Re: NM Queue: Policy Discussion
On Tue, Jan 16, 2001 at 01:34:42PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 15, 2001 at 10:40:32AM -0500, Warren Stramiello wrote:
> > Debian is democratic, and needs clear rules and
> > transparent procedures to remain so.
>
> For reference, I think that statement is mistaken on both counts:
> democracies, representative or otherwise tend to organise themselves by
> votes on issues.
No, they appoint priviledged members by vote, who make the decisions.
Usually you have no other vote, sometimes there is the possibility of a vote
on certain issue (with a certain quorum etc), just like in Debian.
> A quick glance at recent history and you'll notice
> how poor a fit that is with Debian, where our attempts to decide
> an issue by vote tend to both be the exception to the rule, and die
> horribly. Additionally, clear rules and transparent procedures tend to be
> best applied to computers, not humans. We have judgement, some of us even
> have good judgement, it would be a huge mistake to disallow use of it.
Uhm, you think that early democracies worked flawlessly right from the
start? A quick glance at the history of Weimar Republic will quickly tell
you otherwise.
There are a couple of small issues in the constitution, but it seems to work
ok so far.
Thanks,
Marcus
--
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' Debian http://www.debian.org brinkmd@debian.org
Marcus Brinkmann GNU http://www.gnu.org marcus@gnu.org
Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de
http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de
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