Sam Hartman Is Debian's Newest Project Leader, Aims To "Keep Debian Fun"
Sam Hartman is now the 17th Debian developer to serve as the project leader and will be taking the reigns from Chris Lamb who was first elected in 2017 and re-elected a year later. This is Sam's first time serving as the DPL but he has been involved with Debian since 2000.
Sam Hartman's platform as Debian Project Leader can be viewed here. Part of his campaign was focusing on "keeping Debian fun."
Lucas Nussbaum wrote an excellent summary of the DPL responsibilities. Of these, I think the most important is keeping Debian fun. We want people to enjoy contributing to Debian so that they prioritize it in their busy schedules. We want to make it easy for people to do work: processes and interactions should be streamlined. When people have concerns or things don't work out, we want to listen to them and consider what they want to say. We want Debian to be welcoming of new contributors.
Debian is not fun when we face grueling, long, heated discussions. It is not fun when we are unable to move a project forward because we cannot figure out how to get our ideas considered or how to contribute effectively. Debian is not fun when processes or tools are cumbersome. When key teams break down or get stuck, Debian is not fun either for the members of those teams or for those who depend on them. Debian is not fun when it isn't safe—when we are not respected, when we are harassed, or when we (rather than our ideas) are judged. I support our Code of Conduct.
As the Debian Project Leader he wants to promote listening and disagreements without escalation and coming to important project decisions more timely (including through proposing general resolutions where appropriate).
The 2019 Debian Project Leader announcement can be found here. The turnout this year was 37% voting of the Debian Developers.
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