Re: Bug reports of DFSG violations are tagged ???lenny-ignore????

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

On Thu, 2008-10-23 at 18:13 +0100, Neil McGovern wrote:
> Perhaps I'm mis-reading the above. Which bit of the foundation documents
> do you think would need overriding for the tech-ctte to rule on which
> fix to take?

One might think that this is the situation: two alternative fixes for
the DFSG problem, and a dispute about which one is better.  But
actually, that's not the situation.

We have instead an easy trivial fix, all but complete.  (Really, just
disabling the hardware, or the accelerations, depending on the case.)
And maintainers saying that this is an unacceptable fix--and no actual
alternative fix sitting around.

I think everyone would regard the fix preferred by the maintainers as
superior--there is no technical dispute.  The dispute is *not* between
the two fixes.  It is between these two approaches:

1) Install easy fix now; install fancy fix when it's ready, thus
complying with the DFSG at all times;

2) Install no fix now; install fancy fix when it's ready, thus violating
the DFSG in the meanwhile.

This is not a dispute about technical means or which is the best
solution to a technical problem; it is a dispute about whether we are
actually supposed to be doing our best to comply with the DFSG at all
times.

Thomas