[Since Ian has said he won't listen to me, I'm making these remarks for the benefit of the rest of the Project.] On Sun, Nov 03, 2002 at 05:19:02PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote: > 5. Offer advice. > > The Technical Committee may make formal announcements about its > views on any matter. ((Individual members may of course make > informal statements about their views and about the likely views > of the committee.)) What's informal about a joint resolution? Are you sure you didn't mean to emphasize the first sentence instead? If that's the case, why not just circulate this draft among the Technical Committee and have them vote yea or nay? > Personally I think that deciding process questions (like whether a bug > should be open or not under some circumstances) by voting is a very > bad idea. That's what we have the leadership for. Maybe the BTS should serve the developers instead of the other way around. > As I said earlier the private mail I've received has convinced me that > I do have support for what I'm trying to do. I don't expect my > opponents (or indeed anyone else) to necessarily believe me, It's not a matter of belief, it's a matter of unfalsifiable hypotheses (at least within the parameters of respect for privacy of personal emails; your supporters could of course mail this list with their sentiments and thus clearly establish an evidentiary record). Plenty of people believe in unfalsifiable hypotheses like God or free will, and they may not even be the worse for it. But these concepts can't be evidence *for* anything in particular, because their own truth is indeterminate. > but it does mean that to me arguments of the form `see how Branden and > Manoj dislike your ideas, you must be on your own' are unconvincing. I haven't heard anyone make such an argument. > If there are people out there apart from Branden and Manoj who > disagree with me about anything to do with this document (or indeed > about anything at all in Debian!), I'd like to encourage them to mail > me about it. I promise to do my best to reply constructively. Well, Adam Heath, speaking with his Debian BTS Admin hat on, had something to say about it. > If I get the impression that I don't have the support I currently > think I have you can be sure I won't press ahead, if only because > getting trounced in a vote would leave me with egg on my face. This assumes that those who are uncomfortable with your draft think that the GR process is the best way to resolve the situation. Indeed, it's possible that, given a credulous audience, one can succeed in convincing a group that "everyone" is for something, and persuade them that the machinery of democracy need not be engaged, when in fact if an issue were to go a vote, it would be defeated. In the instant case, maybe people are fearful of going up against the legendary Ian Jackson, the Author of Our Package Management System and Constitution, and Chairman of the Technical Committee. This fear may be compounded by an unwillingness to be decried in public as someone that "Ian Jackson won't listen to", as you've just done with me. It might be possible for you to achieve your ends through intimidation -- even inadvertently! -- that would not be achieved via an electoral process. All of this is why I think it's a bad idea to refuse to talk to people when you're trying to do something important. I am willing to talk on point about issues of substance to your proposal, and you're refusing to listen. Another consequence of the tactics you've adopted -- I don't know if this had occurred to you or not -- is that they tends to radicalize your opposition. That is, by eschewing constitutional process and by refusing to discourse with those who have substantive disagreements with your draft, you drive people to wanting to engage the heavyweight GR process simply to have any chance of having their perspectives reflected in the document. In my opinion, this is not a very polite thing to do -- especially if one later uses this resort to constitutional process against them. It would not be kind to ridicule people to occupying the corner that you back them into. For these reasons, I urge you to abandon your policy of not listening to people whose messages distress you when you read between the lines, and to take differing opinions more seriously in general. You didn't even mention Adam Heath's difference of opinion in your message. > Likewise, I'd like to encourage anyone who agrees with me and wants me > to press on, and who hasn't already told me so, to mail me too. I'd > appreciate the additional moral support. I would encourage those same people to mail -project instead, or in addition. Not just a "me too" or a "it's perfect as it is" (which, in any case, might leave doubt as to whether draft #1 or draft #3 was "perfect), but speak up and identify specifically what you like, just as Manoj, Adam Heath, and I have specifically identified what we disagree with. It may be that we're all much closer to being on the same page than some of the acrimony would indicate. -- G. Branden Robinson | Somewhere, there is a .sig so funny Debian GNU/Linux | that reading it will cause an branden@debian.org | aneurysm. This is not that .sig. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |
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