On Thu, Dec 10, 1998 at 02:31:05AM -0500, Mike Goldman wrote:
> I am a new Debian maintainer, and although I have very strong opinions on many> things, I have tried to stay out of internal political disputes, but instead
> pursue the best policy as I see it in my own actions. Nevertheless, I thought> I would write you and let you know I felt that your message was very
> encouraging.
Your reply equally so, thank you.
> > The obvious requirement for the job is time for the project and lots of it
> > at that. But I also believe the project leader should take an active role
> > in leading the project, but not to the point that they start pushing instead> > of leading. The ability to listen to people you don't agree with is also
> > very important, as is the ability to say what you're trying to say clearly.
> > I believe I have these qualities.
>
> Having been involved in many organizations, where leadership became very
> activist about its own agenda, I know the importance of this. No matter how
> thoughtful and intelligent a leader is, there will be valid points of
> disagreement with his ideas from time to time.
Indeed. Ian is better about this than Bruce was, but Bruce was an active
leader (aggressively so) and Ian is not.
> In this circumstance, unless emergency action is called for, the leader
> must stand back and allow sufficient opportunity for all sides to be
> heard, and defer his own preference to the opinions of the group.
And even then I'd hit irc to see what people think. I'm very much an irc
person, so this would be easy for me to do.
> This is more difficult than it appears, and requires sometimes allowing a
> very strongly held minority opinion, even one opposite to his own, to
> prevail. While democratic principles are appropriate in many cases, in a
> volunteer organization the recognition must be made that a minority may
> vote with their feet, i.e., leave the group. A leader's own preference
> should be enforced principally by the persuasiveness of his argument, not
> his authority to decide (or force decision of) a question.
In fact, too many people have left the project over this kind of thing. I'd
try to minimize this as much as possible on my watch of course, but I won't
take it personally if someone walks rather than trying to work with me if
I'm part of the problem they're having or doesn't want my "help" to try and
resolve the issue. I've taken anger and stress management cources (because
I needed them) and those got into conflict resolution a bit.
I am an excellent impromptu public speaker which shows in my email I think.
As a matter of fact, being legally blind myself, I couldn't read notecards
and the like for my public speaking class and the effort of trying to work
out a system I could still have my notes in front of me and read them,
well... I couldn't because the effort required to read a word on a card
broke my concentration and made the speech turn out badly.
Of course, I also had an aversion to homework, so after a few tries at it I
just stopped writing speeches all together and just never handed in my
notes. It was only when we got to the impromptu speeches at the end of the
term the instructor realized I was giving impromptu speeches all along. The
look on her face was worth the nasty grades she gave me for among other
things "poor handwriting". She wouldn't let me use a computer for my
assignments because she knew my handwriting was bad if you can believe it.
But then she wouldn't accept many of my assignments because of my bad
writing. This pretty much killed any desire to hand in written assignments
in her class. Which was fine, more time to devote to the things I enjoyed
such as literature and science.
> > I think it's important that those who are planning to support me in this
> > election be aware of my position on a few issues. One of the most prominent> > issues I see affecting the project right now is IWJ's proposal to rewrite
> > the DFSG. I am opposed to this and believe we should focus on correcting
> > the problems with the current DFSG rather than trying to totally replace it.
>
> Relating to my previous paragraph, great discontinuities require significant
> consensus. It is the obligation of those who would replace the existing DFSG
> to create such a consensus, yet I have seen no very strong arguments that the
> existing language cannot be remedied (if appropriate) through lesser
> amendment.
I've made a rather emotive posting or two to this effect. =>
> If you are made project leader, I hope that you will encourage a full
> consideration of the supposed defects in the current language, and if
> these are generally agreed to, a full and fair discussion of the best (and
> preferably least disruptive) means of correcting them.
Least disruptive is good, yes. I suspect this flamewar will not manage to
last till elections are over actually. It is my belief that we can and
should resolve it before that time.
As I indicated before, replies such as this make me believe I have a real
chance of becoming the next leader. I'm convinced moreso now than even
before I am a good candidate and will do my best to get elected and that
done show my sponsors they made the best choice. I believe I am the best
candidate at the moment. Of course, I am the ONLY candidate at the moment
but I suspect a few others will find their way into the running and may be a
better choice than I. Time will tell.
> > I also am opposed to some of the changes made in Ian's proposal, namely
> > placing a time limit on use of the BSD Advertising clause and disallowing
> > licenses which require modifications to source code be made as patches. I
> > can agree that both of these things are not desirable even if they are at
> > the moment allowed by the DFSG. I can agree that we might make it known in
> > a revision of the DFSG that both of these are depreciated because they are
> > difficult to work with, but removing them outright seems like a bad plan to
> > me, as does applying a time limit to their acceptance or grandfathering
> > well-known applications or licenses.
>
> Grandfather-clauses are really an example of inconsistent policy resulting
> from an excessively disruptive change. Either a policy should be adopted
> or not, and if the effects of such a policy are deemed too disruptive in
> view of the objective, then the weight of argument against the policy is
> increased.
Excellent argument. =>
> Since Debian distributes everything in pristine-source + patch form, I do
> not see any urgency to the question, although I can certainly see good
> reasons to prefer that this not be a requirement. Nonetheless, Debian
> policy should not require enforcement of every preference, but may
> sufficiently state the preference and enforce only what is required to
> allow us to include a package consistent with our principles.
It's still important for moral reasons though. I don't like patch clauses
any more than the next developer but in the end, they are really just an
inconvenience.
--
"I may be a craven little coward, but I'm a _greedy_ craven little coward!"
-- Daffy Duck
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