Re: /usr/doc transition and other things
Anthony Towns wrote:
> > Fourth, Raul also points out that debian-policy isn't a constitutional
> > body, it can only act under the auspices of the technical committee. That
> > is, just because we reach a consensus on -policy how to deal with an
> > issue, we can't suddenly declare 1000s of packages [2] buggy --- we're
> > just individual developers, we can only worry about our own packages. I
> > agree with Raul in that that situation isn't really -right-, the -policy
> > group should definitately be able to make policy when we reach a consensus
> > on an issue, and I think his response to that: that the tech ctte should
> > rubberstamp issues reached by consensus.
On Sat, Aug 28, 1999 at 12:50:57PM +0200, Richard Braakman wrote:
> That would be awful. Having to wait while something is rubberstamped,
> just to get around an issue of protocol -- that just adds a useless
> layer to something that is already ponderous. This is a volunteer
> project, not a phone company!
[1] Please read the constitution. It has some very specific things to
say on this subject, and re-reading it would probably save us all a
long email discussion.
[2] More generally:
(*) The developers as a whole can set non-technical policy without
recourse to the technical committee. Consensus is not needed here,
just a successful vote.
(*) Policy is *supposed* to be a formulation of existing practice.
If everybody agrees, the technical committee doesn't need to get
involved.
The technical committee only needs to be involved where, for example,
the policy group wants to implement a policy which differs from what
a package maintainer has agreed to.
As you say, this is a volunteer effort. [And, to paraphrase Linus:
standards based on existing practice tend to be good, while standards
based instead on fiat tend to be bad.]
I hope this helps,
--
Raul
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