Re: "Social Contract GR's Affect on sarge" or "Debian commits suicide"
Nathanael Nerode wrote:
> The RM was being hypocritical, using a bogus interpretation of the Social
> Contract to convince himself that he wasn't. After the amendment passed,
> he was unable to delude himself further. I don't think the proponents of
> the amendment could have predicted his psychology.
Yuk. Didn't your mother teach you any manners?
The RM has contributed a vast amount of work to the project; he's a human
being who is doing the best he can. The view he held about the meaning of
the DFSG might be a minority view, but it was honestly held by a number of
people who don't deserve to be crapped on for it. The recent vote has now
established that the majority view is the project-official view. Try
being gracious in victory.
If you wish to operate as a decent, cooperative human being, you will take
AJ's concerns at face value: he says that he thought he had wiggle room to
leave GFDL stuff in sarge before, but now that a GR makes it crystal clear
that the DFSG applies to documentation, he doesn't think he can do that
anymore. There is no good reason for you to act the way you are acting,
other than if you just want to declare war on the RM and drive him away,
thereby *assuring* that sarge will never be released because no one but a
fool would replace him in the job. I think that an apology is in order.
There are several ways to move forward, the most straightforward of which
is to make the sarge exception explicit in a GR.
> If I were a DD (I haven't applied because I've been fixing firmware instead,
> but I think I will apply ASAP), I would fully support a GR matching option
> "D" (admit that sarge will not satisfy the DFSG, and release it); this is
> an *honest* compromise.
Your solution is reasonable, but there is still a problem. Free software
projects will not be successful if they don't maintain good relationships
and they don't treat their key volunteers well. I would recommend that
Debian require a standard of civility in its DDs; if it doesn't, the
project risks self-destruction in a sea of flame wars. I assume that the
DD review process will assure that you measure up to this standard.
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