Election platform [was: Planning the election for project leader]

[Pierre Pronchery <khorben@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

			Dear EdgeBSD developers,

On 04/09/2014 00:59, Pierre Pronchery wrote:
> 
> The next and equally as important thing, is that according to our
> project constitution we have to organize the first election for
> leadership! I did not forget about it, and I really want to let this
> happen. So I will try to find the time until EuroBSDCon this year to
> create a platform and offer to pursue my commitment to this project,
> welcome alternative proposals, and then open the vote.

I am very late and very sorry about it. But keeping to my own promise, I
would like to open the first election process for the leadership of the
EdgeBSD Project.

Needless to say, I am applying for a new "mandate" - and so far, I am
the only declared candidate. So without further ado, please find my
election platform here.

Election platform: Pierre Pronchery (khorben)
=============================================

1. Status and achievements of the project
-----------------------------------------

Well, first of all, being its founder, I am glad that the project still
exists, that it seems attractive enough to build and sustain a
community, of which a few developers or enthusiasts are on their way to
become official NetBSD developers! This alone keeps me happy and
motivated to continue our work.

On a purely technical level, I have to admit that I am not fully
satisfied. This may be simply because I always want to achieve more;
maybe also because the edgebsd-6 branch (for the stable release)
currently cannot fully build the release for the amd64 and i386
architectures, and I haven't managed to fix this yet. Apologies again.

On another hand, we do have a stable release, with ASLR (amd64, i386),
SSP (all supported platforms), support for root filesystem encryption
(amd64, i386) and signed binary packages (amd64, i386) with LTS support
(over 350 updates performed). We are managing the release thanks to Git
as the SCM, around which we have managed to automate a number of
processes and learned about the advantages and limitations. I admit
again that documentation is lacking a bit.

We also have a preliminary release of the edgebsd-7 testing branch
(amd64, i386), which helps fix the remaining issues of NetBSD 7 of
course. Packages are still missing there, but pkgsrc 2015Q1 (our next
tentative LTS branch) is being prepared now.

My feeling about the infrastructure is mixed too. We are currently
facing limitations with disk capacity, and would benefit from
virtualized containers for both services and builds. This is another
objective listed below.

I also tried to keep EdgeBSD on the map, with presence at conferences
such as FOSDEM, AsiaBSDcon and EuroBSDcon this year, as well as on the
BSDTV show.

Last but not least, a number of issues in NetBSD were identified through
our work on EdgeBSD, most of which I wouldn't have found myself without
founding this project, and this is also one more reason for me to keep
doing this: signing packages, SSP builds, the FAT bootloader and more.

2. Incoming tasks
-----------------

There are many, many tasks on my plate.

Most importantly, ensuring a stable and attractive EdgeBSD 7 release,
perhaps with a switch to pkg-ng's binary package format (while keeping
the pkgsrc infrastructure).

More difficult, I would like to reset our Git tree. There are now more
alternatives available to joerg@'s conversion, like from IIJ or from
Eric S. Raymond, and I believe this is a good time to have a look at
them. I have also identified a different way to use Git the way we
currently do but while sparing resources, by merging our netbsd-src.git
and edgebsd-src.git repositories together, and likely for
netbsd-pkgsrc.git and edgebsd-pkgsrc.git. This could be done together
with an infrastructure upgrade.

All the while, this experience should be made beneficial to the NetBSD
project, probably by providing CVS access to the infrastructure - thus
experimenting with a possible migration plan.

And more generally, more automation, cross-compiling packages, and - if
we find the resources - working on deeper changes to the NetBSD source
tree, like reducing the base system and splitting it in more repositories.

3. Conclusion
-------------

With this off my chest, I would like to thank everyone on #EdgeBSD
Freenode for their support, all our developers and users, and I hope to
be able to continue to serve our communities!

I will welcome your OpenPGP-signed votes on the mailing-list, until
Friday 6th February 2015, 23:59 GMT. Additionally, competing platforms
are welcome too, and I am prepared to report the election and give
everyone time to vote again if anyone feels like taking the lead!

Thank you!
-- 
khorben

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