On Torvalds' POV towards freedom (Re: On cadence and collaboration)
Hi Mark, Sorry that I don't comment on your proposal, as I'm not really the most indicate, except to say I appreciate it, and I hope it's succesful. But there's something I'd really like to comment on. On Wed, Aug 05, 2009 at 10:21:38AM +0100, Mark Shuttleworth wrote: I enjoyed Linus Torvalds' recent interview where he talked about prejudice against Microsoft in the Linux community, and how poisonous it is. The same is true of prejudice against Ubuntu here in Debian. I think you're misscharacterizing Torvalds' statement. He said that hatred is a disease, but that's a generally agreed upon fact, and I don't think it's the core of his message. He also said: There are ‘extremists’ in the free software world, but that’s one major reason why I don’t call what I do ‘free software’ any more. I don’t want to be associated with the people for whom it’s about exclusion and hatred. which basically amounts to: If you speak about freedom, you're an extremist full of hate. Torvalds' message is that of an extremist itself. In Torvalds' mind, it is not conceiveable that people care about freedom out of love, and that they don't hate anyone because of it. In his narrow view of reality, standing and defending your rights is the same thing as hating the person who'd take them away from you. Mark, since you speak about free software yourself, I assume you don't adhere to this point of view. I think it would be in your best interest to watch carefully before subscribing to something this person said. Thanks -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Who uses @packages.d.o mail?
Much appreciated. Thanks. On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 10:30:03PM +0100, Stephen Gran wrote: Hello all, So I've looked through a few weeks of mail logs to packages.debian.org, and it looks like it collects some useful mail from automated scripts on various debian.org machines (primarily ries), and about 1000 spams a day from elsewhere. I haven't done an exhaustive survey, but it seems pretty clear so far that the domain does not get any significant amount of legitimate mail from machines other than the debian.org hosts. If this is actually the case, I'd like to close the domain down to only accept mail from other debian.org machines. If it's not, I'd like to work with people who do use it to either make it possible to send their mail from debian.org machines or from a short whitelist of machines elsewhere. If this isn't possible, we'll of course continue to offer it as a public service if it's needed. It's just that if it doesn't need to be a public facing mail domain, we all get a little less spam in our inbox, and the service becomes easier to administer. In the large scheme of things, of course, 1000 spams a day is pretty minimal. The amount of processing power that goes into turning away the other 6 mails/day and then resending the 1000 spams that do get through, though, does approach significance, and I'd like to make it simple to admin and more friendly to the final recipients. Cheers, -- - | ,''`.Stephen Gran | | : :' :sg...@debian.org | | `. `'Debian user, admin, and developer | |`- http://www.debian.org | - -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Results of the Lenny release GR
On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 07:13:57PM +0100, Michael Goetze wrote: Robert Millan wrote: - Even if there's a general perception that everyone agrees not to delay Lenny at all costs, this should definitely be voted on and sanctioned. Not doing so creates a very bad precedent. You think everyone must be voted on? Everything significant, yes. Because I believe in democracy. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Results of the Lenny release GR
On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 08:52:13PM +, Matthew Johnson wrote: On Mon Jan 12 19:34, Robert Millan wrote: On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 07:13:57PM +0100, Michael Goetze wrote: Robert Millan wrote: - Even if there's a general perception that everyone agrees not to delay Lenny at all costs, this should definitely be voted on and sanctioned. Not doing so creates a very bad precedent. You think everyone must be voted on? Everything significant, yes. Because I believe in democracy. Democracy doesn't mean voting on everything. That's why I said everything significant. Compromising on our core principles is one of the things I consider significant. In the majority of instances it means 'let the elected officials and those to whom they have delegated make the decisions we have elected them to make'. You elect someone because you trust them to act in your interests with the option of overriding or recalling them if they don't. I find this reasonable, in general, for minor issues. But it's worth noting that in this occasion, the developers didn't feel it was necessary to delegate this responsibility. If they did, they'd have voted for option 4. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Results of the Lenny release GR
On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 04:41:51PM +, Steve McIntyre wrote: Robert, I appreciate that you believe you're doing the right thing here, but attempting to continue this discussion right now, just after the first vote that has already delayed Lenny, is not going to help you or anybody. I don't see how even option 1 would have delayed Lenny. I just see that it would have forced a few patches to be applied. But we got option 5 instead. You claim this has delayed Lenny. Please explain how. It *is* clear that a substantial majority of DDs want us to release Lenny soon rather than attempt to fix every last issue. Please drop it for now. You're writing with the assumption that fixing DFSG violations is fundamentally incompatible with releasing Lenny soon. I can see that this could be true for some cases, where critical functionality is affected, but for most of them (including firmware) I don't see any correlation. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Results of the Lenny release GR
On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 05:17:33PM +, Stephen Gran wrote: This one time, at band camp, Steve McIntyre said: If things go much further we'll end up with enough seconds to force a vote to hand Robert Millan a nice cup of STFU. I'm hoping that's not what anybody actually wants, but I can also understand why some people might be feeling that way. Dato didn't sign his proposal mail, so this can't be a valid GR proposal, AIUI. All I meant was that I second the feeling, rather than a formal proposal. We're having a serious discussion, and you guys are adding noise. If you want to make jokes, please at least start a separate thread. Thanks in advance -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Results of the Lenny release GR
On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 09:25:37AM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote: Ben Finney ben+deb...@benfinney.id.au writes: Though there seem to be a number of people vocally wishing Robert would go away or the like, I have yet to see any substantive response to the questions he's raised in this thread. I made a substantive response to these points weeks ago. He just didn't like it. I don't feel the urge to constantly repeat it, but since I'm sending the mail anyway: the release team made a delegate decision. That decision was not overridden. Hence, the release continues. All else is irrelevant. If he wants to stop the release, he needs to propose a GR to override the delegate decision, and it has to pass. Neither of those things have happened. Until they do, this is all pointless noise. As I said in a separate mail, the developers just discredited this line of reasoning by ranking option 2 above option 4. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Results of the Lenny release GR
On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 10:00:02AM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote: [...] Robert's constitutional interpretation is not going to be adopted at present. There's nothing to be adopted. The project as a whole thinks of the Social Contract as a binding document. Having a vocal minority disagree with that doesn't change things. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Results of the Lenny release GR
On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 06:42:12PM +0200, Kalle Kivimaa wrote: Ean Schuessler e...@brainfood.com writes: Ironically, Bdale *is* warping the results of the vote and applying an editorial voice to the interpretation of the results. Umm, why shouldn't Bdale have his opinion about the results? Nowhere does it say that the (acting) Secretary is the authority to interprete GR results (that's not interpreting the Constitution). He's doing more than interpret the results. He claims they are ambigous, and that his interpretation is based on his speculation on what he thinks the developers want. This is far from what one would expect the Secretary to do. If results are really ambigous, or flawed in any way, what he should do is cancel the vote. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Results of the Lenny release GR
On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 10:30:02PM +0100, Pierre Habouzit wrote: On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 09:26:20PM +, Robert Millan wrote: On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 05:17:33PM +, Stephen Gran wrote: This one time, at band camp, Steve McIntyre said: If things go much further we'll end up with enough seconds to force a vote to hand Robert Millan a nice cup of STFU. I'm hoping that's not what anybody actually wants, but I can also understand why some people might be feeling that way. Dato didn't sign his proposal mail, so this can't be a valid GR proposal, AIUI. All I meant was that I second the feeling, rather than a formal proposal. We're having a serious discussion, and you guys are adding noise. If you want to make jokes, please at least start a separate thread. Priceless. That goes for you, too. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Results of the Lenny release GR
On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 12:42:12AM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote: On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 08:37:06AM +0100, Robert Millan wrote: I know you didn't explicitly request being appointed Secretary; it sort of happened by accident, but you had the opportunity to refuse all the time, so I must take it that you accept it, at least temporarily. This is not true. The constitution specifies that when there is no Secretary, the chair of the Technical Committee serves as Acting Secretary. To refuse the post of Acting Secretary, Bdale would have to step down as TC chair. This doesn't change anything. When he accepted his position as TC chair, he was accepting that he could become Acting Secretary under certain circumstances. It's not like he was blackmailed to become Secretary. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Results of the Lenny release GR
On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 04:12:57AM -0500, Daniel Dickinson wrote: As for trying to bully people about consitution and the social contract et al, I think you need to remember that the Debian Project is a concept not an incorporated (or otherwise formally recognized by any government as an organization) body. The 'consitution' and 'social contract' exist only insofar as the developers agree they do, either by action or inaction. Agreed. If you want to argue constutional matters in debian you have to make sure you're not just making noise but are in fact supported other developers. Indeed. If most developers think that Bdale's interpretation makes sense Nope. You only got that impression because the ones supporting this interpretation are the ones making the most noise. If you want to know for real, check the vote results. You'll see how option 2 beats option 4. And I lost count on how many times I repeated that, but will do as long as necessary. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Results of the Lenny release GR
On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 01:45:04PM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote: As I said in a separate mail, the developers just discredited this line of reasoning by ranking option 2 above option 4. I disagree completely. The fact that more people preferred 2 to 4 in this vote does not change the fact that the release team is currently empowered to interpret the DFSG and SC in their own work. That's what the constitution currently says. You mean what it says, or ... I understand that you disagree with this interpretation of the constitution, ... your interpretation of what it says? Attempting to read a project position about the interpretation of the constitution into this vote is stretching its implications far beyond what is supportable, given that the text of the options didn't address constitutional interpretation at all. No, but it's very clear about developers preferring the option that doesn't gives this power to the RT over the option that does. (Without a 3:1 majority, such a position statement would be non-binding anyway, Interesting to see 3:1 come back. One of the most annoying things about super-majority requirements is that they appear and disappear depending on the position one is holding. That's why I would very much like to get rid of them. So I take it you didn't agree with Manoj's decision to set super-majority requirements in the ballot? It doesn't provide any clarity at all, except that the project wants us to not spend time worrying about the licensing of firmware. Results are clear for me. You'll notice that I'm not complaining about firmware right now. But the same goes both ways: people should accept the results when it comes to non-firmware. The winning option in the vote says nothing one way or the other about the non-firmware licensing issues, which means that we're in the same position that we were in before the GR began. Technically yes, but politically the situation is much different. The developers had a number of options that explicitly granted more exceptions, and they preferred the one that didn't. This tells us something about what the majority of us wants, and you shouldn't neglect it. Of course, you can object that it wasn't an explicit assertion, etc, but from general consensus to explicit assertion there's only one small step. Keep that in mind. This is one of the reasons why the vote was flawed; Again, if the vote was flawed (I don't think it was, but if the Secretary considers it flawed), the right thing would be to cancel it. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
I give up (for the time being)
Hi It's not usual in me to give up on something when I'm completely certain that I'm right. I hope you appreciate that I'm doing a great personal sacrifice here. Ean said: Discussion of these issues in the shadow of Lenny warps people's minds and makes sane discourse impossible. I've been pondering on that statement, and I think it's the most insightful point that has been made in this thread. I've gradually confirmed to be true over the course of the discussion. There's no point in insist that people shouldn't be irrationally committed to releasing Lenny. Feelings aren't supposed to be rational, just like my course of action hasn't been completely rational either. I realize that insisting too hard precisely at this time has the opposite effect to the goals I was trying to defend. So, I'll stop now. Do not think this means the problem just got solved. I only do it because I expect we can have a healthy discussion about it after Lenny is released. Best wishes to everyone, -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Results of the Lenny release GR
On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 10:32:10AM +0100, Joerg Jaspert wrote: Do you have any other idea in mind? Btw, Joerg, that goes for you too. If you have something constructive to say, this would be a good time. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Results of the Lenny release GR
On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 01:06:21PM +0100, Michael Banck wrote: On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 08:22:58AM +0100, Robert Millan wrote: You're the Secretary. You're supposed to give answers, not speculation. If the ballot was ambigous, or confusing, it is YOUR responsibility. It has to be said that at least I am taking YOU personally responsable for a lot of why the ballot was ambigous as well, not least to the fact you named your proposal Reaffirm the Social Contract, i.e. SC-trolling the rest of the project not in line with your opinion. I keep hearing this SC is not binding story, as if repeating it lots of times made it true, but fact is that the project already rejected option 4 which is the one that represents this line of reasoning. If you're so serious about it, I challenge you to propose it as a separate vote. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Results of the Lenny release GR
On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 11:35:22AM +0100, Joerg Jaspert wrote: Do you have any other idea in mind? Btw, Joerg, that goes for you too. If you have something constructive to say, this would be a good time. How about you going elsewhere until Lenny is released, then coming back as soon as that happens and start working on what is left to fix then? (Not right before a release, right after a release for a change.) We can talk about that, yes. I don't think right before a release is the best time to go through all this mess, but alas we already started, and believe it or not, it wasn't my choice. Please let me ellaborate. I think the reason this happened is that although most of these bugs were filed ages ago, nothing was done about them untill it became clear that the Release Team planned to include them in Lenny without asking for an exception (like happened for Sarge Etch). All this could have been avoided if we started talking about the bugs earlier (from a constructive POV rather than just flaming), so let's talk about the bugs shall we? The way I see it, there are 5 cathegories: 1- Firmware in Linux. We already made an exception for these. But it's not clear what the maintainers plan to do after Lenny is released, and it's not clear what the FTP team will do about it either. 2- Long-standing bugs in critical components for which a fix is expected to arrive soon. This includes things like SunRPC, GLX, and even Nvidia obfuscation (#383465). It's not unreasonable to expect the developers would support an exception. Heck, maybe even I would. But none of this _has happened yet_. 3- Non-bugs (IMHO), that'd be the trademark issue in #391935. 4- Bugs which are trivial to fix, such as #459705 (just remove a text file), #483217 (only affects optional functionality that could be removed according to the maintainer) or #509287 (just move afio to non-free). Why isn't the FTP team enforcing these? 5- Bugs which aren't easy to fix. AFAICS this includes ONLY TWO of them: #477060 and #498475 (aka #498476). Maybe it's worth making an exception for them, but again this is something that should be judged by the project as a whole. This needs proper discussion IMHO. Maybe even a vote. So, if you could tell me that there's going to be a proper solution for #1 and #4, all that's left to do is have a vote to device what we do about #2 (which almost certainly will be exempted) and #5 (which is likely to be exempted too). OTOH, if you just tell me to go elsewhere, I'm sorry but I don't want to look the other way while the project destroys its reputation for having a commitment to freedom, a democratic system and a set of principles. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Results of the Lenny release GR
On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 08:22:58AM +0100, Robert Millan wrote: You're the Secretary. You're supposed to give answers, not speculation. If the ballot was ambigous, or confusing, it is YOUR responsibility. Bdale, After sleeping over this, I really think I've been unnecesarily harsh, and at the same time I failed to explain accurately what I meant here. So please bear with me, and let me rephrase it in a way that doesn't make it a less serious problem, but at least more sympathethic. I know you didn't explicitly request being appointed Secretary; it sort of happened by accident, but you had the opportunity to refuse all the time, so I must take it that you accept it, at least temporarily. When you accepted your position as Secretary, you knew this implied making tough decisions, and being responsible for them. You decided that the ballot was good enough to be voted on; you could have cancelled the vote, or you could have announced the results saying they're basically useless, but you didn't. Fair enough, it's your decision. And I don't see a problem with the ballot myself. However, when you were asked about the way you're interpreting the results, what you're essentially telling us is that the ballot was ambigous, and badly worded. You probably think this is my fault because I wrote a significant part of it, but that doesn't matter: you already decided the ballot is good enough, and (unless you want to retract that) you're bound to your own decision. So, what I think would be the honest approach to this problem, is for you to either announce that your interpretation is the way it is because the ballot was flawed, or change your interpretation to make it consistent with the ballot. I assume you won't be doing the latter, but if you choose the former instead of not doing anything, you have my support on that. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Results of the Lenny release GR
On Mon, Jan 05, 2009 at 04:54:25PM -0700, Bdale Garbee wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 I've been reminded that as Acting Secretary I should officially announce the results of the recent vote. My apologies for the delay! Details of the outcome and how various options were voted are available at http://www.debian.org/vote/2008/vote_003 The winning option was number 5, Assume blobs comply with GPL unless proven otherwise, the full text of which is appended below. Since the election concluded, several developers have asked for some statement from the DPL and/or Secretary as to what this result really means. Steve and I have discussed it, and we think it's pretty clear. This result means that the Debian Lenny release can proceed as the release team has intended, with the kernel packages currently in the archive. Hi Bdale, What the release team intended (at least before the vote), as represented by lenny-ignore tags is to skip more DFSG violations than just kernel packages, see: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=211765 http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=368559 http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=424957 http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=391935 http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=459705 http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=382175 http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=509287 However, your announcement seems to assume these only concerned kernel packages. This leaves the message open to interpretation, it could mean any of the following: - You assume the release team no longer intends to ignore DFSG violations for these packages. - The RT gets an exception for kernel packages, as they intended, but not for the rest of Debian. - The developers are implicitly endorsing an exception for the rest of Debian packages. Please, could you send a new message clarifiing the situation, and your judgement as Secretary? Thanks! -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Results of the Lenny release GR
On Sat, Jan 10, 2009 at 09:45:48AM -0700, Bdale Garbee wrote: It is my opinion that the text of the winning GR option says nothing explicit about any of the bugs currently tagged lenny-ignore except those relating to firmware blobs. However, analysis of the voting results in this and prior GRs relating to similar issues in prior releases indicates to me that Debian developers in general would prefer to release with faults than to defer release until some arbitrary level of perfection is achieved. What you describe sounds like option 3, or maybe option 4. What is your opinion on the fact that option 2 defeats both of them? -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Results of the Lenny release GR
On Sat, Jan 10, 2009 at 05:48:33PM -0700, Bdale Garbee wrote: On Sun, 2009-01-11 at 01:04 +0100, Robert Millan wrote: What you describe sounds like option 3, or maybe option 4. What is your opinion on the fact that option 2 defeats both of them? I'm not sure I agree with your sense of distinction here. I think what I'm saying is a fair rationalization of picking any of 2-5 over 1. How is option 1 related to this? And, at some point I think we cross the line from drawing meaningful inferences from a limited data set to fiddling with divining rods... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divining_rod Who's drawing inferences here? I'm just reading the results: - Option 5 is the winner. - Option 2 is what the (simple) majority of developers wanted. The majority of developers voted to make an exception for firmware in Lenny. They did NOT vote to empower the Release Team to make exceptions as they see fit. Results of GR 2008/003 are crystal clear about this. Options 2 and 5 share the attribute that neither explicitly asserts that the firmware issue is a DFSG violation, while 3 and 4 both seem to. How is that relevant at all? We just made an exception for firmware. Why do you bring this into the discussion? Perhaps our community is willing to admit there's a problem, but isn't convinced or doesn't want to admit that the problem is a clear contradiction of the social contract. You're the Secretary. You're supposed to give answers, not speculation. If the ballot was ambigous, or confusing, it is YOUR responsibility. The way results stand, they say we make an exception for firmware. They don't say we empower the Release Team to make exceptions as they see fit. Up to this point, I was assuming that your reinterpretation of the results was an unintended mistake. TBH, now I think you're being coy. When called into question, you respond talking about unrelated things like option 1, and about firmware, and with speculation on what the developers might really want instead of what they voted. So, I think you made a mistake, a very serious one, and when asked about it, your explanation is completely unsatisfactory. How do we solve this? Currently, the only solution I see is that we ask the developers what they think, and hold another vote. Do you have any other idea in mind? -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: RFC: General resolution: Clarify the status of the social contract
On Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 02:52:03PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: As far as voting for a position statement along the lines of the social contract doesn't matter, we'll upload Microsoft Word into main, yay!, I believe that would also require a simple majority (1:1) to pass, What you're saying is basicaly that a technicality can turn the 3:1 requirement in the Constitution into a simple majority requirement? I'm not sure if this is so, but if it is, I think it's unfortunate that we have such language in the Constitution. IMO it should be either removed for consistency or fixed so that it actually has the intended effect. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: RFC: General resolution: Clarify the status of the social contract
On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 01:38:33PM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote: ,[ The Social contract is a binding contract ] | The developers, via a general resolution, determine that the social | contract should apply to everything Debian does, now and in the future; | _AND_ the social contract should stop us from including anything that | doesn't comply with the DFSG in main ` main is just the name of an archive section. The SC says that Debian is 100% free, so I think we should go with that instead, regardless of how DAK calls it. ,[ The social contract is binding, but currently flawed ] | This amends the proposal above, and replaces the text of the proposal with: | The developers, via a general resolution, determine that the social | contract should apply to everything Debian does, now and in the future; | _AND_ it is and was a mistake to have the DFSG cover firmware because | we have not yet been able to limit Debian to only DFSG-free firmware | in a suitable way. This mistake should be corrected by amending the | social contract. ` Would probably be a good idea to define firmware here. Besides, isn't there an option in the gr_lenny vote that is basicaly equivalent to this? ,[ The social contract is binding but may be overridden by a simple GR ] | This amends the proposal above, and replaces the text of the proposal | with: The developers, via a general resolution, determine that the | social contract should apply to /almost/ everything Debian does, now | and in the future; _AND_ for the few cases where it should not apply | now, there should be an explicit GR affirming that variation (by simple | majority) ` I don't like the workaround approach to supermajority requirements. If we don't want 3:1, why don't we ammend the Constitution instead? ,[ The social contract is a goal, not a binding contract ] | This amends the proposal above, and replaces the text of the proposal | with: The developers, via a general resolution, determine that the | social contract is an aspirational document: while we aim to achieve as | much of it as feasible at all times, we don't expect to get it | completely right for some time yet. This includes DFSG-freeness of all | firmware ` Doesn't that contradict the definition of contract ? Maybe a rename would be in order. ,[ The social contract is a non-binding advisory document ] | This amends the proposal above, and replaces the text of the proposal | with: The developers, via a general resolution, determine that the | social contract is a statement of principle only, and has no particular | force on the day to day operations of Debian, except in so far as it | influences individual contributors' actions. ` How does this differ from the previous one in practice? -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Deprecating (and deactivation) of an archive feature?!
On Wed, Aug 06, 2008 at 08:47:50PM +0200, Joerg Jaspert wrote: But before we take a final decision I want to hear more input on it. So here are your 5 seconds, please give input. :) To me, this sounds like a step in the right direction to unfuzzy the distinction between Debian itself (main) and the other archives we provide /support as a supplement to Debian. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: confusion about non-free (Re: Bits from the Debian Eee PC team, summer 2008)
On Mon, Aug 04, 2008 at 11:00:40PM +0100, Adeodato Simó wrote: you suck. The pattern I see is that some people complain about my message being harsh by sending replies that are outright insulting. I think the reason you (and the other minority of bashers in this thread) are annoyed is because the content of my message, not because its form. I have already apologised to Ben for the form, but I don't owe an apologise for the content, and I won't give it to you. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Dealing gently with our peers (was: confusion about non-free)
On Mon, Aug 04, 2008 at 04:56:00PM -0300, Ben Armstrong wrote: On Mon, 4 Aug 2008 21:17:20 +0200 Robert Millan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Just to make it clear, please don't take it as if I were recriminating something to you. My understanding is that this problem is about general perception and I don't think it's your fault in any way. I understand that it wasn't personal. But neither did you consider the personal factors in any way. I did. It's obvious I didn't consider them well enough, but I assure you when I added 'Friendly' there (which is not part of my usual signature) I was considering the personal factors. My message goes straight to the point and sounds harsh. I realized this, but I didn't think it would hurt your feelings. It's my fault if it did, so in general I'll try to be more careful in the future. No, it was not the kindest way you could. A private email to me would have sufficed to correct the problem in my statement. As you can see, I was prompt to issue a correction once I saw my error. I thank you for that, but my concern was _not_ specificaly about your statement. Rather, I'm worried about this perception being the norm in our community today. But you have to see both sides of things. When I saw that mail, the first thing I think is the press will pick it and announce to everyone that Lenny supports this hardware, with the implicit assumption that we have dropped our ideals and joined the non-free bandwagon (actually, this is still likely despite my reaction). So it was far more important to drag this out before the project as soon as possible than it was to consider your peer's feelings and privately contact him first to give him a chance to correct himself? TBH, I didn't think about this option. Now I see that it is what I should have done. Do you accept my apologise? The ideals you were defending here justified your means? Maybe you won't believe this, but whereas I believe my ideals justify being exposed _myself_ to public bashing, I don't think they justify exposing bystanders. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: confusion about non-free (Re: Bits from the Debian Eee PC team, summer 2008)
On Tue, Aug 05, 2008 at 01:58:50PM +0100, Adeodato Simó wrote: * Robert Millan [Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:20:03 +0200]: I think the reason you (and the other minority of bashers in this thread) are annoyed is because the content of my message, not because its form. You are certainly entitled to believe that if it makes your day any brighter. I'd rather believe something else if I could. Do you have a better explanation for: some people complain about my message being harsh by sending replies that are outright insulting. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: confusion about non-free (Re: Bits from the Debian Eee PC team, summer 2008)
On Tue, Aug 05, 2008 at 09:27:39PM +0100, Adeodato Simó wrote: * Robert Millan [Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:13:17 +0200]: I'd rather believe something else if I could. Do you have a better explanation for: some people complain about my message being harsh by sending replies that are outright insulting. Yes, that your behavior was outraging (at least it was to me). (On the other hand, Ben's behavior on the thread has been exemplary, which I also feel needs saying.) I'm sure my behaviour was outraging to you. I agree Ben's was exemplary. Then again, I don't see any judgement on _your_ behaviour in this mail. I just got scrutinized for using an (admittedly inappropiate) harsh tone, but apparently you don't think your own tone (which was outright insulting) deserves any kind of judgement. As far as I'm concerned, we can leave it here. You didn't answer my question, though. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: confusion about non-free (Re: Bits from the Debian Eee PC team, summer 2008)
On Mon, Aug 04, 2008 at 03:18:24PM +0200, Giacomo A. Catenazzi wrote: : Origin: Debian : Label: Debian : Suite: testing : Codename: lenny : Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2008 08:39:59 UTC : Architectures: alpha amd64 arm armel hppa i386 ia64 mips mipsel powerpc s390 sparc : Components: main contrib non-free : Description: Debian x.y Testing distribution - Not Released So lenny is made from main (Debian), contrib and non-free. Therefore Lenny is not Debian, but a superset of it? This is troubling. Do you have any suggestions on how to address this? -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: confusion about non-free (Re: Bits from the Debian Eee PC team, summer 2008)
On Mon, Aug 04, 2008 at 08:46:36PM +0200, Julien Cristau wrote: On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 20:36:17 +0200, Robert Millan wrote: This is troubling. Do you have any suggestions on how to address this? Stop trolling about utterly uninteresting details? I think it's you who are trolling. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: confusion about non-free (Re: Bits from the Debian Eee PC team, summer 2008)
On Sun, Aug 03, 2008 at 09:51:42AM -0300, Ben Armstrong wrote: Before this thread goes much further, examine the context, please. Read the whole thing and then tell me I am confused: Hi Ben, Just to make it clear, please don't take it as if I were recriminating something to you. My understanding is that this problem is about general perception and I don't think it's your fault in any way. Earliest Eee models fully supported in Lenny Lenny will release with the atl2 ethernet driver and the non-free madwifi-source now works with the earliest Eee models as well, [...] My only error is that when I said fully supported I overstated the case. Lenny will certainly work with all of the earliest models. I don't have an eeepc myself, but what I gather is that Lenny doesn't fully support them; it is Lenny + non-free which does (or otherwise you have no wireless). Do you know what I'm feeling now, at a time when I should have been enjoying the first major success of our project after pouring months of our lives into it? Hurt. It wasn't my intention at all to hurt someone, so I said things in the kindest way I could, without getting personal. But you have to see both sides of things. When I saw that mail, the first thing I think is the press will pick it and announce to everyone that Lenny supports this hardware, with the implicit assumption that we have dropped our ideals and joined the non-free bandwagon (actually, this is still likely despite my reaction). The ideal to stand and defend freedom is the whole reason I care about Debian, so when I feel that its reputation is being damaged, I get hurt too. Anyway, I really appreciate your work on making eeepc's better supported in Debian. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: confusion about non-free (Re: Bits from the Debian Eee PC team, summer 2008)
On Mon, Aug 04, 2008 at 04:01:50PM -0300, Ben Armstrong wrote: On Mon, 4 Aug 2008 20:36:17 +0200 Robert Millan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Therefore Lenny is not Debian, but a superset of it? This is troubling. Do you have any suggestions on how to address this? I have never understood this to be the case. Our codenames refer to Debian releases. Both non-free and contrib are not in Debian and are not part of the release. What I've always understood is that the reason contrib and non-free are labelled 'lenny' is because they are supposed to work with that release. I can't see that there's anything troubling about this at all. In fact, I always thought this was self-evident. Is there really something to be worried over here? Well, I really don't know. My concern right now is that there's a widespread confusion, but I have no idea where it originates or what we can do to correct it. Giacomo pointed at some possible places, so that's what we have. One of them is dak layout. I'm not particularly skilled at solving this kind of problems, but my impression is that much could be archieved by renaming 'main' to 'debian'. Thoughts? P.S: I really appreciate your positive feedback. I hope I wasn't too harsh before... -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: confusion about non-free (Re: Bits from the Debian Eee PC team, summer 2008)
On Mon, Aug 04, 2008 at 10:22:16PM +0300, Yavor Doganov wrote: Robert Millan wrote: Lenny is Debian. non-free is not part of Debian. Check the Social Contract. I wonder what is it that we do wrong to spread this confusion so much that it affects even Debian developers themselves. You are a GNU (co-)maintainer -- at least you have a gnu.org account and I know you've been doing significant work (at least) on GNU GRUB. Well, I'm not really a 'maintainer' in GNU terminology. But let's skip that as it's way off-topic ;-) Of course this analogy is ridiculuos if you don't consider eating meat ethically wrong. I don't, for example -- I eat all kinds of meat, but I do consider non-free software unethical. I expect that every user who cares about freedom does so. This is precisely the problem -- people who care about their freedom consider distributing non-free software as unethical, antisocial activity -- but most of the people who can vote in Debian don't think so. Proprietary software is something entirely acceptable for them, and so it happens. There is practically no difference between Debian and any other GNU/Linux distro that includes non-free software. The only tiny difference is that Debian tries to separate the free from non-free, which is something positive in general, but does not solve the grave problem. You're preaching to the choir. I wish the project didn't support non-free at all, but we already voted on this in 2004 and the majority decided to maintain the current state of things. Which for good of bad, includes the current Social Contract, which says non-free is not part of Debian. It is obvious (for me at least) that the Debian project's desire for popularity and more users (which is natural for all free software developers, but only a few resist the temptation) is the culprit. It is inspiring to see non-free parts removed in distros like gNewSense, BLAG and Alexandre Oliva's recent effort. It is depressing to see that such distros are downstream to Debian--Debian is where all primary development and technical innovations happen. This is something that ought to be fixed, one way or another. Which is why I think the GNU project is doing Debian a disservice by turning their back on us and pretending we don't exist. Creating pure branches while the actual work and the actual community happens somewhere else is not only a waste of time, it's counterproductive. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
confusion about non-free (Re: Bits from the Debian Eee PC team, summer 2008)
[ adding debian-project ] On Sun, Aug 03, 2008 at 01:53:54PM +0200, Robert Millan wrote: On Sun, Aug 03, 2008 at 08:28:19AM -0300, Ben Armstrong wrote: Earliest Eee models fully supported in Lenny Lenny will release with the atl2 ethernet driver and the non-free madwifi-source now works with the earliest Eee models as well, Hi Ben Lenny is Debian. non-free is not part of Debian. Check the Social Contract. I wonder what is it that we do wrong to spread this confusion so much that it affects even Debian developers themselves. What is this to blame? Would it be the FTP archive layout? Perhaps having an unified BTS? I'd be very interested in finding an answer to that question, and proposing a reform if we find something conclussive. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
message from Sven Luther
Sven Luther requested me to forward a message to this list for him. The message is political in nature, but its tone is not something that I would find offensive or rude. I'm aware that Sven is banned, so if someone thinks I should not forward it, please say it now. If nobody objects after a reasonable period of time, I will send it. Sven also told me that if nobody will forward it, he will make it by the slashdot way. Whatever that means, I don't personaly think being publicly discredited by our mistakes is something we want as a community. Please note that this message doesn't imply agreement with his methods. I'm merely the messenger, so don't blame me. OTOH, I can understand why a person who has been forcibly silenced would react this way. Then again, if someone objects to it, just let me know and I won't send it. Thanks -- Robert Millan My spam trap is [EMAIL PROTECTED] Note: this address is only intended for spam harvesters. Writing to it will get you added to my black list. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: message from Sven Luther
On Fri, Jun 29, 2007 at 03:51:32PM +0200, Robert Millan wrote: Sven also told me that if nobody will forward it, he will make it by the slashdot way. Whatever that means, I don't personaly think being publicly discredited by our mistakes is something we want as a community. Update: Sven wants to make it clear that he doesn't intend to threaten, just that in the current situation, he sees no way to pass important messages otherwise, and given the discussion about the social committee he thinks this deserved to be said. Please excuse me if my message didn't represent this tone, -- Robert Millan My spam trap is [EMAIL PROTECTED] Note: this address is only intended for spam harvesters. Writing to it will get you added to my black list. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: message from Sven Luther
On Fri, Jun 29, 2007 at 11:04:01AM -0300, Guilherme de S. Pastore wrote: Em Sex, 2007-06-29 às 15:51 +0200, Robert Millan escreveu: The message is political in nature, but its tone is not something that I would find offensive or rude. I personally think this has already been discussed ad nauseam for the past months, without any indication that a reasonable outcome would be possible - otherwise we wouldn't have got where we got, IMHO - and that it is an unnecessary burden on the project's productivity since the last settlements. To clarify, in the message Sven doesn't talk about himself at all. He just makes points about his opinion on the Social Committe proposal. They could be points made by anyone else. Sven also told me that if nobody will forward it, he will make it by the slashdot way. Whatever that means, I don't personaly think being publicly discredited by our mistakes is something we want as a community. I'm sorry, but in my dictionary that translates as blackmail. *THAT* I don't think the Debian Project or any of its members should accept. If he is overly prejudicial or distorts the facts in public, we might just as well respond to them, either with words or with actions. It's surely a lot of work and headache, but I think it's better than accepting these threats. Please excuse me for not representing him properly in my previous mail. He asked me to clarify that this wasn't at all intended as a threat. OTOH, I can understand why a person who has been forcibly silenced would react this way. But I don't think the silencing is to blame either, as I guess we are well aware of the reason why he was forcibly silenced. Blame is meaningless here. Someone who's been forcibly silenced will try to find other ways to speak out. It's a very human behaviour, and wether he's right or not about what he has to say doesn't change this. -- Robert Millan My spam trap is [EMAIL PROTECTED] Note: this address is only intended for spam harvesters. Writing to it will get you added to my black list. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: message from Sven Luther
On Fri, Jun 29, 2007 at 10:41:13AM -0400, Stephen Frost wrote: [...] (if you're willing to) recast it in your own words, as your own statement, and maybe mention that you heard about it from Sven or whatever. If you're not willing to do that then I seriously doubt it passed either of the other tests mentioned. Hi Stephen, As others have said, it is not fair to put on me the extra burden of recasting the message in my own words. Plus, I don't think it does really archieve anything. -- Robert Millan My spam trap is [EMAIL PROTECTED] Note: this address is only intended for spam harvesters. Writing to it will get you added to my black list. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: message from Sven Luther
On Fri, Jun 29, 2007 at 04:34:21PM +0200, Frans Pop wrote: On Friday 29 June 2007 15:51, Robert Millan wrote: Please note that this message doesn't imply agreement with his methods. I'm merely the messenger, so don't blame me. OTOH, I can understand why a person who has been forcibly silenced would react this way. I don't think you can say I'm merely the messenger. If you decide to forward any message from anyone who is banned from a particular list, you assume responsibility for its content and the effects that that message will have. Personally I do reserve the right to blame you for anything that _you_ send to the list, be it written by yourself or forwarded on request of somebody else (same goes for anybody else for that matter). There is also no reason to accept the message as is. If there is anything in the message that you feel is unsuitable for the list, you should discuss that with Sven and, if at all possible, get him to change it, before forwarding it. Again, by forwarding it _you_ take responsibility for the content of the message. Hi Frans, I want to make it clear that I don't agree with the ban. I don't intend to start a discussion over this, but I think it's important to be honest, so I had to mention that. That said, I appreciate that you are taking a stance that is (at least seemingly so) disconnected from your personal involvement in previous conflicts with Sven. I'll assume responsability for Sven's words if that's necessary for him to speak. Thank you -- Robert Millan My spam trap is [EMAIL PROTECTED] Note: this address is only intended for spam harvesters. Writing to it will get you added to my black list. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fwd: Social committee proposal: mediation or repression ?
On Thu, Jun 28, 2007 at 08:03:09AM +0200, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, Jun 28, 2007 at 07:32:15AM +0200, Josip Rodin wrote: On Wed, Jun 27, 2007 at 10:03:56PM +0100, Ian Jackson wrote: Rationale - There wasn't a huge amount of discussion about this; mostly people seemed to acquiesce to the way I put it, which is that we need some method for dealing with disruptive behaviour that lies between individuals asking for it to stop and expelling people. In all the discussion i have seen about the social comittee, which i have, as you can imagine, followed with interest, there is something that disturbs me most. All the talks have been about how to elect members, and giving the SoC individual members the power to quickly take action (suposedly by warning or temporarily banning folk from lists). This is indeed also how most DDs have seen the problem i was involved with over the last year, and some remarks, particularly those of Anthony Town about definitive measures that cannot be contested are indeed very disturbing. Now, if your governement would be proposing a proposal like what is currently being proposed, many of you would be off screaming about police state and repression before prevention, not to mention attacks on freedom of speach over the censorship powers which have nothing to envy to the russian governement closing up news agencies or even repression and censorship from darker times. I understand that most of us DDs don't really have much political conciousness, or most probably don't want to see their own dealings as being politically dubious, but this is indeed a very very disturbing path to walk. In order to solve social dispute, the first step should always be mediation, and no, mediation is not trying to talk to the party you already judged guilty in order to make him be silent, and if this fails pass out punishement and unilateral judgements. The first order of business in a social dispute is communication and negotiation. If a complaints arise, then the social comittee should investigate it, speak with both parties involved in the dispute, verify the veracity of those claims with facts and independent third parties, and try to discuss. Hearing both parties is important, understanding what their grief are, and trying to find a middle ground acceptable to both. And only if this really fails, should action be taken. Furthermore, the social committee needs to be impartial, which i know can be difficult, and hiding their discussions in private channels is not going to help there, and brings again up the ghost of shady dealings and cabal decision. So, what i believe is important in this, is for the social committee to have a clear mandate to negotiate and mediate first, before using repressive means, and maybe for each social committee member to take an oath of impartiality, fairness and will to solve issues in negotiation and mediation, just like real world judges do. This is the only way to bring debian back again on the way to fun and friendliness, and the way to a police state that ian is proposing, altough nearer to the habits of DDs, is definitively not the way to go. Friendly, Sven Luther -- Robert Millan My spam trap is [EMAIL PROTECTED] Note: this address is only intended for spam harvesters. Writing to it will get you added to my black list. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: message from Sven Luther
On Fri, Jun 29, 2007 at 09:49:23AM -0700, John H. Robinson, IV wrote: Robert Millan wrote: Sven Luther requested me to forward a message to this list for him. I have no problem with you forwarding a message. I would caution you that it is likely you would be held responsible and liable for the content, but if it breaks no (un)written rules, you should be okay. NB: I have not followed the Sven saga, though I have sampled a bit at some of the threads. -- John H. Robinson, IV [EMAIL PROTECTED] http WARNING: I cannot be held responsible for the above, sbih.org ( )(:[ as apparently my cats have learned how to type. spiders.html Heh, can cats learn how to forward mail? I could use a disclaimer like yours. :-) -- Robert Millan My spam trap is [EMAIL PROTECTED] Note: this address is only intended for spam harvesters. Writing to it will get you added to my black list. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Micros*ft deal
On Wed, Jun 20, 2007 at 06:08:16PM -0300, Gustavo Franco wrote: On 6/20/07, Robert Millan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, Since every GNU/Linux distributor seems to be positioning with regards to possible patent deals with Microsoft, I thought we could do the same. Actually, it's totally unthinkable that a non-profit organization could do this kind of deal, in which Microsoft pays you to perform hara-kiri by losing the right to distribute GPLv3 software. This is exactly what a positioning statement would reflect: that our community model is invulnerable to this kind of threats (and also to going out of bussiness, etc). Thoughts? I believe our silence says it all, no? If they want to donate us money for no 'carte blanche' back good, Their donations are welcome, their deals aren't. In fact, we could even lose our permission to use GPLv3 software if we did that. otherwise I don't think it's worth write a PR and help them spread their FUD, IMHO. On the contrary; the objective would be to dismiss their FUD. -- Robert Millan My spam trap is [EMAIL PROTECTED] Note: this address is only intended for spam harvesters. Writing to it will get you added to my black list. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Micros*ft deal
On Thu, Jun 21, 2007 at 03:50:21AM -0400, Kevin Mark wrote: On Wed, Jun 20, 2007 at 06:08:16PM -0300, Gustavo Franco wrote: On 6/20/07, Robert Millan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, Since every GNU/Linux distributor seems to be positioning with regards to possible patent deals with Microsoft, I thought we could do the same. Actually, it's totally unthinkable that a non-profit organization could do this kind of deal, in which Microsoft pays you to perform hara-kiri by losing the right to distribute GPLv3 software. This is exactly what a positioning statement would reflect: that our community model is invulnerable to this kind of threats (and also to going out of bussiness, etc). Thoughts? I believe our silence says it all, no? If they want to donate us money for no 'carte blanche' back good, otherwise I don't think it's worth write a PR and help them spread their FUD, IMHO. regards, -- stratus I read Mr. Shuttleworth statement about his opposion to joining the microsoft-covenent bandwagon. I see nothing in simply (re)stating Debian's position on the matter and (re)stating its commitment to its Free software ideals in a climate where some folks are not following the best interests of the community. Silence does not seem like a great course in this case. Rather than repeating what others have said: positioning statement would reflect: that our community model is invulnerable to this kind of threats (and also to going out of bussiness, much unlike other communities that are based on bussiness. This doesn't sound redundant does it? -- Robert Millan My spam trap is [EMAIL PROTECTED] Note: this address is only intended for spam harvesters. Writing to it will get you added to my black list. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Micros*ft deal
On Thu, Jun 21, 2007 at 03:25:32PM +0200, Florian Weimer wrote: If Microsoft promises not to sue us, our mirror operators, and or end users, for no compensation except a joint press release (we haven't got much more we can offer anyway), it would be very stupid to reject such a deal. A joint press release amounts to legitimation of their maffia-style attacks. This is an extremely high cost for our community. You may think it's a cost worth of paying, but please do at least show some respect for those who disagree. Surely, it would legitimize Microsoft as a patent-owning software company, but I can't really think this is particularly relevant at this stage. The business world doesn't see them as mobsters, and neither do most people in software (not anymore). What is this perspective based on? I was under the impression that they were seen as mobsters more than ever before.. -- Robert Millan My spam trap is [EMAIL PROTECTED] Note: this address is only intended for spam harvesters. Writing to it will get you added to my black list. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Micros*ft deal
Hi, Since every GNU/Linux distributor seems to be positioning with regards to possible patent deals with Microsoft, I thought we could do the same. Actually, it's totally unthinkable that a non-profit organization could do this kind of deal, in which Microsoft pays you to perform hara-kiri by losing the right to distribute GPLv3 software. This is exactly what a positioning statement would reflect: that our community model is invulnerable to this kind of threats (and also to going out of bussiness, etc). Thoughts? -- Robert Millan My spam trap is [EMAIL PROTECTED] Note: this address is only intended for spam harvesters. Writing to it will get you added to my black list. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
showusthecode.com pledge
Hi, Maybe it'd be a good idea if Debian adhered to the pledge at: http://www.showusthecode.com/ I believe as DPL you are empowered to represent Debian on this decision. (CCing debian-project) -- Robert Millan My spam trap is [EMAIL PROTECTED] Note: this address is only intended for spam harvesters. Writing to it will get you added to my black list. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
