On Thu, Nov 21, 2002 at 05:57:36AM -0500, Anthony DeRobertis wrote: > On Thu, 2002-11-21 at 00:43, Branden Robinson wrote: > > > Where "screw up majorly" is defined as "not permit minority veto"? > > > > Supermajority requirements don't retard mistakes, just change. > > Arguably, if the system you have mostly works (which it apparently > does), It does? Having a General Resolution on hold for over two years "works"? Well, for those who prefer the status quo, I suppose it does, but I would think it's better to have the process play out to its conclusion, and advocates of the status quo can enjoy the satisfaction of a resounding defeat of the propostion, if that's what happens. > then retarding change serves as a reasonable proxy for retarding > mistakes. The paper that John H. Robinson IV posted a link to[1] makes a very interesting argument that this isn't necessarily true, unless one defines "mistake" as "change". But presumably you intend to be uttering something slightly more insightful than a tautology. > I can't think of a better procedural method. Failure of personal imagination is a pretty weak argument. > And there is definitely something to be said for stability; I don't > think you'd want the people with the left hand glued to their --- > well, we both know where that goes --- yelling YEAH, BABY! FRESH > COMMITS! of the Debian Constitution. So, the decisions of individual package maintainers who have almost sole discretion over their packages are to be equated with an election in which a majority of the voters express the same preference? Carrying your analogy farther, I see some "bugs" in the Debian Constitution and/or Social Contract that I'd like to fix. Should I be unilaterally empowered to "sync them up" with the version on the head of my debian-government CVS module? Or shall we instead leave these issues to the discretion of the voters collectively? > > Those who assert that we cannot amend or withdraw non-technical > > documents, because the Constitution countenances only the "issuing" > > of them (4.1.5) would logically have to conclude that "amendment" of > > the Constitution (4.1.2) does not include its own abandonment. > > Straw man! Non sequitor! A bunch of other Latin words! Those terms have meanings, and you're misapplying them. > An amendment worded: > A) The entirety of the Debian Constitution is hereby struck and > replaced as follows in section (B) > B) "First post!" > 1) Hot grits! > 2) Natalie Portman! > 3) L1n0X R0cK$! > C) Sections shall be renumbered as appropriate > does indeed leave the "Debian Constitution," but in name only. Is a repeal in everything but name a repeal or not? When is a rose a rose? > Also, the IETF only issues new technical documents, but somehow manages > to get along. We could, under the letter of the current Constitution, > issue a Debian Social Contract, v2.0. And then change policy to comply > with it. I suggest you ask the Project Secretary's opinion before pursuing this line of reasoning too far (7.1.3). [1] http://www.democ.uci.edu/democ/papers/McGann02.pdf -- G. Branden Robinson | The noble soul has reverence for Debian GNU/Linux | itself. branden@debian.org | -- Friedrich Nietzsche http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |
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