Re: Amendment to GR on GFDL, and the changes to the Social Contract
Christopher Martin <chrsmrtn@debian.org> writes:
> On Thursday 19 January 2006 20:39, Don Armstrong wrote:
>> On Thu, 19 Jan 2006, Christopher Martin wrote:
>> > No, because as I wrote the whole point of the amendment is to make
>> > officially acceptable the interpretation of the license which views
>> > the license as flawed, but still DFSG-free. This amendment is in no
>> > way arguing for any sort of exception or modification or suspension
>> > of the DFSG.
>>
>> The issue here devolves into a question of interpretation; if we can
>> decide to interpret the Foundation Documents in any way we want simply
>> by a majority vote, the requirement to have changes to them meet a 3:1
>> majority becomes rather pointless.
>
> This is a real dilemma faced by all constitutions or similar charter
> documents. Unfortunately, all constitutions can be undermined by the
> reinterpretation of seemingly small details. But one person's "undermining"
> is another person's "upholding".
>
> The important question here is one of legitimacy. Who exactly has the
> authority to determine these matters of interpretation? Specifically, who
> decides what is in accordance with the DFSG? The developers do, through
> GRs, if I understand correctly. Certainly nothing in my reading of the
> Constitution suggests that the Secretary has this power.
>
> The Secretary seems to be adopting the view that anyone who disagrees with
> his interpretation of the GFDL is not holding a legitimate opinion. Given
> the length of the GFDL debates, the acrimony, and the number of developers
> who remain on both sides, this seems far, far too strong a stance for a
> Project officer to adopt (even if Manoj holds that view personally). Hence
> my complaint.
I completely agree, and hereby question whether the secretary is capable
of being impartial in this case given his personal interests[1] in this
issue.
[1] http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/Position_Statement.xhtml
--
Captain Logic is not steering this tugboat.
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