Two in race for Debian project leader

By Sam Varghese
Thursday, 12 March 2009 05:26

Opinion and Analysis

It's that time of the year again - the Debian GNU/Linux project is in election mode with the process for electing a leader for 2009-10 having begun.
The campaigning period goes on till March 28 and the online voting process will be conducted between March 29 and April 11. The new leader will begin his term on April 17.

This year there are just two people contesting, the lowest since elections began in 1999. One is the current DPL, Steve McIntyre. The other is Stefano Zacchiroli, developer since 2001. Only two developers, Wichert Akkerman and Martin Michlmayr, have been re-elected to the post.

Debian elections have, before this year, seen a minimum of three contestants (2002) and a maximum of eight (2007). So does this indicate that interest in running for leader has fallen off?

Zacchiroli does not think so; he thinks there are a few reasons why there are just two in the run. "Debian is much better from a 'political' point of view than it was a few years ago. The merit, IMHO, is mainly to be attributed to the last 2 DPLs, as I wrote in my platform. Having a project in a better shape contributes in decreasing the motivations for running," he told iTWire.

He added that it had now become clear that being DPL involved a considerable amount of work; this was because there were now clear lines of communication to the project and people were kept informed. While that was a good thing, it could have led to reluctance on the part of some to put their hands up as they now knew that it was a difficult task to head the project.

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