A thought on policy

[Bruce Perens <bruce@perens.com>]

This is not a policy proposal yet, when I have that I will bring it to debian-project.

The entire Debian Social Contract is driven by a desire for social justice. But when I proposed it I only wrote about software. During the whole month that we discussed and refined the thing, I don't remember any discussion of how we deal with people except in the context of providing them with Debian. That job was big enough, then, and we were seven years younger. We have grown since then and I see that we don't have the framework to deal with questions that we need to handle. Perhaps some meta-policy is necessary.

Here is a so-far-vague approach at that.

Debian controls itself. Of others, we require nothing except that they respect our rights.

Our principles define the way we treat others, and the way we behave in order to maintain our own self-respect.

Our treatement of others is driven by the belief that all people have the basic human rights of freedom, justice, and dignity. We will behave in a way that consistent with those rights.

In order to maintain our own self-respect, we value a high standard of professional conduct, and shall maintain that standard in the Debian project.

Something like this could potentially give us a framework to discuss actions of the project that we have no good way of making decisions about today.

    Thanks

    Bruce

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