On Thursday 09 February 2006 20:26, Raul Miller wrote: > On 2/9/06, Christopher Martin <chrsmrtn@debian.org> wrote: > > But why does the Secretary get to decide whether this barrier should be > > set or not? > > The constitution says: > > "... the final decision on the form of ballot(s) is the Secretary's - > see 7.1(1), > 7.1(3) and A.3(4)." > > I think that's pretty clear. Sure, no one denies the Secretary the power to conduct votes within procedural guidelines. > I think it's pretty clear here that the Secretary is not exceeding his > powers in any way, shape or form. But it doesn't follow from the "final decision on the form of ballot(s)" that the Secretary is the DFSG arbiter. You'd think the constitution would have mentioned that. For instance, if the Secretary refused to include a GR amendment in a vote because he/she hated the proposer and merely declared it "just plain stupid", we can probably all agree that the Secretary would be acting improperly, despite his/her constitutional power to decide the shape of votes. So "final decision on the form of ballot(s)" is not some limitless purview. And since the constitution explicitly grants developers broad powers over defining documents, issuing statements, etc. (but not the Secretary) it seems that the most sound interpretation of the constitution is that the Secretary is not the DFSG arbiter, and should allow matters of interpretation of the DFSG to be settled by simple vote amongst the developers. This means refraining from imposing supermajorities on disputes over DFSG interpretation, despite strong personal views. Christopher Martin
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