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Project to improve Debian support model

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  Project to improve Debian support model Katy Tolsen <2ndlifekaty@gmail.com> - 2017-10-21 15:20 +0200
    Re: Project to improve Debian support model Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2017-10-21 17:20 +0200
      Re: Project to improve Debian support model Katy Tolsen <2ndlifekaty@gmail.com> - 2017-10-21 20:00 +0200
    Re: Project to improve Debian support model Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2017-10-22 03:50 +0200
      Re: Project to improve Debian support model Katy Tolsen <2ndlifekaty@gmail.com> - 2017-10-22 18:20 +0200
      Re: Project to improve Debian support model Sean Whitton <spwhitton@spwhitton.name> - 2017-10-22 21:10 +0200
        Re: Project to improve Debian support model Katy Tolsen <2ndlifekaty@gmail.com> - 2017-10-22 22:50 +0200
          Re: Project to improve Debian support model Marc Haber <mh+debian-project@zugschlus.de> - 2017-10-23 08:20 +0200
            Re: Project to improve Debian support model Katy Tolsen <2ndlifekaty@gmail.com> - 2017-11-15 05:40 +0100
    Re: Project to improve Debian support model Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2017-10-22 03:50 +0200
    Re: Project to improve Debian support model Afif Elghraoui <afif@debian.org> - 2017-10-22 20:10 +0200
      Re: Project to improve Debian support model Katy Tolsen <2ndlifekaty@gmail.com> - 2017-10-22 22:30 +0200

#9544 — Project to improve Debian support model

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I've started a project with the aim to improve Debian's support model by
designing software to help integrate and track all our support efforts and
make a system that bridges the gap between our supporters, developers, and
users in a synergistic way to make the most of our efforts and help us
identify and solve issues more effectively and make sure the issues are
documented and accessible to everyone in a way most suitable to their needs.

https://kathryntolsen.github.io/diss/

I am going to post to debian-devel, debian-project, and debian-user mailing
lists.

For consideration of our project leaders, I ask for your input on this
matter because our aim here is entirely Debian specific and our highest
goal is to improve the Debian Project. We could very much use your guidance
in the early planning of this project we are now doing. At some point when
it comes time to roll out a beta and make this system available to users
for testing, and hopefully one day integrate a fancy Help and Support
Center into the Debian OS, we will need to cleanly integrate with many
existing systems in a way that best reflects upon the project and it's
goals. I have nothing specific at this point I want to address, consider
this just a PING of sorts getting your attention and inviting your input
while this is still being planned so that we don't have any major clashes
in the future. Currently the project is only a week old and we've only
begun to lay out a design model and haven't set anything in stone.

I thank you for your time and will be interested in hearing any thoughts or
concerns, and would happily welcome any interested parties to take any role
they like in the design and implementation of this project.

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#9546

On Sat, Oct 21, 2017 at 8:58 PM, Katy Tolsen wrote:

> I've started a project with the aim to improve Debian's support model

You might like to read through this related discussion:

https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/1490068866.4683.13.camel@debian.org

-- 
bye,
pabs

https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise

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#9547

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On Sat, Oct 21, 2017 at 11:16 AM, Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> wrote:

> On Sat, Oct 21, 2017 at 8:58 PM, Katy Tolsen wrote:
>
> > I've started a project with the aim to improve Debian's support model
>
> You might like to read through this related discussion:
>
> https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/1490068866.4683.13.camel@debian.org
>
> --
> bye,
> pabs
>
> https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise
>
> Much appreciated, will do, thanks.

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#9550

On Sat, Oct 21, 2017 at 8:58 PM, Katy Tolsen wrote:

> I thank you for your time and will be interested in hearing any thoughts or
> concerns, and would happily welcome any interested parties to take any role
> they like in the design and implementation of this project.

While reading your proposal, I was reminded of this project:

https://debug-me.branchable.com/
https://joeyh.name/blog/entry/announcing_debug-me/

-- 
bye,
pabs

https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise

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#9557

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On Sat, Oct 21, 2017 at 9:40 PM, Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> wrote:

> On Sat, Oct 21, 2017 at 8:58 PM, Katy Tolsen wrote:
>
> > I thank you for your time and will be interested in hearing any thoughts
> or
> > concerns, and would happily welcome any interested parties to take any
> role
> > they like in the design and implementation of this project.
>
> While reading your proposal, I was reminded of this project:
>
> https://debug-me.branchable.com/
> https://joeyh.name/blog/entry/announcing_debug-me/
>
> I'd considered approaches like this, and I think no matter how you do it
this introduces
at least two new issues.

In short, as this is going to be a verbose reply.. this is
more adding to our problems than solving them. We don't need/want this kind
of thing
thats more how XP (and onward) Help and Support Center offers that option
of remote
support from a friend.. thats certainly something we can toss in there.. a
link to use
one of our remote desktop features, but thats not an acceptable form of
support for
the Debian project to endorse or encourage from strangers online no matter
what
methods are taken. Any "official" support steps should follow the spirit
and policies
of the Debian project itself, tested/stable methods, OPEN collaboration,
and peer
review.. not some point-to-point connection of a single supporter.

First issue being the obvious security implications which this
method of dealing with requires the existence of and time/willingness of
supporters
who are going to use the software.

Second issue being that our support model differs from
and is better than most commercial support models BECAUSE it allows for
multiple
supporters to give input and solutions are cross-examined by others
experience forming
a consensus opinion and giving the user not only choices, but ultimately
making anything
done on their system, being done by them thus removing any liability for
anything more
than advice.

The goals of this project however is not to change our support model for
anyone other than
the inexperienced user giving them a simpler interface that walks them
through our steps
of support. The tools available to supporters on mailing lists, irc, or
developers/maintainers
will not need to be embraced by them or require them to change their
preferred methods of
support nor will it require them to dedicate time to any one particular
issue until it's resolved.
These are volunteers not paid supporters. This system I visioned is op-in
and merely extends
and wraps their available toolset in a synergistic way where even if they
don't embrace it, they
are still contributing to it. The use of GPG/signing and such here is only
required for creation
of diagnostic tree files which will have open peer review and will present
steps to the user
prior to them being carried out, so that the user is still in effect
running the commands, not
merely doing something like allowing a bot or chat client to run arbitrary
commands from random
supporters simply because they signed it.

An example of how these diagnostic trees could work I draw on an issue I
had recently where my
sound worked in things like VLC but not in pianobar (pandora) and even with
my level of experience
I was utterly baffled by this issue, and come to realize that pianobar used
libao which had its own
configuration outside the asound.conf and I had to create a libao.conf and
tell it to use asound.conf.
A sound diagnostic tree file would have done things like performed a sound
test by using aplay and
asked the user if they heard it, if they said no, it'd check their mixer
levels, ask them to check their
connections, and if those things didnt solve it, it would then do something
like pulling up aplay -l and
their asound.conf, include this data in a report saying these commands for
the sound test and checking
mixer level were run, etc and then let them check existing issues, and move
on to IRC/mailinglist support.
However if they did hear the sound of the sound test like I did in this
scenario, the core diagnostic
tree would have already pulled up info from apt and know that pianobar uses
libao (depends), and
could pull up a diagnostic tree file from package libao provided by its
maintainer which shows
location of libao configs and checks those specific things, does a libao
sound test, etc. All that
would be very basic stuff and would be signed diagnostics with explanations
of each step to be
authorized by the user, and ultimately all this user would be doing if
their issue wasn't self-diagnosed
is moving on to our existing support systems with all this data already
compiled into a report.

Thus I as an IRC supporter can still be doing whatever I'm doing, and
contribute to the issue without
needing to drop my life and setup auth credentials and sign in to some
user's computer to poke
around and expect them to trust what I am doing like I'm some all around
expert and not merely
a user like them, who has some experience to offer.

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#9562

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Hello,

On Sun, Oct 22 2017, Paul Wise wrote:

> While reading your proposal, I was reminded of this project:
>
> https://debug-me.branchable.com/
> https://joeyh.name/blog/entry/announcing_debug-me/

If the Debian package of debug-me is installed along with debian-keyring
(which it recommends, so this will usually happen), when a DD or DM
connects to a user's machine to help debug, they will be identified as
such by means of their PGP key.

Before writing debug-me off as insecure/not trustworthy, please be sure
to carefully review its documentation and FAQs.  It's designed to answer
all the usual concerns.

-- 
Sean Whitton

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#9565

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Well that's interesting, but in all honesty, not to me. I have absolutely
no interest what-so-ever in accessing users computers as a means of doing
volunteer support. This system I am proposing is all about integrating
Debian's support resources and providing users with a sort of Help and
Support Center type frontend in Debian much like Microsoft has put in
Windows since XP, where they can easily access support options at a glance.
If someone wants to include a link to tools like this in there, I'm fine
with that as long as its done like Windows did it, where it says "friend"
or such, and its made clear that this is not a standard method of support.
I'm trying to make things work in a synergistic fashion to make everyone's
efforts most effective as a whole. Two people doing a direct connection
doesn't really help that effort any.. and I personally don't see it being
very common that people are going to want to sit around supporting end
users directly for free. I mean sure, if there were people who were sitting
around wanting to do this kinda support and users who wanted people to come
into their computers, and this was all recorded that could be interesting..
but it could not be integrated back into our other systems.. how from a
mailinglist or IRC channel am I going to reference what someone did in a
VNC like session? Post a video link? So now I gotta try load a video on my
orangepilite and sit there and watch a 20min video of people clicking
around on stuff? No don't think so.. not what I'm looking for here. Besides
this is already done.. so the only question then for this project is
whether or not to hook this feature and to be aware of it to not duplicate
anything it does. I think I'm good on both fronts there. I had no intention
of doing anything like this, and already considered (from just looking at
XP's Help and Support Center) including some hook to remote desktop support
features.. but its the absolute LEAST of my concerns right now.

On Sun, Oct 22, 2017 at 3:05 PM, Sean Whitton <spwhitton@spwhitton.name>
wrote:

> Hello,
>
> On Sun, Oct 22 2017, Paul Wise wrote:
>
> > While reading your proposal, I was reminded of this project:
> >
> > https://debug-me.branchable.com/
> > https://joeyh.name/blog/entry/announcing_debug-me/
>
> If the Debian package of debug-me is installed along with debian-keyring
> (which it recommends, so this will usually happen), when a DD or DM
> connects to a user's machine to help debug, they will be identified as
> such by means of their PGP key.
>
> Before writing debug-me off as insecure/not trustworthy, please be sure
> to carefully review its documentation and FAQs.  It's designed to answer
> all the usual concerns.
>
> --
> Sean Whitton
>

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#9567

On Sun, Oct 22, 2017 at 04:40:18PM -0400, Katy Tolsen wrote:
> Well that's interesting, but in all honesty, not to me. I have absolutely
> no interest what-so-ever in accessing users computers as a means of doing
> volunteer support. This system I am proposing is all about integrating
> Debian's support resources and providing users with a sort of Help and
> Support Center type frontend in Debian much like Microsoft has put in
> Windows since XP, where they can easily access support options at a glance.

I would like to point out that we cannot be compared to a commercial,
closed-source entity since most of the channels that are mis-taken by
our users as support channels (such as the -project and -devel mailing
lists) would be inaccessible to the public at Microsoft.

In Debian, those channels are open, which I see as a feature, even if
that means having to redirect the occasional mis-led user to the real
support channels.

Greetings
Marc

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marc Haber         | "I don't trust Computers. They | Mailadresse im Header
Leimen, Germany    |  lose things."    Winona Ryder | Fon: *49 6224 1600402
Nordisch by Nature |  How to make an American Quilt | Fax: *49 6224 1600421

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#9630

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nobody was comparing Debian to closed source I was merely pointing at an
example of the kind of frontend in the OS that I want to develop itc would
still connect to all our existing sources. see the project website and wiki
for a proposed idea of the sorts of things we want to create.
http://kathryntolsen.github.io/diss/ the project has moved to gitlab but I
don't have the new URL memorized yet the github links there.

On Oct 23, 2017 2:17 AM, "Marc Haber" <mh+debian-project@zugschlus.de>
wrote:

> On Sun, Oct 22, 2017 at 04:40:18PM -0400, Katy Tolsen wrote:
> > Well that's interesting, but in all honesty, not to me. I have absolutely
> > no interest what-so-ever in accessing users computers as a means of doing
> > volunteer support. This system I am proposing is all about integrating
> > Debian's support resources and providing users with a sort of Help and
> > Support Center type frontend in Debian much like Microsoft has put in
> > Windows since XP, where they can easily access support options at a
> glance.
>
> I would like to point out that we cannot be compared to a commercial,
> closed-source entity since most of the channels that are mis-taken by
> our users as support channels (such as the -project and -devel mailing
> lists) would be inaccessible to the public at Microsoft.
>
> In Debian, those channels are open, which I see as a feature, even if
> that means having to redirect the occasional mis-led user to the real
> support channels.
>
> Greetings
> Marc
>
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> -----------------
> Marc Haber         | "I don't trust Computers. They | Mailadresse im Header
> Leimen, Germany    |  lose things."    Winona Ryder | Fon: *49 6224 1600402
> Nordisch by Nature |  How to make an American Quilt | Fax: *49 6224 1600421
>

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#9551

On Sat, Oct 21, 2017 at 8:58 PM, Katy Tolsen wrote:

> I thank you for your time and will be interested in hearing any thoughts or
> concerns, and would happily welcome any interested parties to take any role
> they like in the design and implementation of this project.

The proposal calls for single-sign-on, which we have:

https://wiki.debian.org/DebianSingleSignOn

-- 
bye,
pabs

https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise

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#9561

On October 21, 2017 8:58:15 AM EDT, Katy Tolsen <2ndlifekaty@gmail.com> wrote:
>...
>
>https://kathryntolsen.github.io/diss/
>

I just wanted to point out something about the name choice for your consideration--at least in American slang, diss means to insult. I personally thought that's a bit unfortunate for a user supoort tool.

Thanks for your efforts
regards

Afif

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#9564

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Yes I'm aware and thought about that at the time. I just needed something
to call it to get it rolling. This project is not a software package so the
names of the actual things this project develops can still be a matter for
debate. I put very little effort into that name and its more what in
business is called a real name.. where you use your name an what you're
doing like Katy's Coffee Shop.. that name is EXACTLY what we're doing..
creating a Debian Integrated Support System it just so happens to
abbreviate to DISS and that just so happens to be a slang term. Only
consideration I took when choosing the name was making sure no other
project existed with that name. If you should choose to participate in the
project and had suggestions on what to call the packages for various
components I'm sure nobody is going to give you much argument. I know I
won't.

On Sun, Oct 22, 2017 at 2:07 PM, Afif Elghraoui <afif@debian.org> wrote:

>
>
> On October 21, 2017 8:58:15 AM EDT, Katy Tolsen <2ndlifekaty@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >...
> >
> >https://kathryntolsen.github.io/diss/
> >
>
> I just wanted to point out something about the name choice for your
> consideration--at least in American slang, diss means to insult. I
> personally thought that's a bit unfortunate for a user supoort tool.
>
> Thanks for your efforts
> regards
>
> Afif
>

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