Re: RFC: General resolution: Clarify the status of the social contract
On Fri, Dec 19 2008, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> writes:
>
>> I think we will keep coming back to this biennial spate of
>> disagreement we have, as we determine whether or not we can release
>> with firmware blobs or what have you. This also would help developers,
>> the ftp-masters, and the release team with a clear cut expression of
>> the projects goals and clarifies how the project has decided to view
>> the social contract.
>>
>> Given that, I suggest we have a series of proposals and
>> amendments, each in a separate email, sponsored and seconded
>> independently, that could look something like this below:
>
> I think these have the same flaw as our current situation: none of them
> state who interprets the Social Contract and the DSFG if there is a
> dispute over what they mean. We know there will be such disputes. Just
> saying that they're binding (or not binding) doesn't resolve those
> disputes.
I do ont think that determining who interprets the
non-constitution foundation documents belongs on the same ballot. It is
a flaw in the constitution, and should be fixed, I would second
proposals that let the secretary not just interpret the constitution,
but all other foundation documents as well. This seems in line with the
constitution already handing tot hte secretary the role of interpreting
the constitution.
I also like the fact that then the secretary is given the role
of interpreting the foundation documents, and determining final form of
the ballots; I would suggest that the secretary be stripped of the
power to run the actual vote (a wee bit of automation to devotee will
allow somewone else to run it. This way the secretary has no more
access to the votes that people cast than any other developer.
Again, a constitutional amendment modifying the powers of the
secretary should be discussed independently of deciding what the role
of the SC is.
manoj
--
There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the
other is to read Pope. -- Oscar Wilde
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>
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