Philip Hands wrote:
> > On Thu, 18 Mar 2021, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> > > I'm considering paying someone to identify useful
> > > projects. That person could talk to various teams, make proposals based on
> > > their own experience, and even run a poll among Debian developers.
> > 
> > I've been pondering how it might be possible to spend more of Debian's
> > money, and it occurred to me that we could allocate a budget to each DD
> > which they could spend on pretty-much anything
> > 
> > Encouraging people to pool their budgets to fund bigger things would
> > hopefully result in them forming teams of mentors to oversee the work.
> 
> I really like your idea! I wonder if there would be some infrastructure
> that would make it easy to describe projects and track how much money
> has been allocated by the various DD.
> 
> But if we find something usable, we could have a volunteer in charge of
> entering the "votes" of the DD by adjusting a Debian pledge in a open
> system (and have some associated ledger where the DD allocations are
> tracked).

This whole idea inspired me, so if just a couple of DDs agree with the
below, I'm hereby volunteering to do the admin work involved.

I've thought about what such a system could look like, perhaps signed
commits to a salsa project or a simple site like mentors. I came to the
conclusion that there's already a working system in place for counting
DD support of suggestions. debian-vote has proposals, low-bureaucracy
seconders, and the Project Secretary validating signatures.

I propose creating an experimental debian-spending mailing list based on
the same rules to test this idea. The equivalent of the GR here would be
a filled out project proposal for consideration by the DPL or Freexian.
I'd have to do more research on the process first, since I haven't
interacted with the voting system myself. Taking the peertube example:

	Alice: Proposal: Video team needs peertube v3 to support streaming
	Bob: Amendment: Donate €20,000 to the public fundraising campaign
	Carol: Seconded: Bob
	Dan?: Seconded: Bob
	Erin: Amendment: Donate €10,000 to the public fundraising campaign
	emorrp1: Dan you forgot to sign
	Frank: Seconded: Erin
	Dan: Seconded: Bob
	... etc.

I would then send an email to the DPL (or fill out the Freexian
template) with the project details and the list of signatories. The
outcome could be absolutely anything of course - the DPL could see that
30 people supported 10k and 10 people 20k, but they know that the budget
can handle 15k and do that, the point is to have a concrete proposal.

Another example is that debian-android-tools has all the DD availability
for sponsoring Kotlin uploads, and most initial work done by GSoC
students, but no-one had free time to work on it betwen Oct and Mar. Now
it turns out that no less than 3 other teams are depending/awaiting a
kotlin upload: Java, Freedombox for Jitsi, Games for Mindustry. That's a
lot of potential DDs who could have seconded a tender for a third-party
contractor to bid on say a week to a month's work.

I think this will lower the barrier for proposals. I looked up what the
current process is and it's literally "email the DPL and convince them",
which could be offputting without knowing how many other people support
your idea. Similarly I would expect a lot of teams to know their own
problem areas but be unaware of the level of support outside the team
through multiple levels of reverse dependencies.

Hopefully that's enough to convince you, and it's clear I'm only
offering to do the administration, not make any actual decisions. I'd
also like to help the list get started in a personal capacity by digging
up old BudgetIdeas and writing up proposals say once a week.

This doesn't block implementing the idea of a per-DD budget later. Say,
€100pm and the Seconders include how many months of their allocation
they wish to spend on a project. I could include the total in the email
to DPL, or feedback to the list that a project has reached 50% funding
and needs more Seconders, or if they've exceeded the budget just include
them in the signatories with a sum of 0.
--
Phil Morrell (emorrp1)

[toc] | [next] | [standalone]

#12232

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

Hi,

On Fri, 02 Apr 2021, Phil Morrell wrote:
> I've thought about what such a system could look like, perhaps signed
> commits to a salsa project or a simple site like mentors. I came to the
> conclusion that there's already a working system in place for counting
> DD support of suggestions. debian-vote has proposals, low-bureaucracy
> seconders, and the Project Secretary validating signatures.
> 
> I propose creating an experimental debian-spending mailing list based on
> the same rules to test this idea. The equivalent of the GR here would be
> a filled out project proposal for consideration by the DPL or Freexian.

That's a simple way to ensure some basic level of support to an idea
or some way to gauge whether a need is shared by multiple persons.

But it doesn't really help to turn those ideas into actionable projects
that can be funded.

It's OK when the project is as simple as "give 5 KEUR to peertube" but
definitely not enough when the idea is "build a web interface to manage
Debian reimbursement request" (taking an example that I just got on
https://salsa.debian.org/freexian-team/project-funding/-/merge_requests/5).

I would be saddened if this system turned only into a way to give our
money to other free software projects instead of using that money to help
us towards our common mission.

> Another example is that debian-android-tools has all the DD availability
> for sponsoring Kotlin uploads, and most initial work done by GSoC
> students, but no-one had free time to work on it betwen Oct and Mar. Now
> it turns out that no less than 3 other teams are depending/awaiting a
> kotlin upload: Java, Freedombox for Jitsi, Games for Mindustry. That's a
> lot of potential DDs who could have seconded a tender for a third-party
> contractor to bid on say a week to a month's work.

Ack.

> I think this will lower the barrier for proposals. I looked up what the
> current process is and it's literally "email the DPL and convince them",
> which could be offputting without knowing how many other people support
> your idea. Similarly I would expect a lot of teams to know their own
> problem areas but be unaware of the level of support outside the team
> through multiple levels of reverse dependencies.

It's certainly good to lower the barrier for proposals but for your Kotlin
example, the issue is more "who will be paid to to the work"? Someone has to
select a winning bid and having that kind of responsibility within Debian
is the historical friction point related to use of money in Debian.

I tried to solve this by defining up-front for each project who will be
the reviewer and thus the person who will have to select the winning bid
(in cooperation with the person/organization who will pay the bill). Or by
encouraging developers to propose projects that they want to implement
themselves... so that there's no choice of person to make, it's more a "do we
want this project at this time" and it can be answered collectively
(in Freexian's case by the paid LTS contributors since it's money saved
from the offering where they are involved).

> Hopefully that's enough to convince you, and it's clear I'm only
> offering to do the administration, not make any actual decisions. I'd
> also like to help the list get started in a personal capacity by digging
> up old BudgetIdeas and writing up proposals say once a week.

IMO the bulk of the work is not in finding ideas, but on transforming
them into actionable projects, and on selecting which project can have the
largest impact on Debian.

That said I would welcome if we could query the Debian developers at
large to find out what kind of ideas/changes would be most beneficial
to Debian.

Cheers,
-- 
  ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀   Raphaël Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org>
  ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁
  ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋    The Debian Handbook: https://debian-handbook.info/get/
  ⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀   Debian Long Term Support: https://deb.li/LTS

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#12233

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

Hi Raphaël, your feedback in particular is very much appreciated.

Please keep in mind that I'm proposing this list purely as a practical
experiment, it does nothing that can't already be done elsewhere, and if
it doesn't work out after say 6 months, then so be it. All I'm looking
for is an indication that it would not be a complete waste of my time to
set up, that doing so has the potential to help Debian, and that some
DDs would be willing to review and Second proposals.

On Sun, Apr 04, 2021 at 12:01:05PM +0200, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> I would be saddened if this system turned only into a way to give our
> money to other free software projects instead of using that money to help
> us towards our common mission.

I'm not so sure about that, there's a lot of overlap involved (e.g.
reproducible builds or calamares) especially since the project resists
funding direct packaging work like QA. Even assuming the initiative
accidentally ends up solely donating to other existing projects,
provided they benefit Debian I'd count that as successful - a contra
policy guidance or GR could also be proposed if it becomes excessive.

> On Fri, 02 Apr 2021, Phil Morrell wrote:
> > I think this will lower the barrier for proposals. I looked up what the
> > current process is and it's literally "email the DPL and convince them",
> > which could be offputting without knowing how many other people support
> > your idea. Similarly I would expect a lot of teams to know their own
> > problem areas but be unaware of the level of support outside the team
> > through multiple levels of reverse dependencies.
> 
> It's certainly good to lower the barrier for proposals but for your Kotlin
> example, the issue is more "who will be paid to to the work"? Someone has to
> select a winning bid and having that kind of responsibility within Debian
> is the historical friction point related to use of money in Debian.

Isn't that the same issue you have for Freexian? Presumably the Proposal
would be either an Executor or (implied by default) Reviewer by your
terminology, so then the Seconds are agreeing who will review the work.

https://salsa.debian.org/freexian-team/project-funding/-/blob/master/Rules-LTS.md#who-can-make-bids

> IMO the bulk of the work is not in finding ideas, but on transforming
> them into actionable projects

Exactly my reason for proposing this new list to facilitate fleshing out
of ideas collectively. Unlike -vote, I'm hoping most Amendments would be
accepted by the proposer, so perhaps my Peertube example was unhelpful
here. There are a lot of current suggestions that the money could be put
towards some goal or category, but as you say they're not actionable.

https://wiki.debian.org/BudgetIdeas

> and on selecting which project can have the largest impact on Debian.

I think Jonathan's comment (and indeed platform) shows that we're not at
a point where that is a concern. For now I am happy giving more
visibility to actionable projects with *any* reasonable impact on
Debian. This also reminds me of multiple DebConfs sentiments on the bank
balance to the effect of: Whenever Debian successfully manages to spend
money, we're burdened with increased funding to compensate.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#12237

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

Hi,

On Sun, 04 Apr 2021, Phil Morrell wrote:
> Please keep in mind that I'm proposing this list purely as a practical
> experiment, it does nothing that can't already be done elsewhere, and if
> it doesn't work out after say 6 months, then so be it. All I'm looking
> for is an indication that it would not be a complete waste of my time to
> set up, that doing so has the potential to help Debian, and that some
> DDs would be willing to review and Second proposals.

I think it's important to experiment in this direction but for a low-key
experimentation I'd rather go with a gitlab project where you file ideas
as issues, people vote up and down various ideas with the usual +1 -1
buttons (gitlab can then show you a sorted list by popularity). You can
have draft projects in text files and people can collaborate with MR on
enhancement to those drafts.

We could have a "debian/spending-ideas" if you want so that all DD have
write access by default. We could restrict access to issues for project
members (that automatically includes all DD + selected non-DD directly
added to the project).

> > It's certainly good to lower the barrier for proposals but for your Kotlin
> > example, the issue is more "who will be paid to to the work"? Someone has to
> > select a winning bid and having that kind of responsibility within Debian
> > is the historical friction point related to use of money in Debian.
> 
> Isn't that the same issue you have for Freexian?

Well, no. Freexian is not Debian. I said _within Debian_.

> Presumably the Proposal
> would be either an Executor or (implied by default) Reviewer by your
> terminology, so then the Seconds are agreeing who will review the work.

If freexian decides to trust a Debian contributor to select a winning bid,
or trust a Debian contributor to implement a project, it's not the same
as if the money was given by Debian directly to a Debian contributor.

Obviously that decision can still have an impact on the community and
that's why I aim to have a clear and transparent process.

> a point where that is a concern. For now I am happy giving more
> visibility to actionable projects with *any* reasonable impact on
> Debian.

Ack.

Cheers,
-- 
  ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀   Raphaël Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org>
  ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁
  ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋    The Debian Handbook: https://debian-handbook.info/get/
  ⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀   Debian Long Term Support: https://deb.li/LTS

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#12341

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

Now that the DPL voting is over, I'd like to ask Jonathan directly what
you think of this idea in the context of your plans for an Expenditure
policy? Could this fit alongside, help feed into it or is likely to be
made obsolete? The thread starts here:

https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2021/04/msg00001.html

On Tue, Apr 06, 2021 at 10:14:50PM +0200, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> On Sun, 04 Apr 2021, Phil Morrell wrote:
> > Please keep in mind that I'm proposing this list purely as a practical
> > experiment, it does nothing that can't already be done elsewhere, and if
> > it doesn't work out after say 6 months, then so be it. All I'm looking
> > for is an indication that it would not be a complete waste of my time to
> > set up, that doing so has the potential to help Debian, and that some
> > DDs would be willing to review and Second proposals.
> 
> I think it's important to experiment in this direction but for a low-key
> experimentation I'd rather go with a gitlab project where you file ideas
> as issues, people vote up and down various ideas with the usual +1 -1
> buttons (gitlab can then show you a sorted list by popularity). You can
> have draft projects in text files and people can collaborate with MR on
> enhancement to those drafts.
> 
> We could have a "debian/spending-ideas" if you want so that all DD have
> write access by default. We could restrict access to issues for project
> members (that automatically includes all DD + selected non-DD directly
> added to the project).

Understood, I'm happy to organise it that way too if folks would prefer.
It just *seems to me* that the email workflow of seconds and inline
quoting is less structured and very familiar to DDs for fleshing out an
idea, perhaps augmented with an ad-hoc jitsi call.
--
Phil Morrell (emorrp1)

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#12342

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

On Mon, 19 Apr 2021, Phil Morrell wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 06, 2021 at 10:14:50PM +0200, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> > We could have a "debian/spending-ideas" if you want so that all DD have
> > write access by default. We could restrict access to issues for project
> > members (that automatically includes all DD + selected non-DD directly
> > added to the project).
> 
> Understood, I'm happy to organise it that way too if folks would prefer.

Kentaro Hayashi already started something in this direction after having
read this discussion: https://salsa.debian.org/debian/grow-your-ideas

You might want to work together. I saw his announce on planet Debian but
AFAIK he never mentioned it in this thread:
https://kenhys.hatenablog.jp/entry/2021/04/10/221301

It should be more widely announced, at least with a "Developer News":
https://wiki.debian.org/DeveloperNews

> It just *seems to me* that the email workflow of seconds and inline
> quoting is less structured and very familiar to DDs for fleshing out an
> idea, perhaps augmented with an ad-hoc jitsi call.

I don't think that a gitlab issue is much more structured. It's still
quite readable and works well by email as well.

As far as I am concerned, I think we are way too much email centric and we
are missing out on opportunities to retain new contributors due to this
but I digress...

Cheers,
-- 
  ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀   Raphaël Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org>
  ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁
  ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋    The Debian Handbook: https://debian-handbook.info/get/
  ⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀   Debian Long Term Support: https://deb.li/LTS

[toc] | [prev] | [standalone]

Back to top | Article view | linux.debian.project

csiph-web