Re: Amendment to GR on GFDL, and the changes to the Social Contract

[Thomas Bushnell BSG <tb@becket.net>]

Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> writes:

> However, it *did* pass a simple majority.  It doesn't benefit us as a
> project at all to have people making overly-broad claims about the
> significance of the previous votes.  When I look at the relatively low
> turnout of 2004-03, the complaints since about its handling, and the fact
> that a vote to repeal 2004-03 received a simple majority among a larger body
> of voters, I find it impossible to draw any strong conclusions about
> project-wide opinions on this subject.  *Would* a vote with fuller project
> participation overturn the Social Contract modifications?  I can't say
> either way with any confidence.  2004-03 certainly wasn't the "mandate from
> the masses" that some people seem to want to claim it is.

I wouldn't claim it's a "mandate from the masses."  Simply that we
followed our procedures, and this is the result.

We are now on the third time through this, and I'm sick of it.  It's
time for people to stop trying to think up novel ways to reintroduce
yet again the same questions.

It is only goodwill that restrains me from introducing "remove
non-free" every year.  Or heck, every six months.  That goodwill
depends on other developers having similar restraint.  It is
singularly unfair to rely on my goodwill while others are happy to
simply hammer away again and again at the same issue, hoping that
eventually they will get what they want.

Thomas