Re: CTTE and Developer Buy-in [Re: Bug#727708: init system other points, and conclusion]
On Thu, Jan 02, 2014 at 01:09:27PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Colin Watson writes ("Re: CTTE and Developer Buy-in [Re: Bug#727708: init system other points, and conclusion]"):
> > Is there any useful way we could take a reasonably quick non-binding
> > straw poll of developers? Sort of an "if we voted a particular way, is
> > it likely that we would be on the wrong side of developer opinion".
>
> I think this is very unlikely to produce useful answers. Non-binding
> polls have the serious problem that everyone knows they're not
> binding, so many people will simply not bother. And the result of
> such an exercise is likely to influence our thinking more than it
> ought.
>
> In this context I want to say again thata I think that direct
> democracy is a terrible way to make a technical decision. Our
> thousands of contributors don't have the time to do the reading and
> research needed to make a good decision.
>
> And, despite the fact that the decision has become very politicised
> (to some extent along the lines of preexisting camps of strongly
> disagreeing contributors), I think it is primarily a technical
> decision.
Perhaps you're right. I guess I'm trying to get a sense of how many
people there are who have made a considered technical evaluation but who
haven't felt it worth wading into the giant mail threads. But maybe
that's simply infeasible.
> If the vast majority of developers hate our decision, the GR process
> would be the right way to fix it. In that case finding K Developers
> to sponsor the GR would be trivial.
>
> Obviously that would be embarrassing for us and substantially damage
> our credibility. But I don't think it's at all likely. Do you ?
I don't know. That's part of what I'd like to find out. :-) My concern
is not so much embarrassment as wasting the project's time and
democratic effort unnecessarily.
--
Colin Watson [cjwatson@debian.org]
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