On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 05:44:50PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: > On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 05:55:03AM +0000, Andrew Suffield wrote: > > > No, that's not the case. Debian resolving to keep non-free as is is not > > > the same as Debian deciding to discuss the matter further. > > For practical purposes, the outcome is identical. "Keep non-free" > > means "nothing changes" and "Further discussion" means "nothing > > changes" (see below for conclusions). > > No, that's again not the case. If a vote reverts to further discussion, > that's _exactly_ what should take place. It means that none of the options > proposed were the desired outcome of the project, and to move forward, we > need to either work out some new options, or better explain the ones we > have. > > By contrast, if the project decides to stick with what we currently have, > futher discussion is not a desirable activity: it means the project has > looked at the issues, thought them through, and decided how to deal with > them; further discussion of the same issues is not useful to the project, > and since the decision has already been made, is going to be a waste of > time for the proposers.
Note that this is totally unenforcable and therefore won't happen; regardless of *how* the proposal is voted down, further discussion is what will happen (sooner or later). > > I don't see why this: > > > [ 1 ] Keep non-free > > > [ 2 ] Drop non-free > > > [ 3 ] Further discussion > > indicates what you describe. Surely it says: > > "I would rather maintain the status quo than drop non-free. I would > > rather drop non-free than maintain the status quo" > > No, it says "I'm satisfied that we've thought these proposals through, > so I don't think further discussion on this matter is useful. Of the > proposals, I would prefer to keep non-free." > > Likewise, > > [ 1 ] Keep non-free > [ 3 ] Drop non-free > [ 2 ] Further discussion > > says "I'd like to keep non-free, but I don't think the proposal to drop > non-free has appropriately considered all the relevant issues, or the > consequences of that action". You might vote that way if you strongly > think that the proposal should specifically deal with what happens with > contrib, eg. Interesting idea, but there's zero chance of it working. People can't even fill out the existing ballots properly, they'll never grasp this - so the results won't tell us anything particularly useful. I would expect to see a highly polarised set of results, where most people rank further discussion as 2. It doesn't matter whether it's mathematically sound or not, that's how people think. > > I *think* that you're describing a scenario with a large number of > > insincere voters, though. > > No, I'm describing a situation where the voting system is being used in > the way it was designed to be used. Then it's a matter for the secretary when creating the ballot, not an independent proposal. I suggest you take it up with him (when he gets back). -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- |
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