Re: First call for votes for the Lenny release GR
On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 09:35:23PM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 08:15:25PM -0600, Guilherme de S. Pastore wrote:
> > Avoiding getting too technical about it, it is still illogical. You
> > cannot produce the same effects of an amendment, even though
> > temporarily, bypassing the requirements to an amendment. Creating an
> > exception by means of General Resolution is equivalent to adding a
> > little line to the document stating that "this does not apply to the
> > Lenny release", except for the fact that we leave it in another official
> > document for convenience reasons.
>
> If the effect in question here is the release of lenny with sourceless
> firmware included in main, you certainly can get that effect without an
> amendment - precisely because under the constitution and in the absence of a
> GR to the contrary, interpretation and enforcement of the foundation
> documents devolves to the individual developers whose work it touches.
Then we get back to my other point, the Congress x Police Officer
example. If there had been no General Resolution, that's fine, and the
whole issue of interpreting and enforcing our foundation documents would
be subject to the sole judgement of the Release Team. Great. Not saying
they did - again, I am trying to touch the abstract considerations made
here, not the Lenny release case concretely -, but assuming that the
Release Team's decisions did go against the foundation documents, once
you have our official decision-making body vouching for it (saying
"forget that and release Lenny!"), it is no longer a matter of
overruling a developer's call and externally enforcing what the Project
deems to be the correct interpretation, but it reaches the level of
institutionally *derogating* the document. We would not be refraining
from stopping the release, we would be explicitly authorizing it.
> You (appear to) happen to agree with Manoj's understanding of the
> implications of the DFSG for the lenny release. That's fine; I'm not
> going to tell you that you're wrong to think that. But that doesn't
> make it ok for you, or the secretary, to impose this interpretation on
> the project except *by way of* the GR process.
Now *you* are saying that the Secretary needs to run a GR as a
pre-condition to do his job. :)
Regardless of the implications of whichever foundation document for the
upcoming release or whomever I may agree with, I am rather concerned of
how Debian deals with this kind of problem and will deal with it in the
future. That's why I'm trying to shed some light on hermeneutics here.
--
Guilherme de S. Pastore
gpastore@debian.org
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