Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR
Bas Wijnen <wijnen@debian.org> writes:
> On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 04:16:43PM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:
>> But more fundamentally it doesn't matter. Combining things that were
>> proposed separately seems to be clearly overreaching the authority of
>> the Secretary, as there's nothing in "Standard Resolution Procedures"
>> which allows this to be done.
>
> IMO A.1.1 allows this,
Where? That states how you make an amendment. It doesn't say that the
secretary can declare something that isn't an amendment to be an
amendment so far as I can tell.
> and A.3.4 of course means that the secretary's opinion on this is the
> "correct" one.
Yes, agreed, but I can still disagree with that decision and say that it
feels like overreaching to decide it that way.
>> No, it's not. It says nothing at all about a delegate decision
>> violating either the constitution or the DFSG. The wording of choice
>> one is a delegate decision override, not a statement about what is and
>> is not in the consitution or the DFSG, except that it doesn't even
>> mention there *was* a delegate decision.
>
> I agree that the wording of several options, including 1 and 5, is very
> vague. I assumed that it was clear that ignoring a DFSG violation for a
> release is in itself a violation of the DFSG. This view is appearantly
> not shared by everyone.
Surely you realize that this phrasing is highly controversial and
confrontational, given that the release team doesn't believe that they're
ignoring the DFSG? I don't believe they are either. I understand that
you disagree, but that doesn't make my opinion go away.
Option 4 explains what I believe the situation to be. They're making hard
tradeoffs between a set of constraints that are currently in conflict.
I really wish people would stop accusing other project members of ignoring
the DFSG even if you disagree strongly with their interpretation of how
the DFSG is applied. You are accusing them of breaking an oath or
promise, and it's hardly surprising that the reaction is therefore rather
strong and not conducive to a polite conversation.
> About ignoring the DFSG:
>> > (Note that the constitution doesn't allow them to.)
>>
>> Please show me exactly where it says that.
>
> Huh? Should the foundation documents say that they can't be ignored?
I made no statements about that. You said that the constitution doesn't
allow the release team to ignore the DFSG. Apart from the question of
whether they're doing that (which as stated I don't believe they are), I
don't see anything in the constitution that says that.
If there were something in the constitution detailing decision-making
process around foundation documents and their interpretation, it would
have made this whole conflict easier to resolve. But so far as I can
tell, there isn't, apart from application to voting specifically. Any
such decisions therefore, under the constitution, are resolved the same
way as any other delegate decision so far as I can tell. There's no
special magic that applies because one thinks a delegate decision violates
a foundation document, nor any pre-emptive rejection of such a decision.
As near as I can tell, the only thing that binds individual developers to
follow the foundation documents are the promises that we all made when we
joined the project to do so, which means that our understanding and
interpretation of what they mean and how they should be applied is what is
most relevant in the absence of a GR override of a decision.
It's kind of an intriguing way of organizing it. I'm not sure this is a
bad thing.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
Reply to: