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<title>Interview with Ben Collins, the new Debian Project Leader LG #66</title>
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"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
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<H1><font color="maroon">Interview with Ben Collins, the new Debian Project Leader</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:frc@linux.com.br">Fernando Ribeiro Corr&ecirc;a &amp; Marcos Martins Manh&atilde;es</a><BR>
Originally published at <A HREF="http://www.olinux.com.br/Interviews">OLinux</A></H4>
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<p>
<b>OLinux: First of all, tell us about your background.</b>
</p>
<p>
<b>Ben Collins:</b>
I am generally speaking a programmer and systems
administrator. In the past I have also worked as a Desktop
Publisher and a web designer. I've worked for NASA LaRC,
several ISPs and currently am working at
<A HREF="http://www.winstar.com">Winstar</A>
.</p>
<p>
<b>OLinux: Please give a brief summary of
<A HREF="http://www.debian.org">Debian</A>'s History, Philosophy
and Organization on handling free software development?</b>
</p>
<p>
<b>Ben Collins:</b>
Our philosophy goes back a long way. Mainly we believe that
it <EM>is</EM> possible to create a completely free operating system
with all of the things you need to do your daily work. That's
what started Debian, and prompted Ian Murdock to write the
Debian Manifesto. From there began our project, and from it
has come the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG), which
defines the type of software licensing we consider to be Free
in the sense of Freedom. Also came the Debian Social
Contract, which defines what we will support for our users.
Later, as we grew, came our Constitution, which defines our
operating procedures, and breakdown of authority within the
project.</p>
<p>We've basically given full control of each package to the
maintainer of that package, so long as it falls within the
guidelines of our well defined Policy. Our Policy is one of
the strengths of the Debian distribution. Without it, we
would not have a cohesive set of packages, and
installs/upgrades would be a nightmare.</p>
<p>
<b>OLinux: How excited you are about being in front of the
Debian Project? Do you have something in mind for the
Debian Project? Are you going to make changes on the way
the work is done?</b>
</p>
<p>
<b>Ben Collins:</b>
I'm extremely excited. This is my third run at the DPL
position, and it is a goal I have finally achieved thanks
completely to those in the project that have faith in my
ability to handle the job. I have plans to clean up some
loose ends that have been plaguing our internal organisation
for some time. After this, I plan to tackle some of the more
difficult situations that still linger, or are threatening to
be a problem in the near future.</p>
<p>
<b>OLinux: What are going to be the differences between your
leadership and the predecessor's?</b>
</p>
<p>
<b>Ben Collins:</b>
When I first came to Debian, Ian Jackson was finishing his
term as DPL, and he was very inactive (to his defense, I do
not know any details of his situation). Wichert then followed
for two terms. I believe he did an excellent job keeping
Debian going. However, my plans are to get Debian moving
rather than continue to limp along with some of the problems
we face.</p>
<p>
<b>OLinux: How are people organized and what are the tools
used to control the results of the work being done in
different projects and parts of the world?</b>
</p>
<p>
<b>Ben Collins:</b>
Within Debian, we have the maintainers (some 800 it seems
now). Each of them is responsible for maintaining one or more
packages (some do not maintain packages, but help with other
projects internally, such as ftp archive, www site, etc.).
They have complete control of their tasks within the
guidelines and policy. Within this, some developers have
grouped together to manage large specific tasks. Examples of
this are the Debian Junior project, as well as the ports (such
as sparc, arm, alapha, powerpc, etc.) and language
projects.</p>
<p>All work is coordinated via mailing lists. Some people
also use IRC as a way of immediate interaction (via
irc.openprojects.net). We also have the Debian Bug Tracking
System to manage bug reports for all of our packages and
systems. This system is available publicly via our web
pages. Anyone can file a bug, and track it's progress
directly with the maintainer.</p>
<p>
<b>OLinux: How many people are working for Debian nowadays?
Are you satisfied with the results?</b>
</p>
<p>
<b>Ben Collins:</b>
Last I checked, about 800. I am satisfied with the results.
What I am not satisfied with is the influx of maintainers
without a better scheme to manage them. Work is being done,
but I want to see some other things in this area discussed
and looked at.</p>
<p>
<b>OLinux: What do you think about people saying that the
Debian 2.2 has too much bugs? What are you going to do in
"Woody" to change this point of view?</b>
</p>
<p>
<b>Ben Collins:</b>
I was not aware that people said that. We have an excellent
security team that fixes all known security related bugs. We
also make regular point releases (2.2r3 is being worked on as
I write this) to update the security patches into a new
release. For woody we have a new "testing" mechanism which
should help reduce the amount of time needed to release.
Hopefully this will make more frequent releases possible.</p>
<p>
<b>OLinux: What are your expectations about the "Woody"
launch?</b>
</p>
<p>
<b>Ben Collins:</b>
I look forward to a lot of the things that are going to be
available in woody. Woody also promises to be the most
architectures we have ever released at one time (by any
distribution, that I am aware of).</p>
<p>
<b>OLinux: What are the active projects at Debian? How are
they divided and coordinated in terms of content and staff
for each project?</b>
</p>
<p>
<b>Ben Collins:</b>
Usually a project within Debian creates itself to fill a
need. The project manages itself, and delegates within its
own ranks who is responsible for what tasks. I'm not aware
of all such projects, simply because most of them work in the
background, silently making Debian better.</p>
<p>
<b>OLinux: Here, in Brazil, there is a project called
<a href="http://debian-br.sourceforge.net">
Debian BR</a>
. This is a project that is translating the Debian content
to Portuguese. Do you know that? If yes, what do you think
about it? If not, you are invited to visit the Debian BR
web site at debian-br.sourceforge.net. Do you know other
projects like this in other countries?</b>
</p>
<p>
<b>Ben Collins:</b>
I had not heard of it before. I think it is an excellent
thing, much like the JP and similar projects. The more people
we can get Debian to, the better. I'll have a look at the
web site, and I wish the best of luck to the project for it's
efforts.</p>
<p>
<b>OLinux: Do you consider Debian the leading GNU/Linux
distribution in the world?</b>
</p>
<p>
<b>Ben Collins:</b>
On many basis, yes. However, I measure Debian on what's
important to me, and am well aware that it lacks in areas
that are important to others. A recurring topic is our
installer. I'm happy to report that a new modular installer
is being worked on, and it so far appears to exceed, or will
exceed, all of the goals that the group set for itself. It
will probably not be done in time for woody, though.</p>
<p>
<b>OLinux: How is Debian's relationship with the GNOME
Foundation? And with the KDE league?</b>
</p>
<p>
<b>Ben Collins:</b>
I'm not able to answer this question. I do know that we have
some developers that work closely with both projects, and
that GNOME and KDE are both fully integrated within our
distribution.</p>
<p>
<b>OLinux: What are the advantages and what differentiates
Debian from
other popular distributions as SuSE or Red Hat, besides being a
non-commercial distribution?</b>
</p>
<p>
<b>Ben Collins:</b>
I think we have three major strengths. One is our development
model. No other distribution has all of its developers
available first hand to take bug reports and suggestions from
its user base.</p>
<p>No other distribution has as extensive a set of policies
that allows it to distribute as many packages as we do, all
integrated into our distribution, with easy installation.</p>
<p>No other distribution offers the ease of upgrades that we
do. There have been reports of people being able to
effortlessly upgrade from as far back as Debian 1.3 (bo) to
the current stable 2.2 (potato) (note, this is a libc5 to
libc6 upgrade path). Debian not only supports, but guarantees
upgradability. It is one of our primary goals.</p>
<p>
<b>OLinux: How do you describe Debian Project achievements
and what are the prospects and goals for the next
years?</b>
</p>
<p>
<b>Ben Collins:</b>
The fact that Debian is still around, and is still growing is
a major achievement. We have not lost site of our primary
goals; to produce a free and stable distribution. Over the
next few years I hope to see Debian prosper from commercial
acceptance via companies like Progeny. I'm hoping that
vendors will see us as a more viable solution for desktops
and pre-installed systems.</p>
<p>
<b>OLinux: Give us some predictions about the growth of the
GNU/Linux operating system for the next 2, 5 and 10
years.</b>
</p>
<p>
<b>Ben Collins:</b>
That's hard to predict. Unfortunately, as free as it may be,
GNU/Linux is directly affected by the economy. The current
trend of Internet companies starting to fail, will likely
scare away of a lot of the venture capital that has flooded
Linux in the past years. Hopefully this will be a good thing,
and the Linux companies will have to start working to make
their money, and not ride the wave of hype. I would guess
that over the next 2 years, Linux's hype will settle down,
and people will start taking it more seriously (not just
those in-the-know).</p>
<p>In 5 years, I suspect that GNU/Linux will be as common as
MacOS, Solaris and Windows in the home. In 10 years, who
knows. That's like an eternity to the technical world, so
Linux may be obsolete by then.</p>
<p>
<b>OLinux: What are the improvements that GNU/Linux needs
to be more deployed in by the corporate market?</b>
</p>
<p>
<b>Ben Collins:</b>
An accepted, easy to use interface. KDE and GNOME are working
toward this with great strides. But even with a good
interface, getting accepted and being "common" take far
longer than a development cycle.</p>
<p>
<b>OLinux: Debian is definitely the best Linux distro, but
its hardware configuration interface and its installer are
not so friendly. Is the Debian Project going to focus on a
best interaction with the final user or it still a
distribution for the systems administrators only?</b>
</p>
<p>
<b>Ben Collins:</b>
Yes, the debian-installer group is working very hard on this.
We do not want to remain a niche distribution only used by
administrators and hard-core hackers.</p>
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<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Fernando Ribeiro Corr&eci;a</H4>
I am a computer analyst just about to finish my
graduation at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Now, I have built
with my staff the best
<A HREF="http://www.olinux.com.br">Linux portal</A> in Brazil and have further
plans to improve services and content for our Internet users.
<SPACER TYPE="vertical" SIZE="30">
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Marcos Martins Manh&atilde;es</H4>
I'm a journalist graduated from UFRJ (Federal
University of Rio de Janeiro). I'm 25 years old and have been working at
OLinux for one year. I began studying mecanical engeneering, but I gave
up during the second year. I've spent one year in Rockville (went to
Montgomery College), Maryland, and traveled a lot around the USA (that
was a great time).
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Copyright &copy; 2001, Fernando Ribeiro Corr&ecirc;a &amp; Marcos Martins Manh&atilde;es.<BR>
Copying license <A HREF="../copying.html">http://www.linuxgazette.com/copying.html</A><BR>
Published in Issue 66 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, May 2001</H5>
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