Re: veto?

[Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>]

Andrey Rahmatullin <wrar@debian.org> writes:
> On Wed, Nov 12, 2014 at 01:41:33PM +0100, Daniel Pocock wrote:

>> If a veto facility is created effectively, then it will deter people
>> from complexity and force people back to looking for consensus

> Or we could fix the TC instead.

It would be lovely if that were the fix.  If I could fix this by, say,
resigning from the TC, or if we could make different TC rules that would
make the problem go away, that would be AWESOME.  That would be a clear
path forward for this whole mess.

I think it's worth mentioning here that the reason why I argued for making
a TC decision on systemd was because I hoped some sort of official
decision-making process would provide some closure.  As Michael correctly
points out, he was dubious that would happen, and history has proven that
he was right and I was wrong.  But remember, the reason why multiple
people in the project asked the TC to get involved was because, prior to
that decision, we had a different problem: an ongoing flamewar that had
been recurring for two years, and which was also horribly demoralizing.

The sad and difficult problem here, I believe, is not that the TC is off
on some tangent.  Rather, I suspect the TC is remarkably representative of
the project here.  The project is deeply, strongly, and even ideologically
divided on this complex of questions... and so is the TC.  The project is
struggling to reach any sort of shared consensus or even agreement on what
we're trying to get consensus *on*, and so is the TC.  The project
contains fundamental disagreements about even the facts of the situation,
and so does the TC.

You can't solve those sorts of problems with process.  If there really is
a disagreement over fundamental principles, which is what Ian has been
arguing that there is, and which I have also been arguing there is along a
different axis of fundamental principle, then it doesn't matter what
framework or mechanism you use to try to structure the conversation.
You'll still end up at loggerheads over a matter of fundamental principle.

We have a lot of procedural and legalistic mechanisms that can be, and are
currently being, invoked for such disputes, which means that we end up in
deep process arguments that are highly demoralizing and off-putting to
people who (rightfully) want our community to act like a community and not
a legal system or a legislature with a hostile and adversarial process.
Stripping away that sort of system at least gets rid of that problem, but
it's still not going to somehow magically resolve an actual fundamental
conflict over principles.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>