An apology (and a very short platform)

Sruthi Chandran <[email protected]> Sat, 5 Apr 2025 20:39:51 +0200
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.vote
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
Dear Debianites,

I am writing this mail to express my heart felt apology to all for being 
totally absent from the DPL campaign scene.

On personal level I'm going through a lot of things and on hindsight, I 
should have skipped this year's election. Since I was absent throughout 
the campaign, I do not wish to come at  the last moment and ask for 
votes. I'm including a very short platform just to give an idea what was 
my motivation behind my candidature (which is same as previous years).

Also, I would like to thank everyone who reached out to me personally 
checking on me and encouraging.


    Who am I?

I am a librarian turned Free Software enthusiast and Debian Developer 
from India.

Some of my activities in Debian are:

  *

    ruby, javascript, golang and font packages (totalling to around 200)
    since 2016. (not very active nowadays)

  *

    Community Team delegate since Aug 2020.

  *

    Application Manager since Jul 2020.

  *

    Outreach team since Aug/Sep 2020.

  *

    Chief orga DebConf India 2023.

  *

    DebConf Committee member since 2023.

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 Free Software Camp <https://camp.fsf.org.in/>.


    Why am I contesting?

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.

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.

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.

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.
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