Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR

[Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>]

Bas Wijnen <wijnen@debian.org> writes:
> On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 12:59:12PM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:

>> It's a shame that the vote was handled in the way that it was,

> Actually, I think the secretary has done a very good job in preparing
> the ballot.

I would like to feel that, but unfortunately, I don't think the facts
support that feeling.  The 3:1 majority part I can understand.  That's his
job, and whether I agree or not, I can't get upset at him for doing his
job.  However, there are several other serious irregularities in this
vote:

* Why does releasing despite DFSG violations require a 3:1 majority now
  when it didn't for etch?  It's the same secretary in both cases.  What
  changed?  I didn't find any of the explanations offered for this very
  satisfying.

* Bundling the vote against the open opposition of a fairly significant
  number of people, including some of the people whose amendments were
  grouped together, is within his power but comes across poorly.  There
  wasn't much attempt to compromise or discuss this, and I came away from
  that with a bad taste in my mouth.

* One role of the secretary is to interpret the constitution.  The
  constitution states fairly clearly the process of decision-making for
  decisions of this type, such as whether a given package violates the
  DFSG, or how to weigh the implications of the Social Contract.  Yet that
  decision-making process is not reflected in the ballot or in the
  presentation of the options.  Option 1 is either meaningless or an
  override of a delegate decision, but the ballot doesn't reflect this.
  Option 4 looks equivalent to FD if you look at the decision-making
  process in the constitution, but the ballot doesn't reflect that.  I
  think some additional clarity around that would have been very helpful.

So, no, I think in this case Manoj did a poor job of preparing this
ballot.  (That doesn't mean that I have any problems with him personally,
nor do I believe that he did so out of any ulterior motives.  I think he
made the decisions that he thought were correct.  I just don't think they
were good decisions.)

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