Debian project gets a new secretary

By Sam Varghese
Tuesday, 24 February 2009 06:21

Opinion and Analysis

The Debian GNU/Linux Project which was functioning without a permanent secretary for some time has finally got a man for the job.


Kurt Roeckx has been appointed to the post by Debian leader Steve McIntyre. As required by the project constitution, McIntyre made the appointment in consultation with the acting secretary, Bdale Garbee.

Manoj Srivastava, the former secretary, resigned on December 18, following dissatisfaction among project members over the options offered in a vote about the release of Lenny.

Debian has a set of free software guidelines and some developers felt that the project should continue to adhere to this; others felt that some exceptions are needed in order to ensure that a lot of current software can be included in the distribution.

Srivastava set in motion a vote on December 13 about what should be done regarding a release; however, members of the project were unhappy about the options allowed in the voting process and said so, at times vociferously. This ended with his resignation.

Garbee handled the functions of secretary from that point and will now hand over to Roeckx.

Assisting Roeckx will be Neil McGovern who also assisted Srivastava.

Announcing the appointment, McIntyre said: "We (McIntyre and Garbee) have spoken about the job and agreed that adding an Assistant Secretary would again be a good idea, especially given that we expect several votes to come up soon."

(McGovern is someone whom I remember for one thing - he gave me the smallest business card I have ever received when I met him, along with McIntyre, at the London Motor Show last year.)

The project holds its annual elections for a new leader in April each year and that is the main vote that is coming up.
 
Roeckx's appointment is an indication of the management skills which McIntyre and Garbee bring to the project; it was Rocekx who was responsible for the worst security fiasco in the history of the project which came to light in May last year.

One can damn a man for such things and exclude him from responsibility thereafter but the good manager realises that any human being can screw up, and badly too. In fact, it is often some of the most capable people who screw up the worst.