1. Strawman.  I never said that socializing was unimportant.  But socializing is not the only way to actually collaborate.  You don’t have to be best buddies with your collegues to work with them.  “Having lunch together” does not imply being friends with people, but it could certainly imply having a set time to talk more informally about more general problems without a set “owner”.<p>2. I was at Debconf for <i>two weeks</i>.  I hardly consider that to be “precious little time”.