1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
|
#use wml::debian::template title="Platform for Sruthi Chandran" BARETITLE="true" NOHEADER="true"
#include "$(ENGLISHDIR)/vote/style.inc"
<div id="content">
<h1>DPL platform 2024</h1>(This an updated version of my 2021 platform)
<h2>Sruthi Chandran</h2>
<a href="mailto:srud@d.o">srud@d.o</a>
<h2>Who am I?</h2>
<p>
I am a librarian turned Free Software enthusiast and Debian Developer
from India.
</p>
<p>Some of my activities in Debian are:</p>
<ul>
<li>
ruby, javascript, golang and font packages (totalling to around
200) since 2016. (not very active nowadays)
</li>
<li>
Community Team delegate since Aug 2020.
</li>
<li>
Application Manager since Jul 2020.
</li>
<li>
Outreach team since Aug/Sep 2020.
</li>
<li>
Chief orga DebConf India 2023.
</li>
<li>
DebConf Committee member since 2023.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
I have been mentoring people to contribute to Debian for many years
now. I am involved in organizing numerous packaging workshops and
other Debian events throughout India. I am also involved in
organizing other free software events like
<a href="https://camp.fsf.org.in/">Free Software Camp</a>.
</p>
<h2>Why am I contesting?</h2>
<p>
Concerned with the skewed gender ratios within the Free Software
community (and Debian) I am working towards doing whatever I can
to better the situation. How many times did we have a non-(cis)male
candidate for DPL? If I am not wrong, when I contested in 2020, I was
the second non-(cis)male DPL candidate till date. As with my last two
rounds of contesting for DPL (2020 & 2021), this year too my primary
goal of contesting is to bring the diversity issues for discussion.
I believe I was successful in that at-least to a small extend in my
previous rounds.
</p>
<p>
I am aware that Debian is doing things to increase diversity within
Debian, but as we can see, it is not sufficient. I am sad that there
are only two women Debian Developer from a large country like India.
I believe diversity is not something to be discussed only within
Debian-women or Debian-diversity. It should come up for discussion
in each and every aspect of the project.
</p>
<p>
DPL elections is an important activity in our project and I plan to
bring up the topic of diversity for discussion every election till
we have a non-(cis)male DPL.
</p>
<p>
I feel that one effective way to encourage diverse people to
contribute is to have more visibility for diversity already within
the community. As more and more women (both cis and trans), trans
men, and genderqueer people who are already part of the project become
more visible instead of staying hidden in some part of the project,
more gender diverse people will feel comfortable joining our
community. Geographic/ethnic diversity are also important areas
which need attention.
</p>
<h2>What are my plans as DPL</h2>
<h3>1. Diversity</h3>
<p>
Since diversity is my primary focus, let me start with that.
</p>
<h4><b>Diversity budget</b></h4>
<p>
In-spite of spending a good amount of money on diversity, we seem to
not get the expected outcome. My first task as DPL would be to
revisit the existing spending pattern to analyse why and where we
are going wrong. When I say we should focus on diversity, I do not
mean that we should blindly spend money in the name of diversity.
I am personally aware of instances where the diversity budget
expenditure did bad instead of any good.
</p>
<p>
Another thing I would focus with respect to the diversity budget is
to publicise it more so that people who deserve it get to know about
it so that we do not end up spending it just for the sake of spending.
</p>
<h4><b>Diversity activities</b></h4>
<p>
I have heard that Debian-women project did some incredible work in
improving women contributors till it went dormant. Now we have the
Debian-diversity initiative, but this hasn’t gained much momentum
yet. I plan to streamline their activities and if possible have a
delegated team focusing on diversity. The delegated team shall
co-ordinate all the diversity related activities in Debian. This
team will also be involved in the decisions and expenditure of the
diversity budget.
</p>
<h4><b>Local activities</b></h4>
<p>
Debian-localgroups which was conceptualised by our current DPL is a
great idea to promote geographical diversity. I plan to use the
potential of localgroups to organize more local events and have more
diverse people contribute to Debian.
</p>
<h3>2. Outreach</h3>
<p>
My second focus area is outreach activities. I have been working with
the Debian-outreach team for more than 3 years now. I feel outreach
is one important activity which often does not get its due importance.
Our outreach team end up being just co-ordinators for GSoC and Outreachy.
I have a couple of ideas planned out for outreach.
</p>
<h4><b>Debian camp</b></h4>
<p>
Debian camp is a concept that I borrowed from
<a href="https://camp.fsf.org.in/">Free Software Camp</a> for which I was
one of the core organizers. Basically the concept is to have 3-4
months long online mentorship program. The advantage of a Debian
specific mentorship program is that we can tailor the program according
to our specific needs.
</p>
<p>
There will be two parts for the program. In the first part, the primary
focus will be on the philosophy of Debian (and free software) and why
one should contribute to Debian etc. We can have common sessions on
these topics for the mentees. In the second part, the mentees will work
with mentors on the projects of their choice.
</p>
<p>
In this activity, I plan to have the Debian-outreach team as the
co-ordinators/facilitators who work in collaboration with
Debian-diversity, Debian-localgroups, Debian Academy etc. The
Debian-outreach team will be doing the back-end activities of
organizing, scheduling etc. while other teams will be helping out with
resource persons/mentors/projects etc. I specifically intend to have
Debian-localgroups involved so that we can have localised activities
and not just in English.
</p>
<p>
The question of whether to pay stipend or not could be discussed later
and decided (we did not have stipend for the Free Software Camp and
still it was a success).
</p>
<h4><b>DebConf Boot-camp</b></h4>
<p>
This is an in person camp which can happen during the DebCamp (this
is an idea I borrowed from mollydb). I believe that there is nothing
like in-person mentoring.
</p>
<p>
Often we have new people who attend the DebConf are confused on what
and how to start contributing. This bootstrapping activity can help
them to find directions. I do believe that we have a lot of people
interested to help out with this. Exact plan to have this worked out
can be discussed and decided later.
</p>
<h4><b>Review of current activities</b></h4>
<p>
A thorough review of current outreach activities is long overdue. We
need to examine the effectiveness of our GSoC and Outreachy
participations, what we can do better and what we can do new.
</p>
<h3>3. Community</h3>
<p>
Debian community is a great community. But that does not mean we are
perfect. Some points I would be interested to take up as DPL are:
</p>
<h4><b>Welcoming</b></h4>
<p>
Even when we say we are a welcoming community, for an outsider it
might not appear so. There are a lot of reasons for this. The main
reason being that online communication often leads to miscommunication
and unintended flame wars. As a community, we need to work towards
making Debian more welcoming to all – new comers and old timers alike.
I am very keen on facilitating discussions on this as a DPL.
</p>
<h4><b>Change embracing</b></h4>
<p>
It is often observed that Debian as a community is reluctant to change
most of the time. As a DPL, I would like to develop a culture of
embracing change. I would encourage and facilitate people proposing
new ideas and processes for improvement of Debian.
</p>
<h3>4. Debian as an organisation</h3>
<h4><b>Debian Foundation (?)</b></h4>
<p>
In some of the previous years’ DPL campaigns, having Debian as a
registered organisation has come up. In 2020, Brian Gupta’s platform
focused on forming Debian Foundation and in 2022, Jonathan Carter
mentioned about formal registration of Debian as an organisation.
While organising DebConf23, I had to face some issues because Debian
is not a registered organisation, That is when I started thinking
about this concept seriously.
</p>
<p>
So, as a DPL, I would be definitely interested in exploring the
possibilities, advantages and disadvantages of having Debian
registered. I am not saying that this is my main agenda, but it will
definitely be brought up if I am elected.
</p>
<h4><b>Trusted organisations</b></h4>
<p>
As one of the main responsibilities of DPL is financial management,
I would like to revisit our relationship with the existing trusted
organisations, fund management procedure and if needed, explore the
possibilities of having more TOs to reduce dependency on one or two.
During DebConf23 organising, we had to face numerous fund distribution
issues. Some of it definitely was specific to Indian scenario, but still
I could think of a lot of improvement that can be done with respect to
fund distribution through TOs.
</p>
<h3>5. Financial</h3>
<h4><b>Accounting</b></h4>
<p>
From previous DPLs, I have heard that the current process of accounting
of Debian assets is very complicated. As DPL, I would like to put some
focus on streamlining and automating the accounting process across
different TOs. I am thinking about having some process set up by which
we can have a transparent and upto date asset information available.
</p>
<h3>6. Miscellaneous</h3>
<h4><b> DPL helpers</b> (DPL committee?)</h4>
<p>
I have heard from the previous DPLs that the workload is too huge to be
completed by a single person. During my last round of contesting,
someone suggested the concept of having helpers for DPL. I agree with
the thought process and I intend to have 1-2 people to do some work that
can be offloaded from the DPL workload. This would help in reducing
revert time and increasing efficiency.
</p>
<h2>Time commitment</h2>
<p>
One advantage I have over most of the previous and present DPL
candidates is the amount of time I will be able to commit for my DPL
activities. My work setup is such that I get to decide when and how
much time I work. This means that I can give good priority to the DPL
activities.
</p>
<div class="clr"></div>
</div>
|
