Re: Constitutional issues in the wake of Lenny
On Sat Mar 14 19:40, Russ Allbery wrote: > It makes an advisory project statement about the project interpretation of > the FD. DDs can choose to follow that interpretation or not as they > choose in their own work, but I would expect that people who didn't have a > strong opinion would tend to follow the opinion of the majority in the > project as determined by the GR. But if a DD decides that they flatly > don't agree with that interpretation, the GR doesn't override them unless > someone proposes and passes another one with a 3:1 majority. > > Does that make it clearer? Well, what I'm thinking about is the whole reason we tend to have GRs is because one DD flatly doesn't agree with an interpretation. In which case, how has the GR helped the situation. For example, the Lenny firmware GR, at least one of those options would fall into this category, the proposer explicitly said they weren't amending an FD, so it would just be a position statement, but then we've not actually solved anything if it wins. Maybe I just see GRs as a last resort where we really really need a definitive answer. Certainly after we've gone through the whole process I'd like all that effort to have resulted in a solution everyone has to follow... Issuing nebulous position statements is what we elect a DPL for, isn't it (-; Matt -- Matthew Johnson signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Overriding vs Amending vs 'Position statement' [Was: Re: Constitutional issues in the wake of Lenny]
On Sat, 14 Mar 2009, Matthew Johnson wrote: > On Sat Mar 14 14:23, Kurt Roeckx wrote: > > > > I'm currently inclined to interprete it so that anything that > > seems to modify an interpretation will require an explicit change > > in some document. But I'm not sure it's in my power to refuse > > an option that doesn't do so. So that would be option 2 above. > > Yeah, this is what I think too, but Manoj got a lot of flack about it, > hence why I want to make it explicit. It depends what "some document" means. If it's a foundation document, then it's all wrong for me. If it's some external document that explains how we interpret the foundation documents, then it's ok. Cheers, -- Raphaël Hertzog Contribuez à Debian et gagnez un cahier de l'admin Debian Lenny : http://www.ouaza.com/wp/2009/03/02/contribuer-a-debian-gagner-un-livre/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Constitutional issues in the wake of Lenny
On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 08:49:51AM +, Matthew Johnson wrote: > Maybe I just see GRs as a last resort where we really really need a > definitive answer. Except they aren't; they're used any time six developers *think* we need a definitive answer, which is not the same thing. > Certainly after we've gone through the whole process I'd like all that > effort to have resulted in a solution everyone has to follow... Requiring supermajorities doesn't ensure that. What says that the outcome won't be "Further discussion" instead? Then you've gone to all that effort to result in no solution at all. In any case, the desire to minimize the number of GR round-trips doesn't justify preventing other DDs from proposing position statements if they choose to, even when you consider those position statements to contradict the Foundation Documents. You *always* have the option of proposing an amendment that explicitly modifies the Foundation Document instead. Maybe you'll persuade the proposer to accept the amendment; maybe you'll end up on the ballot as a separate option and the developers will agree to modify the Foundation Document; or maybe your option will fail to reach supermajority, and we'll instead have a non-binding position statement. Why shouldn't all of these options be open to developers? Even if you don't give developers the option of formally ratifying position statements that interpret the Foundation Documents, developers are still going to do their own interpreting of these documents, and more often than not they're going to assume that the rest of the project agrees with them. So I don't see any way that permitting such position statements is *worse* than having Further Discussion win. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developerhttp://www.debian.org/ slanga...@ubuntu.com vor...@debian.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
