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Our Blogs Open Sauce - A GNU perspective New Debian leader aims for better communication | New Debian leader aims for better communication |
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| by Sam Varghese | |
| Friday, 18 April 2008 | |
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Page 5 of 5 How much does it affect the project when there is negative publicity? And how would you as leader deal with it in the event it happened? Negative publicity always hurts: fundamentally, we're volunteers doing Debian work because it's fun, or because it scratches our itches, or because of the ego boost from being recognised for doing a good job. Bad press can kill that motivation and turn people against each other. My method to deal with it is simple: be truthful and honest. If there are misunderstandings, set the story straight. If there are real problems, acknowledge them and strive to fix them. Despite all the predictions of gloom and all the naysayers, the Debian project still continues to produce a great distribution. How do developers stay motivated? That's a *very* big question. :-) Just like opinions, we have *many* motivations and I can't possibly hope to cover all of them for all of the developers. I can speak for myself, though. I love the knowledge that I'm working on a complete operating system which covers my needs. If it breaks, I have a chance of fixing it, or I can find a friend who will be able to do it for me. If I want to do something new with the system, I'm confident that it will support me. The fact that millions of other people appreciate what I'm doing as well is icing on the cake! And finally, what will be the benchmarks by which you measure the success of your 12 months at the head of the project? I'll know I've done a good job if Debian is in a better shape: more efficient, more people having fun, more people working on the core tasks that are needed. I want to see Lenny released inside our target window. Beyond that, I'll just have to trust to judgement - my own and those of my peers. I know that's a little wishy-washy, but it's not like I can point to objective numbers like sales figures here... :-)
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