On 1/8/19 4:57 AM, Jonathan Dowland wrote:
On Tue, Jan 08, 2019 at 04:16:15AM -0500, Miles Fidelman wrote:
What I am asserting is that the Debian Social Contract explicitly
states that:
"4. Our priorities are our users and free software
…
I DO assert that, as one user, I don't see this being honored in the
breach, with decisions around systemd, and init-system-neutrality
being in direct opposition to this principal.
I don't agree that those decisions were in direct opposition. There
wasn't a single answer that was unanimously in the interests of all
users, because all users do not agree on the desired outcome. Not even
"init-system-neutrality" as you put it would be unambiguously in the
best interests of all users. Clearly you would have preferred a
different outcome. You aren't alone: but correspondingly, many users got
the answer they wanted, and many others didn't have a dog in the race.
Differing opinions here. Somehow, major changes in direction, that go
against "the Unix way," and have direct impact on both systems
administration & upstream development, seem not to be in the interests
of many users. The systemd rollout just broke too many things.
But I brought this up primarily in context of discussing Debian decision
processes, and as a rebuttal to a previous statement that effectively
said only contributor's opinions count - whereas the social contract
explicitly says that users are a highest priority.
Pretty soon, I expect I'll be migrating.
Honestly I think you're very overdue to go. You've been in the Debian
community for a long time. Long enough that you could have become a
member (non-packaging, voting rights) if you had wanted to. I think
you've made valuable contributions to our project, particularly in some
of your posts to debian-user. But from what I've read from you recently,
I think it would be in your own best interests to move on and establish
yourself in a community more aligned with your beliefs and tastes. You
wouldn't be alone, other long-time valued Debian contributors have done
that in the wake of the init system decision. And in my opinion, your
more recent mailing lists contributions to Debian have not been as
valuable as ones from the past: case in point, this thread. We're raking
over old coals here, and it's not helping you, or Debian.
Well, thanks, I think.
I've basically been nursing a couple of aging systems. When next I do a
major upgrade to our server farm, It will be to something other than
Debian. Until then, the pressure hasn't been there, and I've been -
I've been waiting and watching to see how different alternatives mature
(along with what direction several key server-side applications, on
which we depend, go).
Meanwhile, there's no reason not to continue responding to questions,
where I can add value.
The discussion about the censorship issues, and toxic processes, is one
that's near and dear to my heart - having been involved in governance of
various organizations and projects, and working professional on projects
that involve online decision & deliberation support.
Best,
Miles
--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra
