Ultimate Debian Database talk at FOSDEM

Of course, I was in Brussels this week-end, for FOSDEM. I gave a talk about Ultimate Debian Database (slides here) in the Debian devroom. The conclusion was “UDD is ready, go play with it!” so you know what you should do now! FOSDEM in general was great and huge (see the video from Quim Gil if you still doubt that) as usual.

On a more sad note, the worst talk of the week-end was without any possible doubt Frans Pop’s release team bashing. Nobody is claiming that the release management of the lenny release cycle was perfect: there’s always room for improvement. But given the context and the constraints, I think that they did a very good job. Frans’ talk boiled down to: “The release team doesn’t know what they are doing, I would have done much better because I’m so qualified.” Giving such talks at FOSDEM, in front of an audience with many people not involved in Debian development, is really insulting. To make things worse, he finished the talk late, not leaving any time for questions/discussion, so the audience might be left with the impression that his opinions are representative of the opinions of DDs.

8 thoughts on “Ultimate Debian Database talk at FOSDEM

  1. Your talk was great Lucas, I am looking forward to testing the UDD from alioth.

    I missed the Frans Pop talk, now I am glad I did. I agree, I think that is bad form to do that sort of bashing at FOSDEM without prior warning or the ability to take comments and questions, it amounts to a sneak attack.

  2. Well, we were warned because we knew of the talk. But that there was no time at all for questions at least felt weird. There were some good points, but some also stood uncorrected.

  3. Sucks that such a talk went on and hopefully many people look beyond it and realize what a great project Debian really is. I have had the honor of being around Debian since the beginning, so I can’t say it is nothing new. Debian is a testament of greatness so I know there shouldn’t be any harm done, I hope.

    Anyways, I am with Joey, now I know which talk I want to see as well :) Maybe I will finally make the next FOSDEM. Only time will tell :)

  4. I agree that Frans’ talk hasn’t been subtle and there are critisisms, but your “summary” is in my opinion far off and serves just to polarise the situation even more. The talk was largely anecdotal, but in my view a better conclusion from Frans’ talk is “the release team should much more explicitly communicate what their plans are, so people can step in on time when there’s an issue”. I think there’s quite some truth in this.

    There was ample opportunity for a reaction: a full hour directly after Frans’ talk. Neil told me he deliberately ignored the talk which of course may be a useful idea. But in any case the opportunity was there; the release team or DD’s present just didn’t choose to use it.

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