Re: Analysis of the ballot options
On Sat, Jun 19, 2004 at 11:43:17PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: [This guy is a troll; just rebutting the misinformation so that people aren't confused] Yeah, right. On Sat, Jun 19, 2004 at 09:23:05PM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote: On Fri, Jun 18, 2004 at 12:59:33PM -0500, Debian Project Secretary wrote: [ ] Choice 1: Postpone changes until September 2004 [needs 3:1] [ ] Choice 2: Postpone changes until Sarge releases [needs 3:1] [ ] Choice 3: Add apology to Social Contract [needs 3:1] [ ] Choice 4: Revert to old wording of SC[needs 3:1] [ ] Choice 5: Transition Guide foundation document [needs 3:1] [ ] Choice 6: Reaffirm the current SC[needs 1:1] [ ] Choice 7: Further discussion Options 1-3 are essentially clones with subtle variations. 2 is the same as 1, but without the time limit. 3 is the same as 2, but is less intrusive Modifying the social contract permanently (as opposed to temporarily overruling it) to address temporary problems is seen as less intrusive? This is factually incorrect; that is not what option 3 does. What? checks Well, OK. Missed part 2 of that proposal. Sorry; my bad. The rest of what I said stands, though; I think that modifying the SC to add an apology is one bridge too far. The Social Contract is a statement of principles; it should not disvalidate itself. If we cannot follow up on our principles because they happen to conflict[0], then that is a problem; but an explanation of that fact does not belong in that very statement of principles (it should be somewhere, but not in the SC). Therefore, I resent the idea that option three would be a refined version of option one and two. [0] Yes, they conflict. I am aware of your opinion that having free software and doing what's best for our users can not conflict; however, I disagree. Let me explain: * Having a distribution that consists entirely of free software is, indeed, good for our users. Many of our users depend on Debian being entirely free software; changing that without notice wouldn't be nice, so it's better to release only when the distribution is fully free. * Having a distribution which actually releases within a decent period after the previous release is also good for our users. Our users are not served best by having horribly outdated software in our latest stable release; the world changes, and so do software requirements. For some of our users (and their number increases every day as the woody release gets older), stable is already completely useless. These two are, at this very moment, in conflict. To get a distribution which is best according to the first argument, we would need to postpone the release. To get a distribution which is best according to the second argument, we would need to release ASAP. The question, however, is not what is good for our users (both courses of action are, depending on the POV); the question is what's best for our users. To answer that question, we have to decide how bad it is that the software in woody is outdated. Some people, including you, have the opinion that it is not so bad that we should release sooner rather than later; others, including me and, if I'm not mistaken, Andreas Barth, have the opinion that the problem with woody being outdated has now reached the point where it's more of a problem than the problem where some parts of a stable distribution are non-free. Parts which, I should note, have not been considered as parts that should be free in /any/ previous release. Option 5 may in itself be a good idea, but it is essentially orthogonal here, and worse, it doesn't actually answer the question of what do we do about sarge? - it just says carry on, which says non-free release if you were expecting a non-free release and free release if you were expecting a free release. Actually, it says we reaffirm the previous GR, but it won't be active before the next release. This is pure fiction. I don't see how. OK, granted, it does not literally say that the previous GR is reaffirmed. However, I don't think that anyone who would want such a transition plan would want to get rid of the previous GR. In practice, if this option is accepted, the previous GR will be accepted as well. The transition plan does, in practice, also lay out when the changes to the SC made by the previous GR will be active: when sarge gets out the door. To quote the proposed transition plan: In the specific case of General Resolution 2004_003, since that release currently in preparation, code named Sarge, is very close to release, and the previously released version is quite out of date, our commitment to our users dictates that the Sarge release should go on as planned - even while we are in the process of reaching compliance with the new Social Contract. This exemption for Sarge applies to security releases and point releases as well.
Re: Analysis of the ballot options
* Andrew Suffield ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [040620 00:55]: [This guy is a troll; just rebutting the misinformation so that people aren't confused] Would you mind to not do ad-hominem attacks? Andi -- http://home.arcor.de/andreas-barth/ PGP 1024/89FB5CE5 DC F1 85 6D A6 45 9C 0F 3B BE F1 D0 C5 D1 D9 0C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Analysis of the ballot options
* Andrew Suffield ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [040620 01:10]: [This is just a thinly veiled personal attack; filling in the gaps for people who haven't followed -vote] On Sat, Jun 19, 2004 at 10:56:49PM +0200, Andreas Barth wrote: On Fri, Jun 18, 2004 at 12:59:33PM -0500, Debian Project Secretary wrote: [ ] Choice 1: Postpone changes until September 2004 [needs 3:1] [ ] Choice 2: Postpone changes until Sarge releases [needs 3:1] [ ] Choice 3: Add apology to Social Contract [needs 3:1] [ ] Choice 4: Revert to old wording of SC[needs 3:1] [ ] Choice 5: Transition Guide foundation document [needs 3:1] [ ] Choice 6: Reaffirm the current SC[needs 1:1] Choice 6 is titled wrong. It's not a reaffirmation of the social contract, it's an affirmation of a certain interpretation of the social contract. An affirmation of another interpretation of the social contract was not allowed to be put on the ballot. Andreas made an ill-formed proposal which the project secretary rejected for this ballot, and refused all suggestions about how it should be properly formed. He appears to hold a grudge, I'm not sure why. Ah, never retain from a ad-hominem attacks, eh? Here's the thread root: http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2004/06/msg0.html And here's Manoj's brief analysis: http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2004/06/msg00024.html The reason is - as discussed on d-vote - that dropping half of the statement (the part about our social contract tells us we should release) does change that proposal in an unacceptable way. Furthermore, a lot of developers asked me - through mail or on IRC - to not put some further option on the ballot to make it not even more difficult. Option 6 is the other position - that free software is what matters. Option 6 is the position that our users don't matter, and it's not important to release. I already covered this one in my first mail, but anyway: this is based on the assumption that our users are best served by non-free software. See the thread parent for a more detailed rebuttal. Are you dumb or a lying? Again: Our users are served good by: - a current stable release - free software At the moment, we don't have any of them. Our stable release contains items which are non-free, according to your interpretation of the social contract (have you ever taken a look to /usr/share/info/gcc-295.info.gz on a woody system?). For someone who lives in the real world, and where time does matter, I'm convinced that we should release now, and that also our social contract encourages this. You may of course disagree, but please stop ad-hominem attacks, and malicious gossip. Thanks. Andi -- http://home.arcor.de/andreas-barth/ PGP 1024/89FB5CE5 DC F1 85 6D A6 45 9C 0F 3B BE F1 D0 C5 D1 D9 0C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Analysis of the ballot options
* Thomas Bushnell, BSG ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [040620 03:40]: Andreas Barth [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Option 6 is the position that our users don't matter, and it's not important to release. Hrm. I think giving our users non-free software hurts them. I'm against hurting our users, therefore I'm against releasing non-free software. Please see /usr/share/info/gcc-295.info.gz in woody. Do you consider it more worse to replace that file with the appropriate file from sarge? I'm also against releasing non-free software, but I'm even more against not releasing at all. So, at the moment, I consider it the right thing to do to release sarge _now_, and resolve the kernel issues etc after that. Cheers, Andi -- http://home.arcor.de/andreas-barth/ PGP 1024/89FB5CE5 DC F1 85 6D A6 45 9C 0F 3B BE F1 D0 C5 D1 D9 0C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Analysis of the ballot options
* Thomas Bushnell, BSG ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [040620 05:25]: But I was responding to the claim that my camp is somehow not interested in the well-being of our users, or that we place it second-best. We place it first-best--just as you do; the disagreement is not about whether or how important it is to help our users. That's a good summary. I responded to the same claim. Cheers, Andi -- http://home.arcor.de/andreas-barth/ PGP 1024/89FB5CE5 DC F1 85 6D A6 45 9C 0F 3B BE F1 D0 C5 D1 D9 0C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Analysis of the ballot options
Software which can't be ported, which can't have security problems resolved, which can't be delivered, and which can't be used are all examples of problems we're trying to avoid. On Sun, Jun 20, 2004 at 01:39:39PM +1000, Ben Burton wrote: Does can't be used include had its documentation removed? Obviously, that's one of the problems we're trying to decide how to address. -- Raul -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Analysis of the ballot options
On Sat, Jun 19, 2004 at 07:47:07PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: I would point out that historically, Debian does not release before it is ready, and that's why our releases usually work so well. Option 3 is the release before it is ready, because releasing is more important than being ready option. Option 6 is the better rather than sooner option. Non sequitur - the premise is vaguely correct, but I disagree that the two conclusions follow from it. It doesn't make sense to me that readiness and usability of Debian releases are to be achieved by removing stuff that was not supposed to be removed just a while ago. Only if you take it as a given that the old release policy was correct. Otherwise it's just that heads have been forcibly removed from the sand now. Well, the old release policy can't have been all that wrong given that nobody actually proposed changing it -- the proposal was clearly aimed at clarifying the language of the social contract, not at changing its intent and/or purpose. -- 2. That which causes joy or happiness. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Analysis of the ballot options
On Sat, Jun 19, 2004 at 10:56:49PM +0200, Andreas Barth wrote: [ ] Choice 6: Reaffirm the current SC[needs 1:1] Choice 6 is titled wrong. It's not a reaffirmation of the social contract, it's an affirmation of a certain interpretation of the social contract. An affirmation of another interpretation of the social contract was not allowed to be put on the ballot. Not allowed? Really? And all this time I thought that my opinion was simply in a minority so small that nobody bothered making a proposal out of it! :) sigh -- 2. That which causes joy or happiness. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re:
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Re: Analysis of the ballot options
On Sun, Jun 20, 2004 at 10:59:44AM +0200, Andreas Barth wrote: Are you dumb or a lying? Again: Our users are served good by: - a current stable release - free software At the moment, we don't have any of them. Our stable release contains items which are non-free, according to your interpretation of the social contract (have you ever taken a look to /usr/share/info/gcc-295.info.gz on a woody system?). For someone who lives in the real world, and where time does matter, I'm convinced that we should release now, and that also our social contract encourages this. You may of course disagree, but please stop ad-hominem attacks, and malicious gossip. Thanks. You're real world doesn't look like mine at least unless you intend to release Sarge with nearly 300 RC bugs? By the time all those RC bugs are fixed we could easily have removed all the non-free software from Debian main as well... Chris signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Analysis of the ballot options
My analysis is that this GR is simply insane. The previous GR (2004 vote 003) was presented as editorial amendments, so it can hardly have significant influence on our releases. From this point of view proposals A, B, C, E make no sense to me. I can't see any good reason to support proposal F -- Social Contract already defines our goals which we may successfully meet or we may (despite our best efforts) fail on them (we may fail to release sarge without any DFSG problems or we may fail to release any further stable version at all). Proposal D may make sense if one feels fooled by presenting the previous GR as editorial amendments and wants to revert it for that reason. But in any case, I don't think the changes to DFSG are wrong, so Debian shouldn't make to look itself even more foolish by making and reverting changes without really good reasons. IMHO the proper response to this insane GR is --1 (without actually performing Further Discussion after the voting ends). And I won't repeat my mistake of ignoring the votings I don't consider significant enough. Milan Zamazal -- I think any law that restricts independent use of brainpower is suspect. -- Kent Pitman in comp.lang.lisp -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Analysis of the ballot options
On Sun, Jun 20, 2004 at 12:32:24PM -0500, Chris Cheney wrote: You're real world doesn't look like mine at least unless you intend to release Sarge with nearly 300 RC bugs? By the time all those RC bugs are fixed we could easily have removed all the non-free software from Debian main as well... Two problems: 1. Removing things will surely introduce new bugs. 2. We have enough to do fixing some hundreds of RC bugs, I don't like another discration. Let us release sarge ASAP - not before - and do other important things - hive off non-free, multi-arch - later. Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Analysis of the ballot options
* Josip Rodin ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [040620 17:10]: On Sat, Jun 19, 2004 at 10:56:49PM +0200, Andreas Barth wrote: [ ] Choice 6: Reaffirm the current SC[needs 1:1] Choice 6 is titled wrong. It's not a reaffirmation of the social contract, it's an affirmation of a certain interpretation of the social contract. An affirmation of another interpretation of the social contract was not allowed to be put on the ballot. Not allowed? Really? And all this time I thought that my opinion was simply in a minority so small that nobody bothered making a proposal out of it! :) See http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2004/06/msg0.html (for the proposal, seconded by Eduard Bloch, Michael Schiansky, Marco d'Itri, Marc Haber, John H. Robinson (IV), giving the required quorum of the constitution), and rejected by the secretary in that form because it also spoke about the release interval, see http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2004/06/msg00035.html | I am just saying that portions of this proposal, as it reads | now, do not address the issue that the current GR addresses, and | must needs go on another ballot, and another vote. Cheers, Andi -- http://home.arcor.de/andreas-barth/ PGP 1024/89FB5CE5 DC F1 85 6D A6 45 9C 0F 3B BE F1 D0 C5 D1 D9 0C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Analysis of the ballot options
* Chris Cheney ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [040620 19:40]: On Sun, Jun 20, 2004 at 10:59:44AM +0200, Andreas Barth wrote: Are you dumb or a lying? Again: Our users are served good by: - a current stable release - free software At the moment, we don't have any of them. Our stable release contains items which are non-free, according to your interpretation of the social contract (have you ever taken a look to /usr/share/info/gcc-295.info.gz on a woody system?). For someone who lives in the real world, and where time does matter, I'm convinced that we should release now, and that also our social contract encourages this. You may of course disagree, but please stop ad-hominem attacks, and malicious gossip. Thanks. You're real world doesn't look like mine at least unless you intend to release Sarge with nearly 300 RC bugs? By the time all those RC bugs are fixed we could easily have removed all the non-free software from Debian main as well... I consider the opinion of the release managers to be a better guide on what blocks the release of sarge than my opinion or a glance at the RC bug count. Please see e.g. Colin Watsons mail on http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/06/msg01086.html | This is not the only thing holding up sarge. | | It's the biggest, and crucially it's the showstopper with the greatest | uncertainty attached to it. People who've done any release management | know that you need to resolve the items with the greatest uncertainty as | early as possible; it is not possible to plan otherwise. (This is why | there's been no release plan posted lately, because we basically | can't.) Cheers, Andi -- http://home.arcor.de/andreas-barth/ PGP 1024/89FB5CE5 DC F1 85 6D A6 45 9C 0F 3B BE F1 D0 C5 D1 D9 0C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Analysis of the ballot options
On Sun, Jun 20, 2004 at 10:07:35PM +0200, Andreas Barth wrote: [ ] Choice 6: Reaffirm the current SC[needs 1:1] Choice 6 is titled wrong. It's not a reaffirmation of the social contract, it's an affirmation of a certain interpretation of the social contract. An affirmation of another interpretation of the social contract was not allowed to be put on the ballot. Not allowed? Really? And all this time I thought that my opinion was simply in a minority so small that nobody bothered making a proposal out of it! :) See http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2004/06/msg0.html (for the proposal, seconded by Eduard Bloch, Michael Schiansky, Marco d'Itri, Marc Haber, John H. Robinson (IV), giving the required quorum of the constitution), and rejected by the secretary in that form because it also spoke about the release interval, see http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2004/06/msg00035.html | I am just saying that portions of this proposal, as it reads | now, do not address the issue that the current GR addresses, and | must needs go on another ballot, and another vote. Hmm, yeah, the short point appeared to have gotten sidetracked by all that verbiage, and the promise of yearly release sounds optimistic at best. I'd second a resolution that simply said that we acknowledge that the meaning of the first clause of the social contract, regardless of whether we say free according to the DFSG or free software or free monkeys, is not set in stone and its interpretation is variable. Another option on the same resolution would be that the interpretation is exactly this-and-that, but with the difference that the people would actually be voting for or against something concrete and their votes couldn't be interpreted to mean something else than what was advertized and what they intended. ``Eliminate or expand inaccurate references to software.'' *snicker* *sigh* -- 2. That which causes joy or happiness. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Analysis of the ballot options
* Josip Rodin ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [040620 23:10]: On Sun, Jun 20, 2004 at 10:07:35PM +0200, Andreas Barth wrote: See http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2004/06/msg0.html (for the proposal, seconded by Eduard Bloch, Michael Schiansky, Marco d'Itri, Marc Haber, John H. Robinson (IV), giving the required quorum of the constitution), and rejected by the secretary in that form because it also spoke about the release interval, see http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2004/06/msg00035.html | I am just saying that portions of this proposal, as it reads | now, do not address the issue that the current GR addresses, and | must needs go on another ballot, and another vote. Hmm, yeah, the short point appeared to have gotten sidetracked by all that verbiage, and the promise of yearly release sounds optimistic at best. Well, the promise was only to do regular releases. ;) The about once a year was only a guide-line. (I know why I wrote it this soft way, and not hard.) I'd second a resolution that simply said that we acknowledge that the meaning of the first clause of the social contract, regardless of whether we say free according to the DFSG or free software or free monkeys, is not set in stone and its interpretation is variable. Another option on the same resolution would be that the interpretation is exactly this-and-that, but with the difference that the people would actually be voting for or against something concrete and their votes couldn't be interpreted to mean something else than what was advertized and what they intended. Well, as the current vote has already started, we can take our time after the vote to see if we really need to make another vote. I'd like to don't do it, but - well, I don't expect it. Cheers, Andi -- http://home.arcor.de/andreas-barth/ PGP 1024/89FB5CE5 DC F1 85 6D A6 45 9C 0F 3B BE F1 D0 C5 D1 D9 0C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Analysis of the ballot options
Milan Zamazal schrieb: so Debian shouldn't make to look itself even more foolish by making and reverting changes without really good reasons. Adult people should not be afraid of undoing bad decisions, and We will not hide problems. Ciao, Eike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Analysis of the ballot options
On Sun, Jun 20, 2004 at 10:59:44AM +0200, Andreas Barth wrote: Andreas made an ill-formed proposal which the project secretary rejected for this ballot, and refused all suggestions about how it should be properly formed. He appears to hold a grudge, I'm not sure why. Ah, never retain from a ad-hominem attacks, eh? Oh, come on. That was not an argument, therefore it cannot *possibly* be an instance of argumentum ad hominem. It was simply data, so that people can evaluate your statements in context; I see no reason to posit an actual argument, as any rational person should be able to figure it out on their own. Data which I do not like does not constitute argumentum ad hominem. The world is full of things that you don't like, and you don't get to reject them just because you don't like them. I'm getting really tired of this cargo-cult approach to debate that has appeared on the mailing lists in the past year or two. argumentum ad hominem is precisely the set of arguments that say This argument is wrong because of (some feature of) the person that said it. These arguments are fallacious. Nothing else about them is significant. Labelling everything you find objectionable as ad hominem is pointless, because it's wrong. It is *absolutely not the case* that anything which reflects badly on a given person is wrong. You only get to invoke the classical fallacies as a short-circuit to avoid a full response when the argument proposed *is* one of the classical fallacies. Their purpose is simply to avoid spending time explaining the nature of the fallacy - it is assumed that everybody involved understands why it is wrong, and you are simply pointing this out as a substitute for the standard response. Furthermore you are expected to explain the fallacy if somebody involved does not understand it. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Analysis of the ballot options
On Mon, Jun 21, 2004 at 12:00:58AM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: On Sun, Jun 20, 2004 at 10:59:44AM +0200, Andreas Barth wrote: Andreas made an ill-formed proposal which the project secretary rejected for this ballot, and refused all suggestions about how it should be properly formed. He appears to hold a grudge, I'm not sure why. Ah, never retain from a ad-hominem attacks, eh? Oh, come on. That was not an argument, therefore it cannot *possibly* be an instance of argumentum ad hominem. Andreas didn't say argument, he said attack. This is a tangent, though. Let's cut it. -- EARTH smog | bricks AIR -- mud -- FIRE soda water | tequila WATER -- with thanks to fortune signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Analysis of the ballot options
Ah, never retain from a ad-hominem attacks, eh? On Mon, Jun 21, 2004 at 12:00:58AM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: Oh, come on. That was not an argument, therefore it cannot *possibly* be an instance of argumentum ad hominem. How is missing the point of what he said relevant? -- Raul -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
What your ballot should look like if you're in favor of releasing sarge
Much noise has been made by certain proponents of the earlier GR over the fact that there are three very similar options on the ballot. They have suggested that this means the sponsors of these ballot options don't have their act together, and are incapable of agreeing on anything. It is precisely because we all agree on the importance of releasing sarge soon that we have proposed so many paths to reaching this goal. This is an effort to build consensus, not a lack of consensus on our part. Debian is a large community, and it's not easy to know what the outcome of such a vote will be before it happens. The range of ballot options has been provided partly in the hope that at least *one* among these options will receive the necessary support from developers and will put us back on the road to releasing sarge. This means that, if your objective in voting on this GR is also to undo the damage that has been done to our release process, you should consider voting *multiple* options above Further Discussion, not just one. If you believe the changes should be reverted completely, please consider: if there is not support for reverting the changes at this time, do you really want the Social Contract to stay as it is now, with the release schedule continuing to slip, while we continue to discuss further? If you believe that the previous GR does represent a direction that Debian wants to be heading in, but you also believe that releasing sarge now with the same warts we've always had is better than waiting until next year to release a blemishless distribution, please consider: doesn't this GR itself show us that it's possible to change our minds about decisions, and doesn't that mean reverting the changes for now will still let us head down that road later? If you believe Debian needs to handle transitions better, please consider: isn't it important to handle *this* transition now, even if we can't yet agree on how to handle them in the future? I have no intention of telling people which option should be their preferred option; indeed, I myself question whether September is far enough away to let us release before then, because we've lost a lot of momentum over the last month and a half while this has been hanging over our heads. But it is precisely because of the momentum being lost that I think it's hard for us to do *worse* than the status quo, which is why I still plan to vote choice 1 above the default option -- along with choices 2, 3, 4, and 5. If you agree with me that the release of sarge is already long overdue, I encourage you to do likewise. And if you have already voted, I would also remind you that the Debian voting system does allow you to change your vote any time up until the close of the polling period. Thanks, -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer signature.asc Description: Digital signature