Re: DPL candidate questions

On 17/03/26 15:01, Matthias Geiger wrote:
> Hi Sruthi,
>
> I have a few questions I want to ask.
> First:
> - What is you stance on so-called "AI" contributions to the project?
> Personally, it saddens and angers me; as this a) not ethical, b) 
> legally unsound and c) directly helps the offenders hammering Debian 
> infrastructure. I fear a GR is the only way to resolve this; however 
> I'd like your opinion on it.
I believe, while AI has its own merits (and demerits), AI contributions 
to Debian is not something I am very keen on.
>
> Second:
> - What steps are you planning to take towards more diversity in Debian?
>
> As it stands, Debian could definitely use more input from 
> non-programmers, and become more diverse. New contributors who are not 
> familiar with our workflow might find some overlooked issue that e.g. 
> could use better documentation.

Diversity is something I want to focus on during my DPL tenure. I have 
detailed my plans and thoughts on that in my platform (which would be 
published soon). In short, some things I would do - I would be 
revisiting the diversity budget and find out why it is not working the 
way it should be, if possible have a delegated team focusing on 
diversity and encourage more local activities.

Regarding non-programmers, I am completely with you. I myself was a 
librarian, who eventually became a Debian Developer. In all the talks I 
do about contributing to Debian, I talk about the importance of 
non-technical contributions. I have plans to restructure the Outreach 
team, encouraging non-technical contributions could be considered 
through them.

>
> Third:
> - Maintainer burnout
>
> We have a few maintainers that maintain quite a lot; possibly too 
> much. In most cases it's officially team-maintained but they are 
> defacto uploading a lot of those team packages.
>
> What are your plans to alleviate this?
Maintainer burnout is real and saddening. Team-maintaining is the first 
step, but as you said some maintainers end up shouldering the whole team 
responsibilities. I believe that the only solution is welcoming new 
contributors and delegating more of the work. I am not sure I can do 
anything directly as a DPL with respect to this other than trying to 
create a culture of welcoming new people and delegating things.
> best,
>
> werdahias
>

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