On Sat, Dec 20, 2003 at 01:18:34PM +0200, Momchil Velikov wrote:
> >>>>> "Joel" == Joel Baker <fenton@debian.org> writes:
> Joel> No, it's debian-legal's to decide. To date, they have
> Joel> considered some form of renaming to be the only feasible
> Joel> option.
> >>
> >> I mean, of course, the lack of choices in your proposed balot.
>
> Joel> Then you're fundamentally wrong. The choice of what to put
> Joel> on the ballot, being a straw poll, is *entirely* up to
> Joel> me. If you don't like the choices, you are, as I said (and
> Joel> you chose not to quote) welcome to run a separate poll on
> Joel> the question of whether it should be changed at all.
>
> I thought you were genuinely interested in solving this "issue".
> Isn't it in the interest of the members of the list to take part in
> ONE ballot, having ALL sensible suggestions to choose? Frankly, your
> refusal to include the option suggested by me looks dangerously close
> to an attempt to influence the decision, by proposing courses of
> action in concent with your own preferences.
*shrug* Like I said, consider the question to be "Stipulating that a change
is necessary, what should we change it to?" Whether a chance is necessary
at all is a legal and social issue; WHAT we should chance to is a matter of
personal preference.
These are very different issues, and do not belong on the same ballot. On
the other hand, I won't try to pretend that the ballot is asking whether we
should change. That isn't an issue for debian-bsd, frankly; it's one for
debian-legal, and, if they decide it's legally possible not to change, the
developer population at large, to decide whether we wish to thumb our noses
at the NetBSD folks.
In other words, "no change" is an irrelevant option *on this ballot*,
because it is controlled by completely different criteria, and is not what
this ballot is intended to get a feel for. That doesn't mean the question
isn't relevant to the entire topic, and, for the third time, you're welcoem
to run a poll of whomever you like, asking whether we should change at all
- but it will still be subject to debian-legal's opinion, in the end. Or
possibly a GR, if it comes down to that.
Frankly, since I've gotton one formal vote so far, and two 'I can sort
of count them as votes, if I squint really hard' statements of single
preference ("I vote for <X>"), aside from my own, the entire ballot is
looking fairly irrelevant in the first place. I'll probably just end up
talking to the one balloteer, and possibly one other person, and deciding.
Which, frankly, may render the debian-legal question irrelevant, if we all
*want* to change the naming anyway, since we're the ones running the only
places the name appears (at least, that I know of). We also have the most
to lose, and the least to gain, by making some kind of political statement
proving... er, I've never been sure what it was supposed to prove, anyway.
If this sounds overly blunt, let me put it this way: the BSDs have a long
and inglorious tradition of arguing a lot, and getting very little done
until someone sits down and *does*; concensus has never been one of our
strong points. A large part of the reason it's a straw poll, and not a
vote; its results are intended as advice, not direction.
--
Joel Baker <fenton@debian.org> ,''`.
Debian GNU/NetBSD(i386) porter : :' :
`. `'
`-
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