Re: Bug#727708: tech-ctte: Decide which init system to default to in Debian.
Lucas Nussbaum <leader <at> debian.org> writes:
> I agree. I don't think that many substantial new arguments are going to
> be brought by waiting more on this topic. And it is clear that we have
> reached a point where not having clear guidance is severely hurting the
> project.
I agree.
> I think that it would be a failure of the Debian project if we had to have
a GR
> about such a technical decision. I think that we need to trust that the
> Technical Committee will make the right decision. A GR about this will
likely
> result in splitting and hurting the project even more.
In my perception, it’s the other way round: a CTTE decision will be
seen as dictated from a small group, and the possible conflict of
interest has been raised, no matter whether it indeed matters in
the CTTE decision or not, people are saying it’s fishy.
On the other hand, a majority decision (well, one that wins by the
Condorcet method) will also disagree with some amount of DDs, but
is at least somewhat base-democratic, and every DD will be able to
affect the outcome. (Maybe not everyone should, but people who know
absolutely nothing about the subject of an election should just not
vote then.)
So I think that people would rather grudgingly accept a GR outcome
but not accept a CTTE decision on something like this that easily.
Also, why have people been shying back from GRs like they are a
plague? They are a good, and _the_, way to ask the people that
make up Debian for their opinion. As someone else said in one of
these threads: they don’t eat babies. I think “base democracy” is
a much lesser evil than “parlamentarian democracy” (even if both
usually end up beating minorities).
Finally, I believe strongly that the CTTE request is badly worded,
because the decision on whether we require support for more than
one (the “default”) init system must be decided either before or
at the same time as the default is going to be decided. With a GR,
I could express it as ordered preferences (for example, preference
for “support them all”, before sysvinit-only, before upstart-only,
before NOTA, before systemd-only).
This is strong enough that I’d like to see the CTTE outcome that
they suggest doing the GR after all (which would _also_ remove
the Canonical issue-or-maybe-not from peoples’ minds).
(Also, do remember that any decisive outcome other than “support
multiple ones including systemd” and “systemd-only” will need to
lead to the removal of GNOME from Debian. I won’t miss it, but
just saying.) Whatever CTTE and, maybe, the DDs voting in the GR
should it be done, do, it’ll change Debian as we know it, I’d say.
bye,
//mirabilos
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