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Martin Zobel-Helas | 12 Mar 2013 00:47
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[to all candidates] using debian funds for Debian's hardware infrastructure

Hi,

in the past Debian had some generous donors, who donated a huge amounts
of high quality hardware on regual basis to the Debian project. For some
reasons (not to be discussed here) those sources dont exist any more.

As this hardware comes to the end of it's lifecycle, DSA will need to
buy new hardware. To keep up our standards on hardware for core
infrastrucure, DSA will need to spend several 10k USD on new hardware in
the next year.

 <at> all: do you think it is worth spending large amount of money donated to
Debian to keep our core hardware infrastructure on its current level?

 <at> all: do you think Debian should do a fundraising campain where we
collect a larger amount of money dedicated to Debian's hardware
infrastructure?

 <at> lucas,  <at> algernon: in your platform you are not stating how you will
handle money requests, and what do you think about using Debian's money
at all. Can you please elaborate?

Cheers,
Martin

PS:
 <at> moray: can you tell DSA the lottery numbers of next week please?
</joking>
--

-- 
 Martin Zobel-Helas <zobel <at> debian.org>    Debian System Administrator
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Gergely Nagy | 12 Mar 2013 09:09
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Re: [to all candidates] using debian funds for Debian's hardware infrastructure

Martin Zobel-Helas <zobel <at> debian.org> writes:

> in the past Debian had some generous donors, who donated a huge amounts
> of high quality hardware on regual basis to the Debian project. For some
> reasons (not to be discussed here) those sources dont exist any more.

One idea - perhaps a naive one, as I do not know the circumstances -
could be to figure out a way to find hardware donors again, to cover at
least part of the expenses. This obviously assumes that this is
possible, and because the reasons why these donations stopped is not
known to me, neither should the issue be discussed here, I'm unable to
elaborate on this idea. But it is, nevertheless, something to consider,
in my opinion.

> As this hardware comes to the end of it's lifecycle, DSA will need to
> buy new hardware. To keep up our standards on hardware for core
> infrastrucure, DSA will need to spend several 10k USD on new hardware in
> the next year.
>
>  <at> all: do you think it is worth spending large amount of money donated to
> Debian to keep our core hardware infrastructure on its current level?

Yes, it is.

>  <at> all: do you think Debian should do a fundraising campain where we
> collect a larger amount of money dedicated to Debian's hardware
> infrastructure?

This, I'm not sure about. I donated to a number of fundraising campaings
by members of the larger free software community, and it filled me with
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Moray Allan | 12 Mar 2013 12:09

Re: [to all candidates] using debian funds for Debian's hardware infrastructure

On 2013-03-12 02:47, Martin Zobel-Helas wrote:
>  <at> all: do you think it is worth spending large amount of money donated 
> to
> Debian to keep our core hardware infrastructure on its current level?

For people who don't know what the hardware replacement plan is about, 
see e.g.
https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2012/04/msg00079.html

First, I should say that from my perspective this path was already 
agreed on in the project, and I think that an incoming DPL should need 
rather strong reasons to abort existing spending plans (and if so should 
make it a prominent part of their platform).  Since we potentially 
change DPL every year, but many parts of the project work on a longer 
timescale, we would have major problems if each incoming DPL reopened 
decisions about hardware spending, the DebConf budget, etc.

Having said that, when I first heard about the planned level of 
spending for new hardware, I was a little concerned about it.  In part, 
it wasn't clear to me (just as an interested Debian member) how much 
cost/benefit analysis had been done for different options, though I 
mostly trusted that the involved people were making a sensible decision.

More significantly, I wanted to see clearly that we would try to 
balance spending by fundraising, not just run down existing Debian funds 
then have a problem later -- of course, money sitting unused isn't 
helpful, but we should weigh up the benefits of alternative uses of 
money.  And while it might not be relevant for a few years given the 
economic situation, I would prefer it if we continued to seek 
appropriate hardware donations, in the hope of shifting back towards
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Don Armstrong | 14 Mar 2013 16:48
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Re: [to all candidates] using debian funds for Debian's hardware infrastructure

On Tue, 12 Mar 2013, Moray Allan wrote:
> On 2013-03-12 02:47, Martin Zobel-Helas wrote:
> > <at> moray: can you tell DSA the lottery numbers of next week please?
> 
> 3, 11, 14, 24, 34, 35.
> 
> But I won't tell you *which* lottery those are for.

Congratulations! You've won the "Lint From My Pockets" lottery!
Suitable for gumming up sensitive equipment such as fans, motors,
delicate bearing races, and the ever popular lint trap. As a bonus,
it's also a fire hazard!

Please sent a SASE, and I'll get your prize right to you!

Don Armstrong

--

-- 
Show me your flowcharts and conceal your tables, and I shall continue
to be mystified. Show me your tables, and I won't usually need your
flowcharts; they'll be obvious.
 -- Fredrick P. Brooks Jr., The Mythical Man Month

http://www.donarmstrong.com              http://rzlab.ucr.edu
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Lucas Nussbaum | 12 Mar 2013 23:58
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Re: [to all candidates] using debian funds for Debian's hardware infrastructure

On 12/03/13 at 00:47 +0100, Martin Zobel-Helas wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> in the past Debian had some generous donors, who donated a huge amounts
> of high quality hardware on regual basis to the Debian project. For some
> reasons (not to be discussed here) those sources dont exist any more.
> 
> As this hardware comes to the end of it's lifecycle, DSA will need to
> buy new hardware. To keep up our standards on hardware for core
> infrastrucure, DSA will need to spend several 10k USD on new hardware in
> the next year.
> 
>  <at> all: do you think it is worth spending large amount of money donated to
> Debian to keep our core hardware infrastructure on its current level?

Sure. It's very important that we continue to have an infrastructure in
a very good health.

>  <at> all: do you think Debian should do a fundraising campain where we
> collect a larger amount of money dedicated to Debian's hardware
> infrastructure?

There are several questions here:

  1) Should we do fundraising?

My answer is Yes. We need some money to support Debian development.

  2) Should we spend more on hardware? ("larger amount of money")
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