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Proposal: Enhance requirements for General resolutions



Hi,

I have felt for some time that the low requirement for seconds on General
Resolutions is something that should be fixed. Currently it needs 5
supporters to get any idea laid before every Debian Developer to vote
on. While this small number was a good thing at the time Debian was
smaller, I think it is no longer the case. We currently have over 1000
Developers, and even if not everyone is active all the time, there
should be a little higher barrier before all of them have to deal with
something, effectively taking away time from their usual Debian work.

While one could go and define another arbitary number, like 10 or 15 or
whatever, I propose to move this to something that is dependent on the
actual number of Developers, as defined by the secretary, and to
increase its value from the current 5 to something higher. My personal
goal is 2Q there, which would mean 30 supporters. If you can't find 30
supporters, out of 1000 Developers, your idea is most probably not worth
taking up time of everyone else.

Various IRC discussions and the discussion on debian-project in December
told me that others feel similar. So here is a proposal.

As the discussion in December also told us, we should vote on different
options than just one, so I will also send in an amendment. My personal
goal would be to end up with a vote having options similar to the ones
pasted below as an example, but if someone feels like having a "Keep it
like it is, no discusssion" is needed, I would accept such an amendment
too. (Not that I think its neccessary, for me FD means that, but still).

- - - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
[   ] Choice 1: Enhance seconders to 2Q [3:1]
[   ] Choice 2: Enhance seconders to Q [3:1]
[   ] Choice 3: Further Discussion
- - - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

As this will change the constitution it will need a 3:1 to win. (see
Constitution 4.1.2)

Of course, this being a proposal to enhance the required seconds, I
would love if many people do second this, even if we might be past the
currently needed limit already. The more the better. :)

PROPOSAL START
========================================================================
General Resolutions are an important framework within the Debian
Project. Yet, in a project the size of Debian, the current requirements
to initiate one are too small.

Therefore the Debian project resolves that
 a) The constitution gets changed to not require K developers to sponsor
    a resolution, but floor(2Q). [see §4.2(1)]
 b) Delaying a decision of a Delegate or the DPL [§4.2(2.2)],
    as well as resolutions against a shortening of discussion/voting
    period or to overwrite a TC decision [§4.2(2.3)] requires floor(Q)
    developers to sponsor the resolution.
 c) the definition of K gets erased from the constitution. [§4.2(7)]

(Numbers in brackets are references to sections in the constitution).
========================================================================
PROPOSAL END

Practical changes: Taking the definitions of the latest GR we had,

 Current Developer Count = 1018
 Q ( sqrt(#devel) / 2 ) = 15.9530561335438
 K min(5, Q )           = 5
 Quorum  (3 x Q )       = 47.8591684006314

this will mean that future GRs would need 30 other people to support
your idea. While that does seem a lot (6times more than now),
considering that a GR affects more than 1000 official Developers and
uncounted amounts of other people doing work for Debian, I think its not
too much. Especially as point b only requires 15 people, 3 times the
amount than now, in case there is a disagreement with the DPL, TC or
a Delegate.

-- 
bye, Joerg
* libpng2 no libpng3 no why ? because no yes no yes no yes bullshit no yes
  no yes no yes stop ? no when someday beep beep beep beep (Closes: #157011)
 -- Christian Marillat <marillat@debian.org>  Thu, 29 Aug 2002 16:41:58 +0200

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