Bug#636783: Constitutional Amendment: TC Supermajority Fix
=== TC RESOLUTION STARTS ===
1. The Debian Technical Committee hereby exercises its power in
4.2(1) of the Debian Constitution to propose the following
General Resolution:
----- GENERAL RESOLUTION STARTS -----
Constitutional Amendment: TC Supermajority Fix
Prior to the Clone Proof SSD GR in June 2003, the Technical
Committee could overrule a Developer with a supermajority of 3:1.
Unfortunately, the definition of supermajorities in the SSD GR has a
fencepost error. In the new text a supermajority requirement is met
only if the ratio of votes in favour to votes against is strictly
greater than the supermajority ratio.
In the context of the Technical Committee voting to overrule a
developer that means that it takes 4 votes to overcome a single
dissenter. And with a maximum committee size of 8, previously two
dissenters could be overruled by all 6 remaining members; now that
is no longer possible.
This change was unintentional, was contrary to the original intent
of the Constitution, and is unhelpful.
Therefore, amend the Debian Constitution as follows:
(i) Replace "majority" with "supermajority" everywhere a ratio
other than 1:1 is specified. That is, in
4.1(2) -- Developers' power to amend the Constitution
4.1(4) -- Developers' power to overrule the TC
4.1(5)(3) -- Developers' power to amend Foundation Documents
6.1(4) -- TC's power to overrule a Developer (both occurrences)
replace the word "majority" with "supermajority".
(ii) In A.6(3):
3. Any (non-default) option which does not defeat the default
option by its required majority ratio is dropped from
consideration.
1. Given two options A and B, V(A,B) is the number of voters
who prefer option A over option B.
- 2. An option A defeats the default option D by a majority
- ratio N, if V(A,D) is strictly greater than N * V(D,A).
- 3. If a supermajority of S:1 is required for A, its majority
- ratio is S; otherwise, its majority ratio is 1.
+ 2. An option A defeats the default option D by its
+ required majority ratio if both:
+ (a) V(A,D) is strictly greater than V(D,A); and
+ (b) if a supermajority of N:M is required for A,
+ M * V(A,D) is greater than or equal to N * V(D,A).
(iii) In A.3(2) "Voting procedure", delete as follows:
2. The default option must not have any supermajority requirements.
- Options which do not have an explicit supermajority requirement
- have a 1:1 majority requirement.
The effect is to fix the fencepost bug, and make the wording
consistent, by always referring to "supermajorities" where
applicable. A 1:1 vote will need strictly more in favour than
against, but an N:1 vote will need only exactly N:1. This will
also have a (negligible) effect on any General Resolutions
requiring supermajorities.
For the avoidance of any doubt, this change does not affect any
votes (whether General Resolutions or votes in the Technical
Committee) in progress at the time the change is made.
----- GENERAL RESOLUTION ENDS -----
2. It is not practical for the TC to vote to accept/reject individual
amendments to the GR proposal. The TC would wish to delegate its
power to accept amendments, to avoid needing the collection of
sponsors for uncontroversial changes. However the Secretary has
advised that this is not constitutionally acceptable.
Therefore, to achieve roughly the same effect, the TC makes the
following promise. If any TC member gives notice that the TC
accepts an amendment, then at least one of the following will
happen:
(a) the TC will use its own power under A.1(1) to arrange that
the amendment appears on the GR ballot as an option;
(b) the TC will use its power under A.1(1) to propose and
its power under A.1(2) to accept the amendment, so that
the amendment is incorporated in the version voted on; or
(c) A member of the TC will publicly notify the amendment's
proposer that the amendment will not be accepted after all.
In this case TC will wait at least 7 more days before calling
for a vote, to give time for the amendment's proposer to
collect sponsors.
===== TC RESOLUTION ENDS =====
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