Being Debian leader can be 'scary at times'

Sam Varghese
Friday, 08 August 2008 06:36

Opinion and Analysis

Though he's been with the Debian project a long time and met many of his fellow 1000+ developers, either face-to-face or through online communication, McIntyre still knows that he cannot go out ahead of his troops.

"We do have our occasional heated discussions, we have 1000+ developers and that sometimes means on any given topic, we may have 2000 opinions. There's no telling people this is what we're going to do, it's more of the consensus approach. If i tried anything without a reasonable amount of backing from the developers, I'll probably get shot," he said with a chuckle when I met him at the British International Motor Show in London last month.

That McIntyre took time out to meet an inquisitive journalist on what was probably the one full day of leisure he's had since he began Debian leader says a lot about his attitude to the media - he's accessible and his behaviour isn't conditioned by the type of coverage he receives.

The way he puts it, "I like to get on with people. I tend to be quite easy going. One of my roles as DPL I see as helping to spread news about the project by talking to journalists and talking to other people in the community as well. I really enjoy it."

He does have his limits, though. "If I talk to journalists, and they give a reasonable summary of it and hopefully make some sense of the drivel I spout, then that's fine. I have had some less than stellar experiences with some journalists in the past who clearly have no understanding about what we're doing or what I'm trying to say. But with people who take the time to do some research and understand it's a pleasure to talk to them."