Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR

[Patrick Schoenfeld]

Hi,

On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 02:17:19PM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:
> * Why does releasing despite DFSG violations require a 3:1 majority now
>   when it didn't for etch?  It's the same secretary in both cases.  What
>   changed?  I didn't find any of the explanations offered for this very
>   satisfying.
> 

I feel uncomfortable with this, too, but I'm afraid that it seems to me
that it was a mistake back when Etch was released and is in perfect
harmony with our constitution, now. Lets see why I think so:
What I can read from the constitution is that a super-majority
 is only required if we ammend the constitution itself
or if we force a super-session of a foundation document. This can be
seen in "4.1 Powers" of the constitution:

"Together, the Developers may:
(...)
Issue, supersede and withdraw nontechnical policy documents and
statements.
(...)
A Foundation Document requires a 3:1 majority for its supersession.
"

The interesting question is: Do we supersede the document in question by
_temporary_ overriding (as in: ignoring) a decision in it? The
Constitution has an interesting sentence next to the last cited
sentence, for this question: "New Foundation Documents are issued and
existing ones withdrawn by amending the list of Foundation Documents in
this constitution."
This sentence is in the same paragraph as the super-majority requirement
for supersessions, so it can be safely assumed that it is there to
nearer define when this 3:1 majority is needed. According to my
comprehension this means that we do NOT supersede a foundation document,
because we do neither change it permanently, nor do we ammend the list
of foundation documents in the constitution.

But.. if we don't do that.. what do we do? According to our constitution
we can only "Issue, supersede and withdraw ontechnical policy documents
and statements". A temporary over-ruling is not designated there in.
So what we recently found in our constitution is a "law gap". The case
to temporary override a foundation documentation is not defined, which
basically means that its the safest to assume the nearest similar rule
in the constitution which is indeed the paragraph to replace it.

Why did Manoj interpret the constitution different last time? I don't know, I 
can
only imagine that it was a mistake.

Regards,
Patrick


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Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR

[Cyril Brulebois]

Thomas Weber  (15/12/2008):
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2008/11/msg00046.html

Let's quote for people following at home:
| >So, we now have a discussion period of two weeks, though I would
| > prefer to actually start the vote Sunday 00:00:00 UTC (on November
| > 23th, or, if the DPL desires to shorten the discussion period, november
| > 16th).
| 
| We've had more than enough discussion about this - please start ASAP.

Thomas Weber  (15/12/2008):
> I read this message as "get over with it as fast as possible", which
> is what Manoj is doing here.

What was asked is shortening the discussion period, rather than the
voting period.

Mraw,
KiBi.


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Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR

[Pierre Habouzit]

On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 10:33:27PM +, Peter Palfrader wrote:
> On Sun, 14 Dec 2008, Pierre Habouzit wrote:
> 
> > > Boycotting is unlikely to prevent all ballot options from reaching the
> > 
> > Yeah Boycotting is silly, that's why I've voted for FD first, my
> > "preferred" choices second, the rest third.
> 
> So in effect you prefer the options that do not require supermajority to
> those that do.  Or at least make it more likely that they will win.

Sadly, it's a necessary side effect yes.

> This ballot sucks.

News @ 11.
Especially since a few options require supermajority out of thin air.

Is there someone on the plane here to do what's needed with the
secretary? If the DPL isn't willing to take any action here (and I'm
really annoyed that despite repeated questions about it he never showed
up in the discussion[0]), I believe I'm willing to start a GR (*SIGH*)
about it[1].


[0] There are at least ways to tell "Hey I don't want to troll, but my
position on the subject is $foo and I'm currently discussing it
privately with him" or whatever, that at least let us know what is
going on. Right now we see blatant power abuse, with the DPL being
completely OK with it. Sooo nice.

[1] I know that the constitution doesn't state that we can rescind our
Secretary through a GR, but I would be _really_ surprised that if
such a GR passes, the Secretary wouldn't resign.
-- 
·O·  Pierre Habouzit
··Omadco...@debian.org
OOOhttp://www.madism.org


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Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR

[Andreas Barth]

* Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) [081214 23:01]:
>   Option 1 is either meaningless or an
>   override of a delegate decision, but the ballot doesn't reflect this.

As Option 1 doesn't say it overrides a delegate decision, I read it as a
position statement of the day.

>   Option 4 looks equivalent to FD if you look at the decision-making
>   process in the constitution, but the ballot doesn't reflect that.

The only difference between Option 4 and FD is that with Option 4, we have
something more explicit we could cite next time.



Cheers,
Andi


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Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR

[Thomas Weber]

Am Montag, den 15.12.2008, 00:31 + schrieb Steve McIntyre:
> On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 10:23:18PM +0100, Cyril Brulebois wrote:
> >Debian Project Secretary  (13/12/2008):
> >> 
> >>FIRST CALL FOR VOTES FOR THE Lenny Release General Resolution
> >>=  === = === === = === === ==
> >> 
> >> Voting period starts  00:00:01 UTC on Sunday,   December 14th, 2008
> >> Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC on Saturday, December 21st, 2008
> >  ^^^
> >
> >Can we please have a reference to the mail/thread about shortening the
> >voting period?
> 
> I'm fairly certain there wasn't one.

http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2008/11/msg00046.html

I read this message as "get over with it as fast as possible", which is
what Manoj is doing here. 

Thomas


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Re: Bundled votes and the secretary

[Pierre Habouzit]

On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 12:13:23AM +, Matthew Johnson wrote:
> On Sun Dec 14 16:02, Ean Schuessler wrote:
> > 
> > For gosh sakes man! Try to be polite! Any child can see that GFDL
> > invariants violate the DFSG because they cannot be modified.
>  
> Concur. GFDL + invariants clearly need to change the DFSG since the DFSG
> doesn't allow things which can't be modified [DFSG3]. GFDL - invariants
> is equally clearly possible without changing the DFSG. Ergo, 3:1 for the
> former and simple majority for the latter.
> 
> On Sun Dec 14 16:02, Josslin wrote:
> > > For the record, I think the Secretary's interpretation of the
> > > Constitution is
> > > perfectly correct.  
> > 
> > Whether it is correct or not is irrelevant here. The Secretary is
> > deciding this without justification, in an inconsistent way (similar
> > options get a different treatment), and without any thought for
> > following the constitution itself.
> 
> I'm sorry, how is it not relevant? The secretary interprets the
> constitution [7.1.3]. If the interpretation is correct then he has
> followed the constitution.
> 
> Choice 6 says "firmware in Debian does not have to come with source".
> DFSG2 says "The program must include source code". Please tell me how
> you can _possibly_ reconcile those two statements without modifying the
> DFSG and therefore requiring a super majority. 

The point is, the secretary chooses interpretations that suits his own
proposals to the vote. Explain to me how the "release lenny" options
need [3:1] supermajority where the very same vote didn't need it in the
past ?

from http://www.debian.org/vote/2006/vote_007#majorityreq

   Release Etch even with kernel firmware issues

   1.  We affirm that our Priorities are our users and the free software
   community (Social Contract #4);

   2.  We acknowledge that there is a lot of progress in the kernel
   firmware issue; however, it is not yet finally sorted out;

   3.  We assure the community that there will be no regressions in the
   progress made for freedom in the kernel distributed by Debian
   relative to the Sarge release in Etch

   4.  We give priority to the timely release of Etch over sorting every
   bit out; for this reason, we will treat removal of sourceless
   firmware as a best-effort process, and deliver firmware in udebs
   as long as it is necessary for installation (like all udebs), and
   firmware included in the kernel itself as part of Debian Etch, as
   long as we are legally allowed to do so, and the firmware is
   distributed upstream under a license that complies with the DFSG.


and from the current vote:

   Allow Lenny to release with proprietary firmware

   1.  We affirm that our Priorities are our users and the free software
   community (Social Contract #4);

   2.  We acknowledge that there is a lot of progress in the kernel firmware
   issue; most of the issues that were outstanding at the time of
   the last stable release have been sorted out. However, new issues
   in the kernel sources have cropped up fairly recently, and these
   new issues have not yet been addressed;

   3.  We assure the community that there will be no regressions in the
   progress made for freedom in the kernel distributed by Debian
   relative to the Etch release in Lenny (to the best of our
   knowledge as of 1 November 2008);

   4.  We give priority to the timely release of Lenny over sorting
   every bit out; for this reason, we will treat removal of
   sourceless firmware as a best-effort process, and deliver
   firmware as part of Debian Lenny as long as we are legally
   allowed to do so.


Now explain to me how a genuine interpretation of the Constitution let
the former need simple majority and the latter super majority.



-- 
·O·  Pierre Habouzit
··Omadco...@debian.org
OOOhttp://www.madism.org


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No acknowledgement received for vote on Lenny release GR

[Frans Pop]

Could someone please check why I've not received any acknowledgement of my 
vote?

Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2008 12:23:56 +0100
Message-Id: <200812141224.06403.elen...@planet.nl>

Thanks,
FJP


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Re: No acknowledgement received for vote on Lenny release GR

[Adeodato Simó]

* Frans Pop [Mon, 15 Dec 2008 10:15:28 +0100]:

> Could someone please check why I've not received any acknowledgement of my 
> vote?

> Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2008 12:23:56 +0100
> Message-Id: <200812141224.06403.elen...@planet.nl>

I can't check, but I can tell you that apparently nobody else has
received an ack either:

  http://master.debian.org/~srivasta/gr_lenny/index.html

(At least I haven't either.)

-- 
Adeodato Simó dato at net.com.org.es
Debian Developer  adeodato at debian.org
 
   Listening to: Julio Bustamante - La especie de Tom Sawyer


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Vote results for vote 002?

[Joerg Jaspert]

Hi,

just out of curiosity (somehow I'm affected :) ):
 When do you plan to provide us with the results of the vote that was
 supposed to end 23:59:59 UTC on Sunday, 14th Dec, 2008?

In the past (IIRC) it was always nicely a few minutes after the vote
ended, at least a preliminary result / notification.


Also, according to
http://ikibiki.org//blog/2008/12/15/Secretary_epic_fail/ the vote is
still open and accepting ballots.
Cite:
--88---
This is an acknowledgement for your vote [record msg00356.raw] for
the vote "Project membership procedures"
sent in on Mon, 15 Dec 2008 08:37:16 +0100, with the subject
"Re: Final call for votes: GR: Project membership procedures"
…
Your vote has been recorded as follows
…
I note that this is not your first vote.

The time now is Mon Dec 15 08:08:06 2008

Thanks for your vote.
--88---

Hope you are going to sort out every little ballot that got send to
late?

The website also wants updates, but thats way less priority (it has an
up to 4h? delay anyway)

Thanks!

-- 
bye, Joerg
Some NM:
main contains software that compiles with DFSG.
[hehehe, nice typo]
Of course, eye mean "complies", knot "compiles".  Sum typos cant bee
caught bye spelling checkers.


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Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR

[Petter Reinholdtsen]

[Loïc Minier]
> [ MFU debian-vote@ ]
>
> On Sat, Dec 13, 2008, Debian Project Secretary wrote:
>> [   ] Choice 1: Reaffirm the Social Contract
>
>  I'm fine with reaffirming the social contract.

This choice is actually about delaying Lenny, and not so much about
reaffirming the social contract.  The proposal contain this piece at
the end which is the operative part of the proposal:

  ... we will delay the release of Lenny until such point that the
  work to free the operating system is complete (to the best of our
  knowledge as of 1 November 2008).

>b) why have a "reaffirm the social contract" option when we have
>   "further discussion"?  We all agreed to honor the social contract
>   anyway.

Perhaps the section above explain it?

Happy hacking,
-- 
Petter Reinholdtsen


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Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR

[Pierre Habouzit]

On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 12:37:25PM +, Clint Adams wrote:
> If the kernel team, instead of letting Ben Hutchings's patches languish
> in the BTS, were to upload a fixed linux-2.6, and the release team were
> to hint it into lenny, I would change my vote.

It has to be tested first, then packaged by the Kernel Team. I don't
think any of that has been done in satisfactory ways (I mean, I don't
think the patches have been well tested yet, and I don't think the
kernel team started to integrate them, but I may be wrong). I don't
think the Release Team is preventing any of that work to be done.
-- 
·O·  Pierre Habouzit
··Omadco...@debian.org
OOOhttp://www.madism.org


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Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR

[Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho]

On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 12:59:01PM +0100, Adeodato Simó wrote:
> What does §4.1.7 mean, then? Can't it be read to mean that the DPL may
> appoint a new Secretary not at end of term, if there's disagreement
> between them?

I read it as a reference to the second paragraph of Section 7.2.  Notice the
difference to point 1 in the same section - the Developers by way of GR aren't
explicitly authorized to recall the Secretary, like they are for the DPL.

But your interpretation is certainly possible.  Of course, that just means
it's up to the Secretary to rule which (if either) is correct :)

-- 
Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, Jyväskylä, Finland
http://antti-juhani.kaijanaho.fi/newblog/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/antti-juhani/


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Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR

[Adeodato Simó]

* Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho [Mon, 15 Dec 2008 13:53:29 +0200]:

> The only constitutional way to get rid of the Secretary without his consent is
> for the DPL to fail to reappoint him, which would automatically mean (since 
> I'm
> assuming that the Secretary does not go willingly) that a replacement 
> Secretary
> is selected by the Developers by way of General Resolution.  I'm not sure when
> the current term of the Secretary expires, but I'd guess it'd be some time
> after the next DPL election.

What does §4.1.7 mean, then? Can't it be read to mean that the DPL may
appoint a new Secretary not at end of term, if there's disagreement
between them?

Thanks,

-- 
Adeodato Simó dato at net.com.org.es
Debian Developer  adeodato at debian.org
 
Listening to: Rebekah del Rio - Llorando


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Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR

[Clint Adams]

On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 10:45:29PM +0100, Loïc Minier wrote:
>  In both cases (with and without the choice), we're bound by the social
>  contract and may or may not diverge in practice.  This choice doesn't
>  have any practical impact and doesn't change any rule or project
>  opinion.

I agree with you.  We should do the right thing and abide by our foundation
documents irrespective of the outcome of the vote.

On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 08:44:28PM +0100, Florian Weimer wrote:
> Are we?  I mean, this stuff is already in the archive, in main, and as
> far as I can tell, the release team can release from main at any point
> in time they see fit (practical considerations notwithstanding).

This is one of the only compelling arguments I have seen thus far.
However, it seems to me that it is a far better idea to fix the problems
in testing than to try to fix them in a stable release.

If the kernel team, instead of letting Ben Hutchings's patches languish
in the BTS, were to upload a fixed linux-2.6, and the release team were
to hint it into lenny, I would change my vote.

Since that is not at all what has happened, I find it strange that
the release team thinks it should be trusted on this matter.


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Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR

[Steve McIntyre]

On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 09:50:29AM +0100, Pierre Habouzit wrote:
>On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 10:33:27PM +, Peter Palfrader wrote:
>> On Sun, 14 Dec 2008, Pierre Habouzit wrote:
>> 
>> > > Boycotting is unlikely to prevent all ballot options from reaching the
>> > 
>> > Yeah Boycotting is silly, that's why I've voted for FD first, my
>> > "preferred" choices second, the rest third.
>> 
>> So in effect you prefer the options that do not require supermajority to
>> those that do.  Or at least make it more likely that they will win.
>
>Sadly, it's a necessary side effect yes.
>
>> This ballot sucks.
>
>News @ 11.
>Especially since a few options require supermajority out of thin air.
>
>Is there someone on the plane here to do what's needed with the
>secretary? If the DPL isn't willing to take any action here (and I'm
>really annoyed that despite repeated questions about it he never showed
>up in the discussion[0]), I believe I'm willing to start a GR (*SIGH*)
>about it[1].

I've been talking with Manoj already, in private to try and avoid
flaming. I specifically asked him to delay this vote until the
numerous problems with it were fixed, and it was started anyway. I'm
*really* not happy with that, and I'm following through now.

>[0] There are at least ways to tell "Hey I don't want to troll, but my
>position on the subject is $foo and I'm currently discussing it
>privately with him" or whatever, that at least let us know what is
>going on. Right now we see blatant power abuse, with the DPL being
>completely OK with it. Sooo nice.

Quite a number of people have contacted me privately, both in person
and by mail, to complain about this ballot. There have been some
delays (day job suddenly gettting *incredibly* busy :-(), but rest
assured that I am not happy with how things are going at the moment
and I'm doing something about it. I haven't yet responded to all those
people, and for that I apologise.

-- 
Steve McIntyre, Debian Project Leader 


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Re: Bundled votes and the secretary

[Ean Schuessler]

- "Pierre Habouzit"  wrote:

> The point is, the secretary chooses interpretations that suits his own
> proposals to the vote. Explain to me how the "release lenny" options
> need [3:1] supermajority where the very same vote didn't need it in the
> past ?

>From a rigorous perspective, the release Etch vote should have been 3:1. If we 
>are worth our salt we should not be allowing DFSG violations past "testing" 
>and developers should be aggressive about filing bugs on errant packages. I 
>can understand the necessity of providing certain users non-free drivers to 
>help them get their equipment going. Serious users should be selecting 
>equipment that won't have install problems. Last time I checked, this was a 
>distribution for serious users (that also happens to want to be friendly to 
>people just getting started). I fail to understand how serious Debian 
>Developers arrive at a point where enforcing the DFSG is an exercise for 
>"zealots".

-- 
Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com
e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315


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Re: No acknowledgement received for vote on Lenny release GR

[Neil McGovern]

On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 10:15:28AM +0100, Frans Pop wrote:
> Could someone please check why I've not received any acknowledgement of my 
> vote?
> 
> Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2008 12:23:56 +0100
> Message-Id: <200812141224.06403.elen...@planet.nl>
> 

Looks like the multi-user multi-voterunners multi-votes bug. *sigh*

Hopefully you should have received the ack now. We'll put in place
proceedures to ensure that this doesn't happen again (running all votes
as the secretary useR) for future votes.

Sorry for any problems.

Neil
-- 
 I'll run a script, posting some of my wisdoms from time to time to 
the channel ;)


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The Unofficial (and Very Simple) Lenny GR: call for votes

[Adeodato Simó]

(Bcc: -project)

They say forking in a Free Software project should only be done as a
last resort, but that it is important that such option is always
available. It's very sad we've come to this point with this vote...

If you feel disenchanted about how the Lenny GR has been handled and, in
particular, with the resulting ballot and its 7 options, I invite you to
participate in this unofficial vote and, optionally, to show your
discontent by ranking "Further Discussion" above all other options in
the official vote (see below about this). If you've voted already, you
can recast your vote as usual.

This is an unofficial vote, but at least it will be easy to vote in. If
FD wins in the official one, and depending on the participation on both,
it may also give us a good approximation about what the developers think
with respect to releasing Lenny.


Ballot
==

Please vote by writing numbers between 1 and 2 in the boxes below, etc.,
and send your PGP-signed ballot to 
(M-F-T and Reply-To set).

- - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
f2276370-dfd7-45db-92d5-2da0c179c569
[   ] Choice 1: Delay Lenny until known firmware issues are resolved
[   ] Choice 2: Acknowledge the lenny-ignore tags as set by the release team
- - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Received ballot count and other statistics will show up at:

http://master.debian.org/~adeodato/gr_lenny_unof/

Votes are processed and acknowledgements sent 2 minutes past each our.


Vote key


The temporary key used for this vote is 0x93544AEA (attached). You can
encrypt your vote using this key, and replies will be sent signed with
it (and encrypted to yourself).


Voting period
=

Voting in this unofficial setup will close at the same time as in the
official "gr_lenny" vote. At the moment, that's 2008-12-21 23:59 UTC,
but there are signs that this could be a mistake and the date should be
2008-12-28 instead. If the official date changes, so will the unofficial
one.


Text for Choice 1
=

The Debian Project unofficially decides that we should not release
Lenny until all the bugs reported against linux-2.6 regarding
firmware blobs without source that were reported before 2008-11-01
are resolved and the fix available in Lenny.


Text for Choice 2
=

The Debian Project unofficially states their agreement with the use
of the "lenny-ignore" tag that the release team has applied to bugs
in the linux-2.6 package.


On ranking FD first in the official vote


Participating in this vote should not imply that you are in disagreement
with the official ballot: maybe you are not, but understand that other
people are, and decide to participate in the unofficial vote nevertheless.

Because of this, I recommend that you rank FD as your first choice in
the official vote if you want to say, "This ballot is not right." Here
are some foreseeably frequent asked question about this procedure:

Q: If I rank FD over option #5, won't option #1 be more likely to win?
A: Not if you rank option #5 over option #1, even if both are below FD.
Then, in the run between #5 and #1, your vote will go for #5 as if it
had been above FD.

Q: What if #5 does not reach quorum?
A: If #5 does not reach quorum, it's hopefully because all people who
would have ranked #5 above FD have ranked #5 *and* #1 below FD. In that
case, FD will beat #1 if #5 was meant to beat #1 without the "protest".

Q: If FD wins, what happens? Can Lenny release, or do we have to redo
   the vote?
A: Some people think that FD would mean that the release team is not
overruled in their decision to proceed with releasing Lenny, and hence
they'd be allowed to continue in this intent. For the details, please
read:

http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2008/11/msg00244.html

Q: Doesn't ranking FD first make less likely that the 3:1 options reach
   quorum?
A: Yes, certainly. If you liked these proposals, this is a price you
have to pay for making your discontent heard. However, sometime after
these votes we should hold separate votes for each orthogonal issue, eg.
choice #6 and, if there's enough interest, #4.


The discontent of the day,

-- 
Adeodato Simó
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TmMZn/IEB5fnG+wdJaeHDsnRuEKgHdlj7DbUBuHVu2tmQWy0Zmw2Vlyubu92luf6
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ZmZpY2lhbCBHUiB2b3RlIGtleSA8YWRlb2R

Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR

[Thomas Weber]

Am Montag, den 15.12.2008, 10:06 + schrieb Steve McIntyre:
> I've been talking with Manoj already, in private to try and avoid
> flaming. I specifically asked him to delay this vote until the
> numerous problems with it were fixed, and it was started anyway. I'm
> *really* not happy with that, and I'm following through now.

Uh, I don't quite get this: you shortened the discussion period, but at
the same time asked the secretary to delay the vote? Why didn't you use
your position to at least delay it as far as within your power?

Thomas


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Results for Project membership procedures

[devotee]

Greetings,

This message is an automated, unofficial publication of vote results.
 Official results shall follow, sent in by the vote taker, namely
Debian Project Secretary

This email is just a convenience for the impatient.
 I remain, gentle folks,

Your humble servant,
Devotee (on behalf of Debian Project Secretary)

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Starting results calculation at Mon Dec 15 13:17:34 2008

Option 1 "Ask the DAMs to postpone the changes until vote or consensus."
Option 2 "Invite the DAM to further discuss until vote or consensus, leading to 
a new proposal."
Option 3 "Ask the DAMs to implement the changes."
Option 4 "Further Discussion"

In the following table, tally[row x][col y] represents the votes that
option x received over option y.

  Option
  1 2 3 4 
===   ===   ===   === 
Option 1  112   195   211 
Option 2125 194   209 
Option 3 7165  88 
Option 4 4749   173   



Looking at row 2, column 1, Invite the DAM to further discuss until vote or 
consensus, leading to a new proposal.
received 125 votes over Ask the DAMs to postpone the changes until vote or 
consensus.

Looking at row 1, column 2, Ask the DAMs to postpone the changes until vote or 
consensus.
received 112 votes over Invite the DAM to further discuss until vote or 
consensus, leading to a new proposal..

Option 1 Reached quorum: 211 > 47.8591684006314
Option 2 Reached quorum: 209 > 47.8591684006314
Option 3 Reached quorum: 88 > 47.8591684006314


Option 1 passes Majority.   4.489 (211/47) >= 1
Option 2 passes Majority.   4.265 (209/49) >= 1
Dropping Option 3 because of Majority. 
(0.5086705202312138728323699421965317919075)  0.509 (88/173) < 1


  Option 2 defeats Option 1 by ( 125 -  112) =   13 votes.
  Option 1 defeats Option 4 by ( 211 -   47) =  164 votes.
  Option 2 defeats Option 4 by ( 209 -   49) =  160 votes.


The Schwartz Set contains:
 Option 2 "Invite the DAM to further discuss until vote or consensus, 
leading to a new proposal."



-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The winners are:
 Option 2 "Invite the DAM to further discuss until vote or consensus, 
leading to a new proposal."

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

-- 
The voters have spoken, the bastards... --unknown
DEbian VOTe EnginE
digraph Results {
  ranksep=0.25;
 "Ask the DAMs to postpone the changes until vote or consensus.\n4.49" [ 
style="filled" , fontname="Helvetica", fontsize=10  ];
 "Ask the DAMs to postpone the changes until vote or consensus.\n4.49" -> 
"Further Discussion" [ label="164" ];
 "Invite the DAM to further discuss until vote or consensus, leading to a new 
proposal.\n4.27" [ style="filled" , color="powderblue", shape=egg, 
fontcolor="NavyBlue", fontname="Helvetica", fontsize=10  ];
 "Invite the DAM to further discuss until vote or consensus, leading to a new 
proposal.\n4.27" -> "Ask the DAMs to postpone the changes until vote or 
consensus.\n4.49" [ label="13" ];
 "Invite the DAM to further discuss until vote or consensus, leading to a new 
proposal.\n4.27" -> "Further Discussion" [ label="160" ];
 "Ask the DAMs to implement the changes.\n0.51" [ style="filled" , 
color="pink", shape=octagon, fontname="Helvetica", fontsize=10  ];
 "Further Discussion" -> "Ask the DAMs to implement the changes.\n0.51" [ 
label="85" ];
 "Further Discussion" [ style="filled" , shape=diamond, fontcolor="Red", 
fontname="Helvetica", fontsize=10  ];
}


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Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR

[Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho]

On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 01:59:27PM +0200, Kalle Kivimaa wrote:
> Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho  writes:
> > Doesn't it occur to you that there might be a reason why the Secretary 
> > cannot
> > be removed by GR or by the Leader's whim?
> 
> Actually, the Secretary *can* be removed by a GR. The GR must of
> course amend the Constitution at the same time to allow this, so it
> needs to be done with a 3:1 majority.

Point :)

-- 
Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, Jyväskylä, Finland
http://antti-juhani.kaijanaho.fi/newblog/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/antti-juhani/


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Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR

[Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho]

On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 09:50:29AM +0100, Pierre Habouzit wrote:
> Is there someone on the plane here to do what's needed with the
> secretary? If the DPL isn't willing to take any action here (and I'm
> really annoyed that despite repeated questions about it he never showed
> up in the discussion[0]), I believe I'm willing to start a GR (*SIGH*)
> about it[1].

The only constitutional way to get rid of the Secretary without his consent is
for the DPL to fail to reappoint him, which would automatically mean (since I'm
assuming that the Secretary does not go willingly) that a replacement Secretary
is selected by the Developers by way of General Resolution.  I'm not sure when
the current term of the Secretary expires, but I'd guess it'd be some time
after the next DPL election.

> going on. Right now we see blatant power abuse, with the DPL being
> completely OK with it. Sooo nice.

We don't, in fact, see blatant power abuse.

> [1] I know that the constitution doesn't state that we can rescind our
> Secretary through a GR, but I would be _really_ surprised that if
> such a GR passes, the Secretary wouldn't resign.

Doesn't it occur to you that there might be a reason why the Secretary cannot
be removed by GR or by the Leader's whim?  Given that, I would be most
disappointed if (a) the Secretary would consent to running an unconstitutional
GR vote and (b) be weak enough to submit to pressure to resign because of his
actions (assuming he himself believes he's acted within his powers).

Similarly, I am somewhat alarmed that some people consider it legitimate to
pressure the Secretary to resign, or to consider extra-Constitutional means of
removing him from office.

The correct way to deal with this is to wait until the current bundle of votes
is over, and then propose Constitutional amendments that create mechanisms for
Secretarial oversight that you'd consider appropriate.

(I personally have a proposal cooking.  As you have no doubt noticed, I have
strongly supported the current Secretary, and I continue to have faith in him -
but the current furor has exposed certain Constitutional flaws I would like to
have corrected.  The time for fixing them is not now, however.)

-- 
Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, Jyväskylä, Finland
http://antti-juhani.kaijanaho.fi/newblog/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/antti-juhani/


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Re: Bundled votes and the secretary

[Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho]

On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 01:54:30PM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote:
> > As long as there is no clear and unambiguous violation of the constitution 
> > in
> > the Secretary's actions,
> 
> As a matter of fact, there's that too.  This ballot has been assembled in
> contravention of the Standard Resolution Procedure, which requires that new
> ballot options be proposed as formal *amendments* to an outstanding GR
> proposal in order to appear on the same ballot.

That's certainly a valid interpretation of the constitution (and one could make
an excellent case for it).  However, it is not the only possible (and
reasonable) one, hence it's not an unambiguous violation - it is within the
Secretary's power to reject that interpretation in favor of an alternative.

One alternative (and not, in my opinion, frivolous) interpretation  can be
derived from the fact that the Constitution requires that amendments "may be
made formal by being proposed and sponsored according to the requirements for a
new resolution", which arguably could mean that an amendment need not be called
an amendment by its proposer.

> > and absent a valid GR stating otherwise, the vote must be presumed to be
> > constitutionally valid.
> 
> Ah, and how are we meant to get a valid GR when the secretary is actively
> tampering with the GR process?

Are you speaking hypothetically, or have you actually tried to get a "that was
not a valid GR" GR past the Secretary?  If the latter, I must apologise, for I
have missed it.

(Incidentally, I think it is clear that we are operating under different
definitions of "valid GR".  Mine is rather formal - as long as the Secretary
does not blatantly[*] disregard the Constitution, any vote the Secretary
conducts is valid.)

> Recognizing the validity of the vote is not a "must".  The alternative is
> that we end up in a state of constitutional crisis.

Well, true.  I was hoping nobody else had noticed, and I didn't want to give
anybody ideas :)

I would be strongly disappointed if we did arrive at a constitutional crisis.
Among other things, and depending on the events that lead up to it, it would be
one more reason for me to reconsider my membership in this project.



[*] "Blatant" would require, in my eyes, that there is no reasonable
interpretation of the Secretary's actions that would render them
constitutional.  So far, I haven't noticed anything like that.
-- 
Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, Jyväskylä, Finland
http://antti-juhani.kaijanaho.fi/newblog/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/antti-juhani/


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Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR

[Adeodato Simó]

* Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho [Mon, 15 Dec 2008 14:10:34 +0200]:

> But your interpretation is certainly possible.  Of course, that just means
> it's up to the Secretary to rule which (if either) is correct :)

Brilliant.

-- 
Adeodato Simó dato at net.com.org.es
Debian Developer  adeodato at debian.org
 
Excuse me for thinking a banana-eating contest was about eating a banana!
-- Paris Geller


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Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR

[Kalle Kivimaa]

Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho  writes:
> Doesn't it occur to you that there might be a reason why the Secretary cannot
> be removed by GR or by the Leader's whim?

Actually, the Secretary *can* be removed by a GR. The GR must of
course amend the Constitution at the same time to allow this, so it
needs to be done with a 3:1 majority.

-- 
* Sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology (T.P)  *
*   PGP public key available @ http://www.iki.fi/killer   *


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Re: The Unofficial (and Very Simple) Lenny GR: call for votes

[Frans Pop]

> If you feel disenchanted about how the Lenny GR has been handled and,
> in particular, with the resulting ballot and its 7 options, I invite
> you to participate in this unofficial vote and, optionally, to show
> your discontent by ranking "Further Discussion" above all other options
> in the official vote (see below about this). If you've voted already,
> you can recast your vote as usual.
>
> This is an unofficial vote, but at least it will be easy to vote in. If
> FD wins in the official one, and depending on the participation on
> both, it may also give us a good approximation about what the
> developers think with respect to releasing Lenny.

How does this help? The only effect of voting FD on the official vote is
to play into the hands of those who don't want any firmware support in
Debian.

I agree that the official vote is a mess, but not voting according to your
real preferences in an official vote will only hurt you in the long run.

> [   ] Choice 1: Delay Lenny until known firmware issues are resolved
> [   ] Choice 2: Acknowledge the lenny-ignore tags as set by the release team

I don't like either of these choices. So what do I do now?

Main reason is that I don't think the RT has the right to decide whether or
not to release with firmware that is, according to current interpretations
of the DFSG, non-free. This is a decision that should be made by the project
as a whole because that is only thing that is consistent with the way the
question has been handled for Sarge and Etch, especially given the fact that
the resolutions passed then explicitly limit the exception to a single
release.
I very much don't want option 2, but option 1 would mean sanctioning the RT,
which I very much also don't want to do. The official vote at least _does_
allow me to express my opinion.

IMO we _do_ need the current vote, only it should not have been contaminated
with the options re. the release team powers and re. source requirement for
firmware. Those issues should IMO have been handled as separate GRs _after_
the question what to do for Lenny had been settled.
Because of this I do reserve the right to complain about any interpretation
of the outcome of the official vote.

Thanks for increasing the mess we already have. I will personally ignore this
additional "vote" which suffers from the same problem as the "official" one,
namely that it is unacceptably colored by the person who is managing it.

Cheers,
FJP

P.S. My vote was: 4225213


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Re: Results for Project membership procedures

[Cyril Brulebois]

devo...@vote.debian.org  (15/12/2008):
> digraph Results {
>   ranksep=0.25;
>  "Ask the DAMs to postpone the changes until vote or consensus.\n4.49" [ 
> style="filled" , fontname="Helvetica", fontsize=10  ];
>  "Ask the DAMs to postpone the changes until vote or consensus.\n4.49" -> 
> "Further Discussion" [ label="164" ];
>  "Invite the DAM to further discuss until vote or consensus, leading to a new 
> proposal.\n4.27" [ style="filled" , color="powderblue", shape=egg, 
> fontcolor="NavyBlue", fontname="Helvetica", fontsize=10  ];
>  "Invite the DAM to further discuss until vote or consensus, leading to a new 
> proposal.\n4.27" -> "Ask the DAMs to postpone the changes until vote or 
> consensus.\n4.49" [ label="13" ];
>  "Invite the DAM to further discuss until vote or consensus, leading to a new 
> proposal.\n4.27" -> "Further Discussion" [ label="160" ];
>  "Ask the DAMs to implement the changes.\n0.51" [ style="filled" , 
> color="pink", shape=octagon, fontname="Helvetica", fontsize=10  ];
>  "Further Discussion" -> "Ask the DAMs to implement the changes.\n0.51" [ 
> label="85" ];
>  "Further Discussion" [ style="filled" , shape=diamond, fontcolor="Red", 
> fontname="Helvetica", fontsize=10  ];
> }

For those of you who aren't used to graphviz, you can render the graph
using: dot -Tpng results.dot -o results.png

Works with s/png/svg/g as well.

Mraw,
KiBi.


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Re: The Unofficial (and Very Simple) Lenny GR: call for votes

[Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho]

On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 05:37:33PM +0100, Adeodato Simó wrote:
> - - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> f2276370-dfd7-45db-92d5-2da0c179c569
> [   ] Choice 1: Delay Lenny until known firmware issues are resolved
> [   ] Choice 2: Acknowledge the lenny-ignore tags as set by the release team
> - - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Why is there no Further Discussion option?

-- 
Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, Jyväskylä, Finland
http://antti-juhani.kaijanaho.fi/newblog/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/antti-juhani/


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Re: The Unofficial (and Very Simple) Lenny GR: call for votes

[Didier Raboud]

Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho wrote:

> On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 05:37:33PM +0100, Adeodato Simó wrote:
>> - - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines
>> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- f2276370-dfd7-45db-92d5-2da0c179c569
>> [   ] Choice 1: Delay Lenny until known firmware issues are resolved
>> [   ] Choice 2: Acknowledge the lenny-ignore tags as set by the release
>> [   team
>> - - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines
>> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> 
> Why is there no Further Discussion option?

The name is incorrectly chosen: it's not a Vote, it's a Poll…

"If you had to choose between both, which one would you have chosen."

Regards, 

OdyX
-- 
Swisslinux.org − Le carrefour GNU/Linux en Suisse −
http://www.swisslinux.org


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Re: The Unofficial (and Very Simple) Lenny GR: call for votes

[Adeodato Simó]

* Frans Pop [Mon, 15 Dec 2008 18:23:00 +0100]:

> How does this help? The only effect of voting FD on the official vote is
> to play into the hands of those who don't want any firmware support in
> Debian.

That is not true, as it is (hopefully clearly enough) explained in the
mail you replied to, section "On ranking FD first in the official vote".

> I don't like either of these choices. So what do I do now?

You don't vote, or you vote 11, or you raise your concerns, or you go
for a walk. Is up to you, really, because I did the best I could, but
it's impossible to please everybody.

> Main reason is that I don't think the RT has the right to decide whether or
> not to release with firmware that is, according to current interpretations
> of the DFSG, non-free. This is a decision that should be made by the project
> as a whole because that is only thing that is consistent with the way the
> question has been handled for Sarge and Etch, especially given the fact that
> the resolutions passed then explicitly limit the exception to a single
> release.

This is a perfectly valid opinion, which I understand and respect. You
can read this message of mine from 2008-10-30:

  http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2008/10/msg00288.html

I acknowledged (thought admittedly very tersely) that such position is
valid, and should get discussion, and later a GR.

If it is important to you that the release team doesn't use -ignore
tags on bugs regarding DFSG compliance, then go for it: propose a GR,
and let's vote on it (I repeated this idea in the "Unofficial GR" mail,
too).

My opinion is that the release team should have the right to that use of
-ignore tags, and then get overriden by a GR on a case-by-case
basis, when people feel the tags have  ben misused. But if developers
show they don't want for it to work that way, then it is for us to
accept that and move on, period.

> I very much don't want option 2, but option 1 would mean sanctioning the RT,
> which I very much also don't want to do. The official vote at least _does_
> allow me to express my opinion.

Hm. Can you ellaborate on what you mean by "sanctioning the RT". If you
mean to imply that option #1 in the unofficial vote inadvertently says
"RT should have the right for -ignore tags always, no matter what",
that wasn't the intention and I don't think it says that.

If you don't mean that, then I'm unsure what you mean and would like you
to ellaborate. If you dislike the wording of the proposal, and would
have liked something that didn't mention the RT at all, well... see
above, I'm not perfect and you can't please anybody. (I circulated the
draft in some of the channels I'm in, and nobody raised that concern.)

> IMO we _do_ need the current vote, only it should not have been contaminated
> with the options re. the release team powers and re. source requirement for
> firmware. Those issues should IMO have been handled as separate GRs _after_
> the question what to do for Lenny had been settled.

Fully agreed. (Though up to the first comma, I agree because there was
an effort by a number of developers who wanted this vote to happen, not
becaue it was needed "no matter what", see above. But that way of
thinking can of course change via a "release team powers" GR, to use
your own words.)

> Thanks for increasing the mess we already have. I will personally ignore this
> additional "vote" which suffers from the same problem as the "official" one,
> namely that it is unacceptably colored by the person who is managing it.

Peace to you too.

-- 
Adeodato Simó dato at net.com.org.es
Debian Developer  adeodato at debian.org
 
Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore,
if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not
smart enough to debug it.
-- Brian W. Kernighan


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Re: The Unofficial (and Very Simple) Lenny GR: call for votes

[Adeodato Simó]

* Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho [Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:32:40 +0200]:

> On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 05:37:33PM +0100, Adeodato Simó wrote:
> > - - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> > f2276370-dfd7-45db-92d5-2da0c179c569
> > [   ] Choice 1: Delay Lenny until known firmware issues are resolved
> > [   ] Choice 2: Acknowledge the lenny-ignore tags as set by the release team
> > - - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

> Why is there no Further Discussion option?

Because I liked it better without, and nobody who read the draft drawed
my attention on the lack of it, or the importance of it.

I'll note that I circulated the draft on a debian channel you're in, and
that you were active on it between my posting of the draft, and my
sending it. (Not that I'm blaming you, but it's difficult for a single
person to get everything right alone, and that's what you circulate a
draft for. The assistant secretary also got to read it...)

-- 
Adeodato Simó dato at net.com.org.es
Debian Developer  adeodato at debian.org
 
He who has not a good memory should never take upon himself the trade of lying.
-- Michel de Montaigne


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Re: The Unofficial (and Very Simple) Lenny GR: call for votes

[Mike Hommey]

On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 07:32:40PM +0200, Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 05:37:33PM +0100, Adeodato Simó wrote:
> > - - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> > f2276370-dfd7-45db-92d5-2da0c179c569
> > [   ] Choice 1: Delay Lenny until known firmware issues are resolved
> > [   ] Choice 2: Acknowledge the lenny-ignore tags as set by the release team
> > - - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> 
> Why is there no Further Discussion option?

Because you mustn't discuss this vote. Which we are both wrong doing, by
the way.

Mike


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Re: Bundled votes and the secretary

[Pierre Habouzit]

On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 03:49:14PM +, Ean Schuessler wrote:
> - "Pierre Habouzit"  wrote:
> 
> > The point is, the secretary chooses interpretations that suits his own
> > proposals to the vote. Explain to me how the "release lenny" options
> > need [3:1] supermajority where the very same vote didn't need it in the
> > past ?
> 
> From a rigorous perspective, the release Etch vote should have been
> 3:1. If we are worth our salt we should not be allowing DFSG
> violations past "testing" and developers should be aggressive about
> filing bugs on errant packages. I can understand the necessity of
> providing certain users non-free drivers to help them get their
> equipment going. Serious users should be selecting equipment that
> won't have install problems. Last time I checked, this was a
> distribution for serious users (that also happens to want to be
> friendly to people just getting started). I fail to understand how
> serious Debian Developers arrive at a point where enforcing the DFSG
> is an exercise for "zealots".

I disagree. What would be 3:1 (to date) is to decide that such bugs
aren't RC. The funding documents don't enforce the release team to
release without a single known DFSG-related issue, unless I'm deeply
mistaken. A $suite-ignore tag is _NOT_ the same as downgrading the
severity of a bug. It's acknowledging it's a serious issue, but that we
shall not wait for it to be solved to release.

I don't say that DFSG freeness is a secondary issue. What I'm saying is
that when:
  * we see DFSG freeness issue that need quite a long time to resolve
properly and would else delay the release too much,
  * there is no sign of foul play from the maintainer (IOW those bugs
have not been sneaked into testing, but have just been detected
after the migration to testing),
Then I fail to see why deciding to release with such bugs needs a 3:1
vote. It's merely pragmatism.

What would be quite arguable, would be the Kernel Team and Release Team
deciding they just don't care about DFSG issues at all. It's not the
case, the firmware front is better at each release. It's just that new
firmwares pop up every kernel release, and there have been new firmwares
that have not been spotted. That's all. The former would be foul play,
and is condemnable. The latter is just a bug, from a specific kind, but
in the end just a bug.

You're welcome to start a GR that we shall not release with a single
known DFSG violation and write it in the constitution (which is kind of
what the 1 vote is supposed to mean in the current vote). But the
project has voted 3 times on similar issues, and it doesn't seem this
opinion is shared by more than a few.
-- 
·O·  Pierre Habouzit
··Omadco...@debian.org
OOOhttp://www.madism.org


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Re: The Unofficial (and Very Simple) Lenny GR: call for votes

[Frans Pop]

(Adding -project and including full quote of dato's reply (excluding 
signature) as that was not sent to that list.)

> * Frans Pop [Mon, 15 Dec 2008 18:23:00 +0100]:
> > How does this help? The only effect of voting FD on the official vote
> > is to play into the hands of those who don't want any firmware
> > support in Debian.
>
> That is not true, as it is (hopefully clearly enough) explained in the
> mail you replied to, section "On ranking FD first in the official
> vote".

Because any votes below FD do not count toward quorum/majority. Of course 
you can do all kinds of unofficial analysis on the outcome of the vote 
to "correct" for that, but that does not actually change the official 
outcome of the vote.

> > I don't like either of these choices. So what do I do now?
>
> You don't vote, or you vote 11, or you raise your concerns, or you go
> for a walk. 

Voting 11 does not reflect my position, I am raising my concerns and I 
feel this is too important to just take a walk.

> Is up to you, really, because I did the best I could, but it's
> impossible to please everybody. 

The reason why we have the option to propose amendments for official votes 
is exactly to make sure that "everybody gets pleased", or at least that 
all opinions that have sufficient support within the project are 
reflected on the balot. That is why your poll is an even greater farce 
then the official vote.

> > Main reason is that I don't think the RT has the right to decide
> > whether or not to release with firmware that is, according to current
> > interpretations of the DFSG, non-free. This is a decision that should
> > be made by the project as a whole because that is only thing that is
> > consistent with the way the question has been handled for Sarge and
> > Etch, especially given the fact that the resolutions passed then
> > explicitly limit the exception to a single release.
>
> This is a perfectly valid opinion, which I understand and respect. You
> can read this message of mine from 2008-10-30:
>
>   http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2008/10/msg00288.html
>
> I acknowledged (thought admittedly very tersely) that such position is
> valid, and should get discussion, and later a GR.
>
> If it is important to you that the release team doesn't use
> -ignore tags on bugs regarding DFSG compliance, then go for it:
> propose a GR, and let's vote on it (I repeated this idea in the
> "Unofficial GR" mail, too).

No sorry, that is unacceptable. Your poll makes the same mistake the 
official vote does: it mixes separate issues into a single vote. And it 
is worse because it does not even allow to express preferences among 
those issues.

The poll would have been a lot more acceptable if the second option had 
been worded simply to "accept the same exception regarding DFSG 
violations for firmware that was made for Sarge and Etch". By adding in 
the issue of "use of tags by the RT" you _are_ effectively adding in a 
sanction of how the RT has handled this whole issue.

However, I also feel that the raw fact that a poll is called on the same 
subject as an official vote and at the same time, and especially when it 
is done by a member of a team that has a major stake in the outcome of 
the vote/poll shows a regrettable lack of respect for proper democratic 
procedure, so because of that I would still object. And I have just 
decided that I will send a formal objection to the DPL about this poll.

> My opinion is that the release team should have the right to that use
> of -ignore tags, and then get overriden by a GR on a
> case-by-case basis, when people feel the tags have  ben misused. But if
> developers show they don't want for it to work that way, then it is for
> us to accept that and move on, period.

That is a valid opinion, but IMO it is also completely unworkable. Would 
you really want (the possibility of) a GR for every single case where 
someone feels a tag is not used correctly?

> > I very much don't want option 2, but option 1 would mean sanctioning
> > the RT, which I very much also don't want to do. The official vote at
> > least _does_ allow me to express my opinion.
>
> Hm. Can you ellaborate on what you mean by "sanctioning the RT". If you
> mean to imply that option #1 in the unofficial vote inadvertently says
> "RT should have the right for -ignore tags always, no matter
> what", that wasn't the intention and I don't think it says that.

See above. I really don't see how else the text for option 2 can be 
interpreted. It may not be the main purpose of the text, but IMO it is 
definitely implied.

> If you don't mean that, then I'm unsure what you mean and would like
> you to ellaborate. If you dislike the wording of the proposal, and
> would have liked something that didn't mention the RT at all, well...
> see above, I'm not perfect and you can't please anybody. (I circulated
> the draft in some of the channels I'm in, and nobody raised that
> concern.)

Irrelevant and insufficient.

> > IMO we _do_ need

Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR

[Russ Allbery]

Thomas Weber  writes:
> Am Montag, den 15.12.2008, 10:06 + schrieb Steve McIntyre:

>> I've been talking with Manoj already, in private to try and avoid
>> flaming. I specifically asked him to delay this vote until the numerous
>> problems with it were fixed, and it was started anyway. I'm *really*
>> not happy with that, and I'm following through now.
>
> Uh, I don't quite get this: you shortened the discussion period, but at
> the same time asked the secretary to delay the vote?

Where did Steve shorten the discussion period?  He did so for the *other*
vote, but I haven't seen a thread where he did for this one.  (I may have
just missed it.)

-- 
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Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR

[Russ Allbery]

Adeodato Simó  writes:

> What does §4.1.7 mean, then? Can't it be read to mean that the DPL may
> appoint a new Secretary not at end of term, if there's disagreement
> between them?

I believe this only applies in the context of 7.2 (replacing the
secretary).  This was discussed some on debian-vote earlier.

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Re: Bundled votes and the secretary

[Ean Schuessler]

- "Pierre Habouzit"  wrote:

> I disagree. What would be 3:1 (to date) is to decide that such bugs
> aren't RC. The funding documents don't enforce the release team to
> release without a single known DFSG-related issue, unless I'm deeply
> mistaken. A $suite-ignore tag is _NOT_ the same as downgrading the
> severity of a bug. It's acknowledging it's a serious issue, but that we
> shall not wait for it to be solved to release.
> 
> I don't say that DFSG freeness is a secondary issue. What I'm saying is
> that when:
>   * we see DFSG freeness issue that need quite a long time to resolve
> properly and would else delay the release too much,
>   * there is no sign of foul play from the maintainer (IOW those bugs
> have not been sneaked into testing, but have just been detected
> after the migration to testing),
> Then I fail to see why deciding to release with such bugs needs a 3:1
> vote. It's merely pragmatism.

Well. I do agree with you here. Doing a "release" is essentially just 
bookmarking the state of the archive at a point in time where we consider it to 
be stable. From a DFSG violation perspective the real culprit is the uploading 
of the problem software, not the bookmarking of the release that includes it. 
Obviously, we could be distributing non-free from testing main for a year if we 
are waiting for a release as the event to clean it out. From this perspective, 
I agree with you. The release team declaring that a release state has been 
reached does seem orthogonal to the DFSG violation problem, especially as long 
as the release team is working with the rest of the project to clear problem 
softwares.

I still disagree strongly with declaring firmware to be source but I agree on 
the notion that marking a release ready state is a separate matter.

-- 
Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com
e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315


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Re: Bundled votes and the secretary

[Kurt Roeckx]

On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 09:58:09AM +0100, Pierre Habouzit wrote:
> from http://www.debian.org/vote/2006/vote_007#majorityreq
>4.  We give priority to the timely release of Etch over sorting every
>bit out; for this reason, we will treat removal of sourceless
>firmware as a best-effort process, and deliver firmware in udebs
>as long as it is necessary for installation (like all udebs), and
>firmware included in the kernel itself as part of Debian Etch, as
>long as we are legally allowed to do so, and the firmware is
>distributed upstream under a license that complies with the DFSG.
> 
> 
> and from the current vote:
>4.  We give priority to the timely release of Lenny over sorting
>every bit out; for this reason, we will treat removal of
>sourceless firmware as a best-effort process, and deliver
>firmware as part of Debian Lenny as long as we are legally
>allowed to do so.
> 
> Now explain to me how a genuine interpretation of the Constitution let
> the former need simple majority and the latter super majority.

The biggest difference is the "under a license that complies with
the DFSG" part.  There is also the udeb part that's different.

Note that we also have the an option (choice 5) with the "under a
license that complies with the DFSG" part and that doesn't have the
3:1 majority requirement.


Kurt


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Re: The Unofficial (and Very Simple) Lenny GR: call for votes

[Adeodato Simó]

* Frans Pop [Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:09:28 +0100]:

> > * Frans Pop [Mon, 15 Dec 2008 18:23:00 +0100]:
> > > How does this help? The only effect of voting FD on the official vote
> > > is to play into the hands of those who don't want any firmware
> > > support in Debian.

> > That is not true, as it is (hopefully clearly enough) explained in the
> > mail you replied to, section "On ranking FD first in the official
> > vote".

> Because any votes below FD do not count toward quorum/majority. Of course 
> you can do all kinds of unofficial analysis on the outcome of the vote 
> to "correct" for that, but that does not actually change the official 
> outcome of the vote.

You said, "The only effect of voting FD on the official vote is to play
into the hands of those who don't want any firmware support in Debian."
From that, I take that you mean, "if people rank FD first, option #1
will win". 

Then, or you haven't read the section that I mentioned, or you are
ignoring it, or the wording of that section is not clear enough.

Sadly, I don't have the energy to rephrase the whole section to make it
clearer. If you can explain why voting FD/5/1 instead of 5/FD/1 is going
to make option #1 win, clearly stating which parts of my explanations in
the mentioned section you believe to be false, then we may get somewhere.

> > > I don't like either of these choices. So what do I do now?

> > You don't vote, or you vote 11, or you raise your concerns, or you go
> > for a walk. 

> Voting 11 does not reflect my position, I am raising my concerns and I 
> feel this is too important to just take a walk.

Fair enough.

> > Is up to you, really, because I did the best I could, but it's
> > impossible to please everybody. 

> The reason why we have the option to propose amendments for official votes 
> is exactly to make sure that "everybody gets pleased", or at least that 
> all opinions that have sufficient support within the project are 
> reflected on the balot. That is why your poll is an even greater farce 
> then the official vote.

You can see where the ability to propose amendments, in combination with
the current Secretary, has lead us to. But then, I didn't think there
was time for a whole propose & discuss period, since I prioritized
getting as much voting time as possible for this unofficial vote.

You may think this has converted the unofficial vote in a farce. I won't
be able to convince you of the contrary, so let's agree to disagree.

 * * *

(I'm now going to swap the order of two of your paragraphs, because I
think it is better. Hope it doesn't cause any inconvenience.)

> > > I very much don't want option 2, but option 1 would mean sanctioning
> > > the RT, which I very much also don't want to do. The official vote at
> > > least _does_ allow me to express my opinion.

> > Hm. Can you ellaborate on what you mean by "sanctioning the RT". If you
> > mean to imply that option #1 in the unofficial vote inadvertently says
   ^
   that's a 2, of course
> > "RT should have the right for -ignore tags always, no matter
> > what", that wasn't the intention and I don't think it says that.

> See above. I really don't see how else the text for option 2 can be 
> interpreted. It may not be the main purpose of the text, but IMO it is 
> definitely implied.

I strongly disagree that it is even remotely implied. The wording of the
option talks about the lenny-ignore tags that the release team **has**
aplied, not from what it may do in the future.

However, you make a different and quite valid point with:

> > If it is important to you that the release team doesn't use
> > -ignore tags on bugs regarding DFSG compliance, then go for it:
> > propose a GR, and let's vote on it (I repeated this idea in the
> > "Unofficial GR" mail, too).

> No sorry, that is unacceptable. Your poll makes the same mistake the 
> official vote does: it mixes separate issues into a single vote. And it 
> is worse because it does not even allow to express preferences among 
> those issues.

> The poll would have been a lot more acceptable if the second option had 
> been worded simply to "accept the same exception regarding DFSG 
> violations for firmware that was made for Sarge and Etch". By adding in 
> the issue of "use of tags by the RT" you _are_ effectively adding in a 
> sanction of how the RT has handled this whole issue.

I read these two paragraphs carefully, sat on them for a while, and I
got what you mean: the poll does not give an option for people who were
discontent, *not with the direction in which the tags were applied
(leave firmware in Lenny), but with the tags being applied for these
issues without consultation*.

And you'll have to excuse this mistake, because since in my head the
person who most complained about the use of the tags without
consultation was Robert Millan, who *also* disagreed (apparently?) in
the direction the tags were applied,

Re: The Unofficial (and Very Simple) Lenny GR: call for votes

[Adeodato Simó]

* Adeodato Simó [Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:35:44 +0100]:

> I believe developers, and particularly those holding key positions,
> should not ignore other developers even if their concerns don't come
  ^^
  Er, "should make an effort not to"; I think the difference is important.
> in with a wrapping of sugar.

-- 
Adeodato Simó dato at net.com.org.es
Debian Developer  adeodato at debian.org
 
Love in your heart wasn't put there to stay.
Love isn't love 'til you give it away.
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Re: Results for Project membership procedures

[Anthony Towns]

On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 01:22:06PM +, devo...@vote.debian.org wrote:
> The winners are:
>   Option 2 "Invite the DAM to further discuss until vote or consensus,
> leading to a new proposal."

which, aiui was the original resolution, namely:

The Debian Project recognizes that many contributors to the project
are not working withing established frameworks of Debian and thus are
not provided by the project with as much help as might be possible,
useful or required, nor opportunities to join the project.

We thank Joerg Jaspert for exploring ideas on how to involve
contributors more closely with and within the project so that they
can get both recognition and the necessary tools to do their work.

We realize that the proposal posted to the debian-devel-announce
mailinglist is not yet finalized and may not have the support
of a large part of our community. We invite the DAM and all thee
contributors to further develop their ideas in close coordination
with other members of the project, and to present a new and improved
proposal on the project's mailinglists in the future.

Significant changes should only be implemented after consensus
within the project at large has been reached, or when decided by a
general resolution.

That the original resolution got to be choice 2 seems completely bizarre
to me, but whatever.

Looking through the actual votes, it seems somewhat reasonable to collect
them into about seven groups:

  a) "consensus before implementation" - 191 votes

(everyone who voted either or both option 1 or 2 above option
 3 and FD, and didn't either option 1 or 2 below option 3)

  b) "implementation now seems good, but consensus is fine too" - 40 votes

(everyone who voted option 3 highest, and either or both of options
 1 or 2 above further discussion)

  c) "implement it now and stop talking about it" - 21 votes

(everyone who voted option 3 highest, and both options 1 and 2 equal
 or below further discussion)

  d) "this vote/these options suck" - 13 votes

(everyone who voted further discussion first)

  e) "consensus w/thanks, or implementation, but don't just delay" - 8 votes

(everyone who put option 2, option 3, option 1)

  f) "consensus, or implement, but no thanks" - 2 votes

(everyone who put option 1, then 3, then 2)

  g) "i abstain" - 2 votes

(Robert Millan and Mark Hymers)

The most common voting patterns were:

   2143 - 53 votes (a)
   1243 - 53 votes (a)
   1342 - 17 votes (a)
   3214 - 17 votes (b)
   1132 - 12 votes (a)
   2134 - 11 votes (a)
   2314 - 10 votes (b)
   2212 -  9 votes (c)

(note "2212" above, includes equivalent votes like "--1-" and "4414",
etc; the (a),(b),(c) reflects which group I categorised them into above)

Of the various people involved in the topic, many voted in ways you
(or at least I) mightn't expect.

Seconds of the original (and winning) resolution:

  Remi Vanicat - didn't vote
  Luca Filipozzi - didn't vote

  Robert Millan - abstained

  Frans Pop - voted the amendment over the original resolution
  Jurij Smakov - voted the amendment over the original resolution
  Pierre Habouzit - voted the amendment over the original resolution
  Raphael Hertzog - voted the amendment over the original resolution

  Amaya Rodrigo Sastre - voted the amendment, then further discussion
  Nico Golde - voted the amendment, then further discussion

  Colin Tuckley - voted for implementation

Interestingly Philipp Kern apparently seconded the original proposal
twice, at #10 and #18... Anyway, counting him just once, that leaves 11 of
the 21 people who proposed/seconded the original resolution voting it #1.

The proposer/seconds of the two amendments ("postpone until
vote/consensus" and "implement") were exactly the same, which presumably
doesn't give much indication on what their intentions were. In the end:

  Lucas Nussbaum - voted to postpone
  Raphael Hertzog - voted to postpone
  Stefano Zacchiroli - voted to postpone

  Damyan Ivanov - voted for implementation
  Matthew Johnson - voted for implementation

  Margarita Manterola - voted the original proposal first

Possibly interesting votes by various position holders (where ""
means "didn't vote", and going from www.d.o/intro/organization for who
holds what positions):

  DPL:
 4132 Steve McIntyre

  New-maintainer:
 --1- Christoph Berg (FD,DAM)
  Michael Koch (FD)
 123- Wouter Verhelst (FD)
 --12 Joerg Jaspert (DAM)
  James Troup (keyring)
  Jonathan McDowell (keyring)

  Debian maintainer keyring team:
  Joey Hess
 1342 Anthony Towns
 1342 Anibal Monsalve Salazar
  Debian maintainer keyring team, additional commit access:
 --1- Christoph Berg (FD,DAM)
 --12 Joerg Jaspert (DAM)
  James Troup (keyring)
  Ryan Murray (ftpmaster)
 2143 Marc Brockschmidt (ex

Re: The Unofficial (and Very Simple) Lenny GR: call for votes

[Wesley J. Landaker]

On Monday 15 December 2008 12:09:28 Frans Pop wrote:
> I also call on all Debian Developers to *not* vote in this poll.

I must be missing something: is there some percieved harm in Debian 
Developers voting on an *unofficial poll*?

-- 
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OpenPGP FP: 4135 2A3B 4726 ACC5 9094  0097 F0A9 8A4C 4CD6 E3D2


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Re: The Unofficial (and Very Simple) Lenny GR: call for votes

[Adeodato Simó]

* Adeodato Simó [Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:35:44 +0100]:

> Well, you'll have to understand that I'm not going to stop doing
> something which I don't believe to be wrong just because a fellow
> developer asks me to.

I retract this paragraph. It was written in the first pass of the reply,
before I my "sat on" reference happened (don't ask), and later on I
didn't realize it no longer applied.

Sorryp.

-- 
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Debian Developer  adeodato at debian.org
 
The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence.
-- Amos Bronson Alcott


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Re: The Unofficial (and Very Simple) Lenny GR: call for votes

[John H. Robinson, IV]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

To: debian-proj...@lists.debian.org, debian-vote@lists.debian.org
Date: 2008-12-15T20:59:50+

Adeodato Sim?? wrote:
>
> This is an unofficial vote, but at least it will be easy to vote in.
> If
> FD wins in the official one, and depending on the participation on
> both,
> it may also give us a good approximation about what the developers
> think
> with respect to releasing Lenny.

I support the right or priviledge of a researcher to run a poll on the
topic of their choosing. I further support the right or priviledge of a
Debian Developer to run a poll on a topic associatied with Debian.

I support this specific poll.

Keep up the work.

- --
John H. Robinson, IV  jaq...@debian.org
 http 
WARNING: I cannot be held responsible for the above, sbih.org ()(:[
as apparently my cats have learned how to type.  spiders.html 
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)

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dKcAn03YZ99mgQO0wzoh4aKJkvANdwlf
=FkYq
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Re: The Unofficial (and Very Simple) Lenny GR: call for votes

[Cyril Brulebois]

John H. Robinson, IV  (15/12/2008):
> I support the right or priviledge of a researcher to run a poll on the
> topic of their choosing. I further support the right or priviledge of
> a Debian Developer to run a poll on a topic associatied with Debian.
> 
> I support this specific poll.
> 
> Keep up the work.

Ditto; thanks dato!

Mraw,
KiBi.


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Re: Results for Project membership procedures

[Jurij Smakov]

On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 06:55:22AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
[...] 
> Of the various people involved in the topic, many voted in ways you
> (or at least I) mightn't expect.
[...]
>   Jurij Smakov - voted the amendment over the original resolution

Not sure how it became an amendment, but option 1 was, essentially, 
the proposal which I (and other people) have initially seconded:

http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2008/10/msg00168.html

Best regards,
-- 
Jurij Smakov   ju...@wooyd.org
Key: http://www.wooyd.org/pgpkey/  KeyID: C99E03CC


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Re: The Unofficial (and Very Simple) Lenny GR: call for votes

[Ben Finney]

Adeodato Simó  writes:

> I got what you mean: the poll does not give an option for people who
> were discontent, *not with the direction in which the tags were
> applied (leave firmware in Lenny), but with the tags being applied
> for these issues without consultation*.

For what it's worth, that was my original concern when I raised the
issue on -devel: that a set of decisions, deemed important enough
multiple times in the past to need a GR to pass a limited-duration
override of the social contract, was this time being made without
first seeking even a general discussion.

Thank you for re-making this distinction, which does seem to have been
partially lost in the intervening time.

-- 
 \  “Not using Microsoft products is like being a non-smoker 40 or |
  `\ 50 years ago: You can choose not to smoke, yourself, but it's |
_o__)   hard to avoid second-hand smoke.” —Michael Tiemann |
Ben Finney


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Re: Results for Project membership procedures

[Lucas Nussbaum]

On 16/12/08 at 06:55 +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 01:22:06PM +, devo...@vote.debian.org wrote:
> > The winners are:
> >   Option 2 "Invite the DAM to further discuss until vote or consensus,
> > leading to a new proposal."
> 
> which, aiui was the original resolution, namely:
> [...]

Thank you for the detailed analysis.

You missed one point:
Excluding votes where more than one
option were ranked first, and counting only first choices, we get the
following results:
Option 1: 93
Option 2: 90
Option 3: 61
Option 4: 12
"Invalid" votes (more than one first choice): 20

So, using plurality voting, we would have had a different result than
the one we had with condorcet. This is actually quite rare: it
happened with the debian-private declassification vote in 2005 (option 1
was the plurality winner), and in the 2003 DPL election (Branden
Robinson was the plurality winner).
-- 
| Lucas Nussbaum
| lu...@lucas-nussbaum.net   http://www.lucas-nussbaum.net/ |
| jabber: lu...@nussbaum.fr GPG: 1024D/023B3F4F |


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Re: The Unofficial (and Very Simple) Lenny GR: call for votes

[Stefano Zacchiroli]

On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 10:30:57PM +0100, Cyril Brulebois wrote:
> > Keep up the work.
> Ditto; thanks dato!

... and while I'm still pondering whether to even blog about it or
not, this is a nice place where to stress that Dato even made the
right proposal way before the current messy vote was ready to be voted
upon [1].

Too bad that almost all of the now vocal people against the
multi-dimensional ballot were silent back then ...

Kudos to Dato for both the proposals.

Cheers.

[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2008/11/msg00126.html

-- 
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z...@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -<>- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Dietro un grande uomo c'è ..|  .  |. Et ne m'en veux pas si je te tutoie
sempre uno zaino ...| ..: | Je dis tu à tous ceux que j'aime


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Re: Results for Project membership procedures

[Russ Allbery]

Lucas Nussbaum  writes:

> Thank you for the detailed analysis.
>
> You missed one point:
> Excluding votes where more than one
> option were ranked first, and counting only first choices, we get the
> following results:
> Option 1: 93
> Option 2: 90
> Option 3: 61
> Option 4: 12
> "Invalid" votes (more than one first choice): 20
>
> So, using plurality voting, we would have had a different result than
> the one we had with condorcet. This is actually quite rare: it
> happened with the debian-private declassification vote in 2005 (option 1
> was the plurality winner), and in the 2003 DPL election (Branden
> Robinson was the plurality winner).

I suspect this is because the obvious "please, dear deity, stop talking
about things constantly and just do them" vote ranks 3 above 2 above 1, so
I doubt many votes transferred from 3 to 1 when 3 was eliminated.

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Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR

[Bas Wijnen]

On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 02:17:19PM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:
> * Why does releasing despite DFSG violations require a 3:1 majority now
>   when it didn't for etch?  It's the same secretary in both cases.  What
>   changed?  I didn't find any of the explanations offered for this very
>   satisfying.

The option which is worded mostly identical to the one for etch is #5.
No 3:1 majority is needed for it.  Only options which allow non-free
firmware to be released need it.  Note that option #5 (crypically, I
admit) says we'll believe that the firmware is its own source.

> * Bundling the vote against the open opposition of a fairly significant
>   number of people, including some of the people whose amendments were
>   grouped together, is within his power but comes across poorly.  There
>   wasn't much attempt to compromise or discuss this, and I came away from
>   that with a bad taste in my mouth.

Having multiple votes on this doesn't seem like a good idea.  His
reasoning was simple and good (IMO): releasing Lenny has priority ATM.
Anything not related to that should be delayed.  Options for "how do we
release Lenny?" should be on this ballot.  All options have an answer
for that.  Permanently changing foundational documents is something
that's better done after the release (or at least after the decision
about how to release).

I didn't check if he was constitutionally given the power to decide
this.  However, I do think it is a good decision.

> * One role of the secretary is to interpret the constitution.  The
>   constitution states fairly clearly the process of decision-making for
>   decisions of this type, such as whether a given package violates the
>   DFSG, or how to weigh the implications of the Social Contract.  Yet that
>   decision-making process is not reflected in the ballot or in the
>   presentation of the options.

>   Option 1 is either meaningless or an override of a delegate
>   decision, but the ballot doesn't reflect this.

It is a statement that a delegate decision is unconstitutional.  That is
something else than an override.  In case of an override, the delegate
had the power to do what he/she did, but it wasn't a good idea anyway.

>   Option 4 looks equivalent to FD if you look at the decision-making
>   process in the constitution, but the ballot doesn't reflect that.  I
>   think some additional clarity around that would have been very helpful.

You're saying that FD means the release team will simply continue to
ignore the DFSG?  (Note that the constitution doesn't allow them to.)  I
don't actually think they are doing that (so "continue" isn't even
appropriate here), but option #4 would give them the right to ignore the
DFSG (regardless of whether they've been doing that so far).  Not a good
idea at all, IMO.

Thanks,
Bas

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Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR

[Andreas Barth]

* Bas Wijnen (wij...@debian.org) [081216 00:37]:
> On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 02:17:19PM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:
> >   Option 4 looks equivalent to FD if you look at the decision-making
> >   process in the constitution, but the ballot doesn't reflect that.  I
> >   think some additional clarity around that would have been very helpful.
> 
> You're saying that FD means the release team will simply continue to
> ignore the DFSG?

Please stop your FUD. The release team doesn't ignore the DFSG.


Andi


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Re: The Unofficial (and Very Simple) Lenny GR: call for votes

[Bas Wijnen]

On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 09:35:44PM +0100, Adeodato Simó wrote:
> If more people do share your concerns, though, maybe abandoning the poll
> would be the right thing. If it's only you, I can't but offer all my
> explanations above, assert that they're true, and hope they can bring us
> somewhere.

I believe you have good intentions, but agree with Frans that this poll
only adds extra confusion to the issue.  For that reason, I am not
voting in it.  Also, I don't understand the point of ranking FD above
options you actually want in the official vote.

Especially if you want an option which requires a 3:1 majority, it seems
quite important to me that you vote it according to your preference.
I'm not really complaining, I'm only voting options 5 and 1 above FD, so
this "boycott" would help my preference.  But I think it would be a bad
idea to get things my way, if the developers don't actually want that.

So I ask everyone to just vote how they want things to go.  If you
don't, the only result is that things happen that you don't want.  If
you really do think that FD is better than any of the options, please
vote it highest.  But if you don't, boycotting the vote seems like a
very bad thing to do.

> One final thing: these two mails of you have brought a fair amount of
> stress on me, because of the way you say things. (Maybe you don't feel
> it's reasonable for me to feel stressed, but it's simply true that I
> was.)
> 
> I have swallowed hard and replied calmly to them, because I believe
> developers, and particularly those holding key positions, should not
> ignore other developers, even if their concerns don't come in with a
> wrapping of sugar. (I don't want to ignore people in my Debian work, and
> if it ends up being impossible to deal with somebody, I'll clearly let
> them know.)
> 
> However, the same way I've made an exercise and considered your views on
> actions of mine that I felt were right, I'm going to invite you make an
> exercise and consider what your style may bring onto other fellow
> developers (even if your points are right), because I know you've felt
> stressed with interactions with other developers yourself in the past,
> and it'd be bad to bring to others what you so much loathed.

I'm impressed by the way you handle this.  Thank you.

Bas

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Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR

[Bas Wijnen]

On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 12:45:30AM +0100, Andreas Barth wrote:
> > You're saying that FD means the release team will simply continue to
> > ignore the DFSG?
> 
> Please stop your FUD. The release team doesn't ignore the DFSG.

Did you read the next sentence?  I'm confused with this mail, I don't
think I could have been more clear.  I'll quote myself:

On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 12:52:34AM +0100, Bas Wijnen wrote:
> I don't actually think they are doing that (so "continue" isn't even
> appropriate here),

Thanks,
Bas

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Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR

[Russ Allbery]

Bas Wijnen  writes:
> On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 02:17:19PM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:

>> * Why does releasing despite DFSG violations require a 3:1 majority now
>>   when it didn't for etch?  It's the same secretary in both cases.  What
>>   changed?  I didn't find any of the explanations offered for this very
>>   satisfying.

> The option which is worded mostly identical to the one for etch is #5.

Oh, right, but has a title that says something entirely different than the
body of the proposition.  You're right, ignoring the title, this does say
basically the seame thing.  I should have investigated further.  I
withdraw this complaint.

>> * Bundling the vote against the open opposition of a fairly significant
>>   number of people, including some of the people whose amendments were
>>   grouped together, is within his power but comes across poorly.  There
>>   wasn't much attempt to compromise or discuss this, and I came away from
>>   that with a bad taste in my mouth.
>
> Having multiple votes on this doesn't seem like a good idea.

Well, I strongly disagree, as do a whole bunch of other people, and I
don't think rehashing that is useful.

But more fundamentally it doesn't matter.  Combining things that were
proposed separately seems to be clearly overreaching the authority of the
Secretary, as there's nothing in "Standard Resolution Procedures" which
allows this to be done.

>>   Option 1 is either meaningless or an override of a delegate decision,
>>   but the ballot doesn't reflect this.
>
> It is a statement that a delegate decision is unconstitutional.

No, it's not.  It says nothing at all about a delegate decision violating
either the constitution or the DFSG.  The wording of choice one is a
delegate decision override, not a statement about what is and is not in
the consitution or the DFSG, except that it doesn't even mention there
*was* a delegate decision.

> You're saying that FD means the release team will simply continue to
> ignore the DFSG?

I'm saying that FD means that we'll continue with the release according to
the release team's plans.  I posted this previously along with the
constitutional analysis that supports it.  It's fairly clear from the
decision-making process spelled out in section 2, section 3, and section
8.

If you want to override a delegate decision, you have to actually override
it.  FD does not do that, and the constitution does not provide to anyone
the ability to rule a developer decision as invalid except by following
the normal decision override process.

Whether the current plan is "ignoring the DFSG" is not something that FD
decides one way or the other, so voting FD doesn't mean agreeing with that
statement.  (For example, I personally don't think the release team is
ignoring the DFSG now, and I find your charged language offensive and
obnoxious.)

> (Note that the constitution doesn't allow them to.)

Please show me exactly where it says that.

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Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR

[Russ Allbery]

Russ Allbery  writes:

> Whether the current plan is "ignoring the DFSG" is not something that FD
> decides one way or the other, so voting FD doesn't mean agreeing with
> that statement.  (For example, I personally don't think the release team
> is ignoring the DFSG now, and I find your charged language offensive and
> obnoxious.)

I apologize for the parenthetical.  That was an overreaction and I should
have sat on it for a while longer, particularly given the rest of the
paragraph to which I was responding.  The phrasing was unfortunately
charged, but I don't believe it was intentional on Bas's part, and I'm
sorry to have overreacted to it.

Please pretend I never said that.  It was completely ancillary to the
point I was making.

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Re: Results for Project membership procedures

[Matthew Johnson]

On Tue Dec 16 06:55, Anthony Towns wrote:
> Of the various people involved in the topic, many voted in ways you
> (or at least I) mightn't expect.
> ...
>   Matthew Johnson - voted for implementation

I'm not too surprised by this. I think it's entirely logically
consistent to second something then vote against it. Seconding an option
(particularly an amendment) just means "I think this should be voted on"
not "I'm going to vote for it". In particular the ones I seconded I
definitely thought they should both be options on the ballot, even
though I didn't vote for one of them.

Matt

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Re: Results for Project membership procedures

[Lucas Nussbaum]

On 15/12/08 at 15:28 -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Lucas Nussbaum  writes:
> 
> > Thank you for the detailed analysis.
> >
> > You missed one point:
> > Excluding votes where more than one
> > option were ranked first, and counting only first choices, we get the
> > following results:
> > Option 1: 93
> > Option 2: 90
> > Option 3: 61
> > Option 4: 12
> > "Invalid" votes (more than one first choice): 20
> >
> > So, using plurality voting, we would have had a different result than
> > the one we had with condorcet. This is actually quite rare: it
> > happened with the debian-private declassification vote in 2005 (option 1
> > was the plurality winner), and in the 2003 DPL election (Branden
> > Robinson was the plurality winner).
> 
> I suspect this is because the obvious "please, dear deity, stop talking
> about things constantly and just do them" vote ranks 3 above 2 above 1, so
> I doubt many votes transferred from 3 to 1 when 3 was eliminated.

There's no such transfer in plurality voting (where you only vote for
one option). That transfer happens in instant-runoff voting, but I
didn't compare our condorcet results with IRV results. That's not easy
to do accurately because you can't rank several options at the same
level with IRV, so you would have to ignore a lot of ballots.
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Re: Results for Project membership procedures

[Russ Allbery]

Lucas Nussbaum  writes:
> On 15/12/08 at 15:28 -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:

>> I suspect this is because the obvious "please, dear deity, stop talking
>> about things constantly and just do them" vote ranks 3 above 2 above 1,
>> so I doubt many votes transferred from 3 to 1 when 3 was eliminated.

> There's no such transfer in plurality voting (where you only vote for
> one option). That transfer happens in instant-runoff voting, but I
> didn't compare our condorcet results with IRV results. That's not easy
> to do accurately because you can't rank several options at the same
> level with IRV, so you would have to ignore a lot of ballots.

I suspect I confused things by not being sufficiently clear.  I meant that
the difference between the Condorcet outcome and the plurality outcome was
probably due to the 3>2>1 voting pattern leading to a lot of transfers
from 3 to 2 in Condorcet, so although 1 wins plurality, 2 ends up with
more preference votes once 3 is eliminated.

(And by choice 2, I mean the one listed as choice 2 on the voting page,
which is shown first before choice 1 and is also known as amendment A.)

It's the standard case for Condorcet producing a different outcome than
plurality: the compromise is less popular by itself, but is much more
popular with a minority of the voters who would prefer some other choice.
It happens quite a bit in Hugo voting (IRV, if I recall correctly), where
the leader in first place votes often doesn't win.

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