Flogging dead horses
Anthony Towns writes ("Re: TC voting and amendment procedure"):
> The substantive questions haven't been explored. I've been the only one
> doing that, and we _remain_ with absolutely no evidence [...]
Well, I think it must be clear to you that I (and others on the
committee) disagree.
The question is whether to argue some point, or whether to consider
the conversation essentially finished. Whether to pursue a point
depends not on whether in some objective sense the case for one side
or the other has been made sufficiently.
Is it not clear to you that in my opinion the case has been fully made
out ? Can you not see that in my opinion there is nothing more I
could say (or with reasonable effort provide) that would convince you ?
(If not I don't see how I could have made myself plainer.)
There is no point in telling us over and over again that you are
unconvinced. We know you are unconvinced.
There is no point in telling us over and over again that you think
further discussion or investigation would be helpful, and repeating
your reasons ad nauseam. We know.
It is beside the point to complain that we are moving to a vote when
you remain unconvinced that we are right - even if you think that in
there might well be evidence which would convince you if only we could
be bothered to collect it.
It will sometimes be the case that a sufficient majority will conclude
that the discussion is essentially finished, and all relevant
information is collected and argument had, and that evidence that
their proposed decision is wrong is not going to show up - even though
a minority disagrees and thinks that there are still open questions.
It is of course good for us all to try to convincing each other,
honestly, and to try to bring the whole of the committee (and indeed
all of the other parties) along with our conclusions. But there will
sometimes come a point where a sufficient majority exists who agree
both about how the matter should be decided and that further
discussion or investigation is not going to be helpful.
The right answer in that situation is for us to vote and get the
matter over with. The dissenter(s) should write their reasons up in a
coherent rationale and attach it to their vote(s).
> You haven't tried convincing me; you've gathered absolutely no evidence,
Are you accusing me of bad faith ?
I feel that I have presented what I felt were convincing arguments
which you have rejected.
I understand that you feel that further evidence of operational
problems is necessary and might be convincing to you. But I feel
that, given your response to the information and arguments which have
been provided so far, the quality of the evidence which is likely to
be available within a reasonable time and with reasonable effort is
unlikely to be sufficiently convincing to you.
Note, I'm not saying you're refusing to be convinced. I just think
that your starting point is sufficiently far away from my view that
it would be disproportionately difficult to collect sufficient
evidence to convince you.
I may well be wrong. All of what I've just said about the merits of
further evidence, the effort of collecting it, the likelihood of it
convincing you, and so on, is just my opinion. Obviously you disagree
or you wouldn't be asking for more evidence.
That's fine by me. You're allowed to disagree with me.
Will you please accept that I am allowed to disagree with you ?
Even about meta-questions like whether a particular argument is
convincing, whether enough evidence has been collected or is likely to
be, who is likely to be convinced by what, and so on ?
Thorough discussion of these kind of meta-questions is usually
worthless because one's views depend so much on one's views on the
substance.
> Decisions in Debian are meant to be made by maintainers, not some core
> team. If your time with Canonical has made you come to another view,
> that's fine, but it's not the way Debian does or should work. If your
> lifestyle changes mean you've just got too much time on your hands, you
> should be spending it hacking on Debian, not bossing other developers
> around.
That is an unwarranted personal attack. Please withdraw it.
For the avoidance of any doubt, my time with Canonical did not lead me
to look more favourably on more centralised decisionmaking models.
Ian.
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