This year was the first time I think I watched the debate live, and didn’t just read the logs. We had some fun in the discussion channel, and one question of mine was actually posted to the candidates. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to get my point across (the “size barrier” question, it wasn’t about Debian not growing any more, but about wether we could need some structural changes - e.g. bugmasters, first-level supporters with some privileges, but not the full DD requirements - to use our resources (that is mostly the time of our developers, i.e. us) more effectively. E.g. by preventing flamewars somehow.

I hadn’t really made up my mind yet. But some trends are there:

  • Krooger. He definitely lost my vote in the debate; I had the impression that all he cared about to bring across was that all those who say he misbehaved are evil. When it came to financing, he seemed very naive; he suggested Debian should pay someone to optimize Debian for the Desktop. However, we should have plenty of people interested in optimizing Debian for the Desktop already, so if we were able to spend the money as easily (and I don’t want to see anyone fighting over money…) we certainly should spend it on something we don’t have sufficient volunteers for. Maybe processing the NM queue, ftp-master or security work. But there is tons of stuff that can go wrong if we pay any developer, anyway. So krooger will be below NOTA.
  • Bill seems to be a nice guy, but I don’t think he’s that deeply involved in the project yet; I think the DPL should have been more visible before and maybe more involved with the core tasks. So above NOTA, but not first.
  • Andreas seems to know a lot on how stuff works. No wonder: he’s been in the DPL team before. Having a wife and children is a plus, this gives Debian a more “mature” representation, good for a DPL IMHO.
    In the debate, he had a realistic approach to running things and also on the financing stuff. He was involved in organizing DebConfs IIRC, and I think I already ranked him high last year, can’t remember hearing anything bad about him. I liked his response to the expulsions question best IIRC. He currently is my favourite.
  • AJ: above NOTA, but I can’t really imagine him as DPL.
  • Steve: don’t know yet. Above NOTA likely, but no idea where either.
  • Ari: although he just fixed my gaim bug, I mostly remember him as being a clown on IRC; but I don’t give too much on that. Sometimes you’re pushed into a certain role, and this definitely feels like a “running gag” during the DPL elections. Above NOTA likely, but can’t really rank him yet either.
  • Jeroen: DPL-team is a bonus with me, this means a smoother handover, and also means he probably is used to distributing responsibility in the new DPL team. Probably around 1-3, so above NOTA, too. Can’t tell you yet how I’d rank him compared to Andreas, Steven, AJ, Ari yet.