-
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Recent initiative that has recently been
getting more and more important.
-
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And we're not just talking about inclusion
due to gender, we want to talk about
-
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sexual identity, gender identity,
invisible illness, disabilities, race,
-
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creed, colour, whatever kind of colour you
might wear in your underpants - whatever.
-
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So, I don’t want to run this as a lecture,
I want this to be a workshop.
-
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I'm only here as a facilitator; I want you
people to get involved
-
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that's why all the ambient microphones
here in the lecture theatre are on
-
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but only for this session.
-
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That means I don’t have to keep
passing the microphone around.
-
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As most of you are probably aware -
I’m going to kick off with myself
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and why it's so important for me -
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as you’re well aware I’m a trans woman,
which is something the recent Trump
-
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election has made me very very
scared about. I’m also bisexual.
-
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I also have two invisible illnesses:
I’m a manic depressive and I suffer
-
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from gout and arthritis.
-
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So I tick many of the boxes that diversity
and inclusion are all about.
-
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So this is why it’s important to me,
and I want you guys - anyone else want
-
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to kick off and say what diversity and
inclusion means to them and what can
-
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we as Debian do more to raise its
visibility, how to catch when it's
-
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contravened, maybe possibly review our
diversity statement (though I think it's
-
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pretty good as it is at the moment). So
does anyone else want to say anything
-
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after I’ve finished my wurbling?
Go ahead guys it’s up to you - this is for
-
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everyone to be involved
-
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Well it’s interesting because Debian
as a whole if you look across the last
-
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20 odd years is one of the most diverse
entities I can think of at this scale
-
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and, you know, we have people of all
beliefs and none,
-
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we have mostly men and too few women
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we have very few physically disabled folk
-
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we have very few visually impaired folk
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relative to the numbers of Debian
developers Debian maintainers.
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But actually we are a good diverse
community even if sometimes
-
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we don't sound like it. We’re a lot
better than some of the main stream.
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Oh I completely agree with you. I mean
last year was my first year at the mini
-
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deb conf since I transitioned full time
and I was just amazed at how accepting
-
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everybody was it was just fantastic and
it just was a non-issue and I blogged
-
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about this on Plant Debian later.
But yeah, I agree we are more diverse
-
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than the average but I still think
there's more we can do and
-
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possibly I’d like to see more
pro-activism about it rather than
-
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just passive acceptance if you see what I
mean.
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Anybody else?
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So a lot of people here will know me and
this is going to sound a bit odd
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but I think Debian is doing very
badly at being inclusive to
-
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people who don't like fighting
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[audience laughter]
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[audience] Thank you Ian
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[audience] That's a fair point
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And I'm very conscious of this
and I try very hard
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to encourage and help those people.
And because I'm rather thick skinned
-
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and being a bit older I don't care
so much what people think
-
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I'm more able to fight than other people
are. But I'm still having to fight too
-
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much. I'm having to fight too much
not so much for myself
-
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but for other people that I think
are getting a raw deal.
-
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And I don't really know what to do about
that.
-
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You're entirely right
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There is an adversarial approach
-
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understanding your corner is how you
argue something forwards
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and that same approach is what, as
you quite rightly say, puts a lot of
-
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people off as they don't want to
fight because you may not have
-
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enough confidence to your own
ability to stand your corner.
-
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But the reason people are doing this
is purely because if you don't shout
-
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if you don't push your own agenda
nothing will happen.
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And we end up with the status quo.
-
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So, how do we get other people involved?
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How do we get the adversarial
approach out of this?
-
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And I think this is covering the whole
diversity bit Lucy is talking about
-
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is unless people are brave enough to
stand up and say this is an issue for me
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nobody is going to pay any attention.
-
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And part of the problem is you've got to
stand up and say this is an issue for me.
-
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Where do we go?
-
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So, I'm speaking from a position
of privilege.
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So please tell me if what I'm about
to say you think is wrong.
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You said that it would be a
good thing to take the
-
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adversarial approach out of Debian
-
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There’s a degree to which I’m not sure
that’s necessarily the best approach.
-
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The scientific method, the Socratic
method the sort of actually
-
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having debate to discuss what
the best solutions are
-
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I think there is virtue in that. I think
there's and element to which you need
-
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to argue your corner. But at the same
time what you're saying is that you're
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having to fight too much. Certainly
conflicts can become personal
-
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and they can become deeply adversarial
which is not necessarily good.
-
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I think the ideal is one where you can
continue to engage in the Socratic
-
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and the scientific method but
may do so in a place where
-
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it is safe to be wrong.
-
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Lars you wanted to say something?
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Yes, I was going to basically say what he
said but stressing the fact that there is
-
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a difference between a debate
and a flame war.
-
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Yes and recognising that is the point
where it is becoming personal
-
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is the point we've got to all stop.
-
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In fact recognising it's about to become
personal is the point we've got to stop.
-
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I'm just going to throw out an idea here
that may be completely bonkers
-
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or not really that acceptable
but is it possibly an idea to have
-
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some kind of Debian appointed/
official personality moderators?
-
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So basically if something seems to be
going out of line they will take to
-
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personal messaging someone saying
can you cool it down a bit.
-
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[audience] A speaker of the house or
referee?
-
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More something/one that people
who don’t feel they can for themselves
-
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can go to or if they see in a discussion
that something’s going out of order
-
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they can take the people aside and
say look calm down guys.
-
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I mean it’s just an idea and those
people are publicised in some way
-
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on the wiki or whatever.
Sorry Andy?
-
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So hire some psychologist to monitor
our mailing list? [audience laughter]
-
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It's interesting in fact because I've
spent 20 years plus on mailing lists.
-
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I've seen flame wars in Debian like you
wouldn't believe. [audience laughter]
-
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But, I think we're getting better.
And surprisingly I think we're
-
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getting better because we're getting
used to operating at a distance
-
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via the impersonal medium of
messaging and messages.
-
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I think it's a thing you have to get used
to but when it becomes personal
-
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then it becomes very difficult.
I suppose the only thing I
-
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would like people to think and
try and remember is that
-
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respect goes upwards, downwards, sideways.
-
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And that sort of of respect across the
project works better.
-
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I don't think we're doing well on diversity at all.
[audience]: I agree
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I think Debian is extremely straight white
male working men's club community.
-
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And if I look at my employers as well
in my team we're all white male.
-
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And that's a team of 15 people,
that's not diverse.
-
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Yeah, and unfortunately it's a problem
across the entire industry. [audience]:yes
-
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One of the reasons I've been pushing
this recently is that I've been getting
-
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involved in our own internal
ARM diversity and inclusion.
-
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And in fact I was in a video they did
recently for Ada Lovelace day.
-
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It's the fact that we're
not retaining women
-
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the fact that a lot of people who feel
safe to be out in some other way
-
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is limited and we're trying
to improve on this and
-
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I'm just seeing this as an extension
of this, personally if I'm doing it in
-
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one part of my life I want to
do it in other parts of my life.
-
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That's why I wanted to launch this BoF.
-
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But yes I agree I don't believe we are
representative we tend to be more
-
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accepting but our inclusion's pretty
good but our diversity is pretty poor.
-
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People agree with that?
[audience]: yes
-
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Steve
-
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We keep on saying we have a diversity
statement we want to support diverse
-
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people, absolutely, we're better than
we used to be but we're still crap.
-
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I mean I remember 15 years ago
having discussions like this when
-
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we had 3 whole female developers.
-
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I don't know how many we have now.
[audience]: well more than that
-
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If it's more than 20 or 30 I'd be
amazed. [audience]: Active?
-
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It's certainly not many but in new
members, at least, we don't track it.
-
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Precisely because it shouldn't be.
-
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On a related note: when 2 Debian
Developers have children do they
-
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become DDs automatically?
[audience]: laughter
-
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So actually related to that, just looking
round the room one of the metrics
-
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where we're not being very inclusive
is getting young people in.
-
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Particularly if it's an adversarial
relationship and you have to argue
-
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your case. If you're 16 years old then
that might be an unattractive place to be
-
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Something to help support people and
get up to speed would be wonderful.
-
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Well I have experience trying to get
someone of that age to a technical
-
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related conference. At that age people
are so self conscious that even if
-
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you are extremely supportive they
won't go.
-
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So I don't think that's
necessarily a fixable problem.
-
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I'm trying to solve that problem.
My daughter has come to a couple
-
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of Deb Confs she's not at that age yet
and will be later.
-
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The approach is bring her earlier.
She'll be here tomorrow.
-
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One problem I see is that I don't think
we should be openly pro-active about it
-
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like making a big deal out of it.
What I see is that when something
-
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bad happens like a woman is
stalked by a man or
-
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someone has a problem with your sexuality
then as a bystander what can I do
-
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to make this better? Because if
I see something I don't know
-
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what I should do to diffuse the
situation to make the one that is
-
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stalking or making bad comments
-
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[audience]: you should use your male white
privilege to call out bigotry
-
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Yes
[audience]: And stand up for other people
-
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Ok [audience]: should there be an
escalation process when that doesn't work?
-
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No, it's de-escalation process.
You're not accusing people.
-
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[audience]: But the point is when
it doesn't work.
-
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When it doesn't work, right, ok.
[audience] When it continues potentially
-
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the same offender in one case or many
cases. Is there a way that this is able to
-
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be taken further by a group
in Debian that can potentially
-
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deal with that individual or group?
Lars?
-
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So I see again a duality, people who
need to be taught or need to learn
-
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to not be jerks. [audience laughter]
But most people are happy to not
-
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be jerks if they're shown how not to.
But there is a small group of people
-
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who need to be kicked out. Yesterday in
the evening, late in the evening, on the
-
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Debian women channel mikeyUSA (?? 13:47) came
back. [audience]: Oh oh, oh no
-
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He was very happy of the US presidential
(election result).
-
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But like, I don't know, personally I
block people on Facebook.
-
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I have 35 people blocked on Facebook.
Because I just don't want to.
-
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And then my life became happier online
[Laugh]
-
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[audience]: That works on a personal
level but having an irc channel
-
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frequented by (?? 14:13) views of hate and
indifference (?? 14:18)
-
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needs to be corrected on a project level.
-
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One thing that's been suggested before
but never really actually happened
-
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is a lot of Debian's discussions
take place on mailing lists
-
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that are not only publicly viewable
they are totally un-moderated.
-
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And this is good in one sense it helps
keep the wider community involved
-
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but it also means that there
are people who get involved
-
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on those mailing lists who I do
not believe are in any reasonable
-
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sense part of the Debian project
and are not communicating with it.
-
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And who come along pretty much I
think purely to stir up arguments.
-
Not Synced
How much of the system-d (?? 15:08) flame war [laugh]
was people who were actively involved
-
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in the project? And how much of it was?
Do we need somewhere the project can
-
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discuss things that can't just be posted
to be any random troll on the internet?
-
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Well, in Ubuntu Ubuntu Devel was
split into Ubuntu Devel for members only
-
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and it's basic access rights and then
discuss for general public.
-
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The net result was that yes the flame wars
disappeared, however the community
-
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contracted a lot as well. And that turned
a whole bunch of people so much that
-
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the traffic just became dead.
-
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[audience]: It may also result in just
all flame wars just moving from one
-
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mailing list to a different mailing list
and staying
-
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Right, initially that's what happened.
But then loads of people unsubscribed
-
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And then people disappeared,
over a longer time.
-
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[audience]: Can I ask a question
about this experiment in Ubuntu?
-
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What was the situation if you were a
non-Ubuntu developer/person and you
-
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mailed that mailing list? Would
somebody moderate it?
-
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It goes to moderation queue and
then Colin Watson, every other fortnight,
-
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He would approve a whole bunch
of messages if they were fine.
-
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[audience]: And would you get
white-listed eventually?
-
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And yes, if you post enough
you get white-listed by Colin.
-
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But it all falls back to Colin
or something like that.
-
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[audience] That's a lot of overhead
for a team that already can't
-
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keep up in our case.
-
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[audience]: It also slows down the
discussion a lot.
-
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[Facilitator]: And to be honest these are
all reactive containing measures.
-
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[audience]: yeah, we shouldn't have
this problem in the first place.
-
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But the problem is that the world has
crappy people in it and if we set up
-
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a thing that is attractive to those
crappy people where they can do
-
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their crappy things then
they will come and do it.
-
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And you can say well that's bad, but you
know if you have a solution for dealing
-
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with that for the whole world then [laugh]
-
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[audience]: You can't fight social
problems with technical measures.
-
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[audience]: They can help
-
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That's completely false, for example
Debian bug tracker (??172:7) should stop
-
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unsubscribing me because I use Gmail.
But that's unrelated to the topic.
-
Not Synced
I was thinking about one thing to have a
discussion in a more (?? 17:42) environment
-
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I think more of them are via wiki as you
don't have the personality that's put
-
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forward so much, you can edit if there
is anything too offensive. You still have
-
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the history so it's not lost the thing
that's displayed there if it hasn't been
-
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edited for let's say a day it's probably
the (?? 17:58)
-
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this is not bad and if you edit you
explicitly, it's visible to everybody
-
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that it was considered (??18:04) not bad and then
after when you have the discussion
-
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you can have section about argument
and people they answer just below
-
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And then you don't keep repeating
yourself about what you said.
-
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You answer some question and somebody
asks again the same thing you have
-
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everything there. If it's not there you
add it. I don't think you can do
-
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everything this way but when you have an
idea in open discussion it's not going
-
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to work. But when you have an idea you
try to reach consensus for something
-
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maybe using a wiki could be quite useful.
Something which is not conversation based
-
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but you know just shared
[audience]: content based
-
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[audience]: In Wikipedia they have long
discussions about things and it's quite
-
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often you can have sections often that
these don't help to create some concerns.
-
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Even the same arguments are repeated
over and over again.
-
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So it doesn't really help, in my opinion.
Facilitator: Andy
-
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It strikes me we're all in agreement
that we shouldn't be tolerating anything
-
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we should be and we're saying
who's going to moderate it.
-
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The simple answer is every single
person has to moderate it.
-
Not Synced
There and then, at the point you see
something you've got to call it out.
-
Not Synced
We've got to stop being rocks
and being passive ourselves.
-
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And until that happens we're not
going to create an environment
-
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where people feel safe to state their
opinion and beliefs and their identities.
-
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Because of fear that their going to be
called out in some way.
-
Not Synced
And so we've got to, you now if I'm out
of order stop me now don't wait a week
-
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and bitch that Andy's being a bit of a
dick out there and have a moan.
-
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At the point I start to be a dick stop me.
[audience laughter]
-
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And that should apply to
every single person.
-
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Facilitator: Again we're talking about
reactive. What can we do to be more
-
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proactive and get more people involved?
-
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I just wanted to say that I've ended up
in a couple of Debian devel discussions
-
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and on the front page of happy news and
slash dot and the Debian devel discussion
-
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was going on there was lots of personal
attacks and it was Ian Jackson stepped in
-
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and a couple of other developers
stepped in and they defended me.
-
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And it was because I'd seen that there
were people that were going
-
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"no what are you doing, this
is wrong don't do this"
-
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I knew that that wasn't the
overall view of the community.
-
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And just seeing something happening
made everything a lot better.
-
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Facilitator: This is going back to the
concept I was talking about about the
-
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personality moderators. And as I say
sometimes you may be wanting to say
-
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something but you don't feel you can.
And because it's a silent thing people
-
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aren't going to know that you did want to
something which is why you need people
-
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you can approach and say this
is what I want to say, this is why
-
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I don't feel I can say it.
-
Not Synced
So, how can I try to be proactive with
diversity? I think that's one of the..
-
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we're all in agreement that we should be
more diverse, what can we do to fix that?
-
Not Synced
In Debian we have an outreach team
which runs / participates in internship
-
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programmes: Google Summer of Code,
Outreachy. That are programmes that try
-
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to involve new people in our community.
-
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We are struggling with finding good
projects and good mentors to guide
-
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those interns in the project.
-
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We're also trying to do diversity
bursaries for DebConf so bringing
-
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new people into those conferences.
-
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We need, I guess, help to do that.
[audience]: Where do we sign up?
-
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[audience]: Where do we sign up to help?
[audience laughter]
-
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So, there is a Debian outreach mailing
list where we send announcements
-
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about programmes. We can talk and add
more people to the outreach ideas.
-
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And if you have ideas about what we can,
what we should do, then you can speak up.
-
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Facilitator: What's the first port of call
for any new person for the Debian Project?
-
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[audience] There is a welcome
team, I'm not part of it
-
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No, I mean when someone says here's
Debian I want to find out about it.
-
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Where's the first place they go?
[audience]: Front page
-
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Facilitator: Yes. We need something linked
off the front page. There's nothing on or
-
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linked from the front page that indicates
our diversity because I had difficulty
-
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finding our diversity page a couple of
days ago in preparation for this BoF.
-
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[audience]: good point
Facilitator: Some of the information is
-
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there but it's not immediately visible.
It's silent and that's where we need
-
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to increase our visibility and say look
we are inclusive of these things
-
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come and join us.
-
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[audience]: I don't know, I always view
Debian as a social project rather than
-
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a technical one.
Facilitator: It's a mixture of both
-
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[audience]: How is that relevant?
-
Not Synced
Because our front page is all about
how to download the ISO (?? 23:45)
-
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[audience]: So debian.org, in your
opinion, is directly technical
-
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rather than social? Yes.
[audience]: And it should be both
-
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[audience]: So we need to fix that
-
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[audience]: That's quite a sweeping
assessment. [laughter]
-
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I'm exaggerating. [audience]: There is
some people stuff on there as well
-
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but it's smaller than all the rest.
There should be something there.
-
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There is, the text is like this big
[very small].
-
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There's a number of bugs open on
www.debian.org and the problems
-
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that I think we have and we talked
about in Vienna if you wanted to
-
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get started with packaging you have
no hope. [laughter] You have literally
-
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no hope. We tried to organise the wiki
pages and there was no easy way to
-
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get started. So I think we are closed to
new people unless you already know
-
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someone who can help you get started.
The downloading of ISOs (?? 24:49) is entirely
-
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done badly and Steve has a bug on that.
And the blends (?? 24:55) pages were all listed
-
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under the developers section even though
that was user documentation.
-
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So I moved those out. But there is a lot
of work to be done on the website and
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I think the first step for that is filing
bugs with ideas of how to reorganise
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this and there really does need to be a
project for that.
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[audience]: does anybody here even look at
the front page or use it for anything?
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Because I go to tracker.debian.org,
that's the only URL I go to
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[audience]: I can never remember the
categorisation of the URL so I have to
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not URL hack, because I always end
up at some 404. So I have to go via
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the front page and its maddening.
[Laughter]
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Speaking of packaging I remember (?? 25.38)
back in the days when I didn't know
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basically I needed help with how the dev
packages were made up, what's inside it,
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but I didn't know how to create the ones
except create Debian capital directory
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and package into it. [audience laughter]
I remember that I learned how to do that
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not through debian.org but I knew
someone who knew how to create
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Debian packages using dev helper and they
gave me, like, a long Debian roll script
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100 lines of something and I started
hacking on that and just trying things out
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but these days it's slightly better but I
still don't know what page to point
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people at. Probably something on the
wiki but no idea actually.
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[audience]: is it slightly better or are
you just more familiar with what needs
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to be done?
When I try to find a specification
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of multiarch it's on the wiki.
[audience]: That's the Canonical location.
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I tried to learn how to use dev triggers
last week. I later learned that I don't
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actually need triggers for that package
I can do it differently, I didn't use
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triggers in the end. But, I actually went
to an internal Collabora wiki/resource
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an internal source that used triggers.
[audience]: Can I interrupt you here a
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moment and say we seem to be
getting derailed into a discussion of
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of our technical deficiencies with our
technical documentation and I'm
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sure that all of us are aware of
deficiencies in our technical
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documentation. And I'm not sure that
as part of an outreach effort is quite
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the right framing for that.
[audience]: it's one of many things
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we need to improve but the very very
first thing people see, as Lucy said, is
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way below par.
[audience]: But this, I think, actually
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quite a good point because we are getting
lost ourselves and getting sidetracked
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of the issue of how do we pro-actively
encourage diversity. And we seem as a
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group to be spiraling down the technocracy
again. We seem to be fixated on the
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technical and how do we break that
fixation.
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[audience]: Well we're technical people
[laughter]
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[audience]: so how do we get people who
are not technical.
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[audience]: I'm going to say something
very controversial here and so be aware
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there's somebody at the back of the room
you can throw things at. [Laughter]
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I'm physically disabled I'm also what you
might call neuro-diverse. If I'm feeling
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bloody minded I just say I'm brain
damaged. There are a lot of people
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around me in Debian and also elsewhere
who are on the autistic spectrum somewhere
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who are technical types. We all tend to be
focused, technical, dealing with technical
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stuff is sometimes a lot easier than
dealing with people.
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We are the wrong people to be trying
to pull people in and in fact
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my other half was here last year, she sat
in the kitchen and she said "god imagine
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if you went to central casting and
asked for geeks this is what you'd get"
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I don't know that we are good at or going
to be able to get more diverse people in.
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But what we are good at is other aspects
of diversity. We are good at allowing
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people to be themselves in terms of
gender, sexuality, sexual expression
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and that kind of stuff. Which other
parts of the world generally aren't
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I mean it's not for nothing that we had a
presentation last year on BDSM and Debian
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from Enrico.
[audience laughter]
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Facilitator: Well I wonder if we can
learn something from one of the other
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major geek communities which is the
sci-fi / fantasy fandom which have a very
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wide diversity and have no problems
attracting people. I mean the fact we're
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geeks should preclude us from being
able to be social. [audience]: I agree
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[audience]: I mean Debian does attract
weird people and I once said that by
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definition to become a DD being weird
is a requirement. [audience laughter]
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But why stop there. We can do more.
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[audience]: What include normal people?
[audience laughter]
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[audience]: Steady on. Lets not go there
[audience]: How do you define normal again?
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[audience]:Standing up straight
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[audience]: one thing, I've just been
clicking around on the Debian website
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and basically there's only one image there
and that's the Debian logo
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[audience]: That's on purpose
I don't say make it like Wouter's (?? 31:03) website
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But there is some room I think for more,
it doesn't have to be stock photo.
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[audience]: Well on the Ubuntu website
we have a lot of group photos from
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conferences.
[audience]: Could we put a picture from
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DebConf. We are people like Debian
[audience]: It's very impersonal though
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and of course it's nice for big building
times.
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Facilitator: What about a few selected
biographies with pictures and people
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saying what Debian means to them
and getting as a wide a selection of
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people as possible?
[audience]: How about 'We are Debian' and
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literally small bits and pieces. You've
seen quite a lot of the advertising
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campaigns the bios don't necessarily
need to put stuff behind but a photo,
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random photo of every DD if they're
happy to have it on the front page.
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Picked at random photo show the
diversity we've got so yes we're possibly
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going to need to positively bias this.
But show the diversity and by showing
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what little diversity we've got but
stressing it more frequently we're making
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a safe, safe is the wrong word, a place
where people are comfortable to be
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themselves. [audience]: welcoming?
Yes, welcoming.
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And put that front and centre.
Ultimately I would hope that
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most of us in this room would say
that we try to leave our prejudice
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at the door. I think most of us are
happy to recognise that we have
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prejudice and have it called out on us
when we cross a line.
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And unless everybody else is prepared
to do the same to us then we can't be
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welcoming to anybody else because
we're not creating an environment
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where other people feel happy and
safe in the first place.
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[Facilitator]: And of course a lot of bias
is unconscious.
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[audience]: Very much unconscious and
that's what we've got to overcome
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so we've got to actively overcome it.
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Would anybody here genuinely be upset
if we put their photos on the front page?
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[audience]: see also collabora.com
[audience]: well quite. Modulo (??33.39) scaring
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people away with my ugly face [audience
laughter] but I've been doing that for
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years and it doesn't seem to have
had a major problem.
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[Facilitator]: David
Sorry I need to get my thoughts back
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So you were saying something along
the lines of unconscious biases and
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wanting to see that corrected. I have
certainly discovered that I've been
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exhibiting this myself in the past and
people have told me that this was a
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thing and I've gone 'oh my god I'm so
sorry'. Being able to do that in a public
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forum and to be able to be able to
set a good example as to what good
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behaviour looks like I think might also
have some value. I think there're lots
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of people who are trying to do this
already. I don't know if there's
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anything that could be
added there as well.
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[audience]: meeting in real life really
does help.
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[audience]: Massively
[audience]: Yes absolutely
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[Facilitator]: Steve
So I've heard quite a number of good ideas
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a lot of which are going to need some
technical work to make them happen.
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There is a next obvious question:
Who want's to help?
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[audience]: Lots of voices saying "Me"
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[audience]: we should take a picture of
the DPL and put a face on the front page
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with a quote, right, that's an action item
[audience]: It's a start
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[audience]: and to say we are a social
project. Yes we have an operating system
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but we have a social project as well.
[audience]: absolutely, we've already
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suggested several improvements we
could make to our website and various
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other things. A lot of the problems that
we have in those areas are not that
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people don't agree with those ideas, it's
just finite effort. And we have a limited
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number of people who've been able to
find the time to do what is already
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necessary and what we
know is needed technically.
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Again, we will need more help
to do this kind of thing.
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[audience]: I would object to raising the
DPL as the one person to stick on the
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front page. Please don't do that. Because
there are more people in Debian.
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[audience]: And will never apply to be
DPL ever again. [audience]: yeah, yeah
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[audience]: So if people want to help
with this and actually get involved
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technically to do it, that doesn't mean
editing wml but it will mean writing
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content. It will mean getting some
stuff done. We can go forward with that
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we can make it happen. But it is
going to need some effort.
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[audience]: I'll volunteer to write wml
if someone decides that needs writing
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[audience]: Ditto, I will do that for
people if they need it.
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[facilitator]: I'm happy to produce
content as you're probably well aware.
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[audience]: There's nothing in the Social
Contract about diversity.
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[Facilitator]: That's an interesting point
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[audience]: There doesn't have to be.
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[audience]: There isn't we did make, we
had a public vote, and we made a
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diversity statement a few years ago.
We have made a very loud public statement
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about the values of the project. In a
similar fashion to what we did with
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the Social Contract. Do you think it
would help if there was something
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about that in a modified Social Contract?
-
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[audience]: Yes, because then it would be
obviously central.
-
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[audience]: At least part of the
statement in the DFSG about not
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discriminating in software against
anybody.
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[audience]: Yeah, I'm not sure that that
would help given the rows there've been
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over the Social Contract before.
In all seriousness we promote Debian
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as the universal operating system.
We promote it as something for everybody.
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Rather than putting it into our technical
documentation we're better to live it.
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Put it on the website, explain it. Live
it in conferences like this.
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I don't think we need to add it to every
piece of technical documentation
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provided we can live the culture.
[audience]: Is the Social Contract a piece
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of technical documentation? That's kind of
interesting.
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[audience]: If you want to push that
you have my vote but I don't think
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it's important.
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[audience]: something that might help is
showing these things not modifying them
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but showing them on the same page. The
DFSG is appended to the Social Contract.
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Have the diversity statement there and
anything else that's relevant and
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you can find them in one place.
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[Facilitator]: Right we need to wrap
this up in the next few minutes.
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So has anyone else got any points
they want to raise at this point?
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[audience]: Please make sure that the
points that have been raised are in the
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Gobby doc, we seem to have
run out of steam there.
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[audience]: One last thing, sorry.
It comes into Social stuff
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accessibility software, things like
Dasher, things like anything you need
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to do when you're blind or you've only
got one arm or that kind of stuff
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is at least as important in someways
as some of the other diversity stuff.
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As otherwise we will be excluding groups.
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[Facilitator]: yeah I think that's quite valid.
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[audience] I think that needs to be
considered if we make any changes to
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the website. Because at the moment it's
lovely for screen readers. And don't take
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that away. If we make the website all
HTML5, JavaScript, CSS, Flash nonsense
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we're going to screw screen readers.
[audience]: no we can improve the website
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whilst retaining it's current
standard for accessibility.
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Because the standard of accessibility
for the Debian website is better
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better than everything else
out there. It's amazing.
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So there are constraints on what
we can do, that's well known.
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Is Debian a universal operating system
or is it a global social project?
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An experiment?
[audience]: Yes, both.
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[audience]: It does not state that.
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[audience]: So the first thing people
look at is here's a load of technical
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stuff about Debian. We have this many
packages, here's how to download.
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There is nothing to say Debian is also
a big diverse project you could join in.
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[audience]: It's a social project.
[audience]: Definitely
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[Facilitator]: Any other different
opinions or things to raise before
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we run out of time? I think
we've done this bit to death now.
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[audience]: Maybe one question with
diversity. Do we want to reach or express
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that we are diverse to our users or our
developers. Is there a priority between
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the 2? I think it would go from user
to developer.
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[Facilitator]: Well it's a bit blurred
anyway.
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[audience]: If we're a social project
then everybody's included.
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And that includes the users,
the developers because that's
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the point of a social group.
It's a big huge social group.
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It's a social network:
I run Debian [laugh].
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[Facilitator]: Right I think
we can wrap it up there.
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Thank you very very much
all of you for taking part.
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[audience]: Thank you for
pushing this as well.
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[Facilitator]: Thank you
[audience]: Applause.