Re: first proposal for a new maintainer policy
"Guy" == Guy Maor <maor@ece.utexas.edu> writes:
> Guy> The constitution places no limitations on the developer's
> Guy> authority with regard to their own work. Your version says that
> Guy> the maintainers must follow policy.
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@datasync.com> wrote:
> Is that such a bad thing, really? I would rather that the policy
> documents be corrected, and held as a set of rules htat have to
> be followed, woth an exception for the items that happen to be in
> flux (and that means actively debateed at large, not just in the
> developers mind). The technical committee can then be called upon to
> interpret this document, and maybe amend it, if needed.
Let's say we have an no-exceptions that only packages which follow
policy are accepted in our ftp archive. Does that mean that every time a
bug is found, where the package violates policy, that the package should
be removed from the archive?
Let's say someone writes a program which runs packages through a series
of tests and reveals a bunch of policy violations in many packages. What
does the iron-clad rule do for us here?
Let's say that in some of these cases any administrative fix would
seriously damage the integrity of the package... What then?
You've mentioned the code of Hammurabi, and the Magna Carta. Last time
I checked, Hammurabi hadn't done much coding for the linux environment,
and the Magna Carta doesn't even begin to address software issues.
We've already got governments to deal with the business of dealing with
unpleasant people. I think we're getting way off track if we try to deal
with ourselves as if we're fulfilling that kind of role... [If you agree
with me on this point, I won't have to go looking up references to the
government Iceland used to have before the king of Norway invaded, for
example.]
I'd put a lot more stock in the motto of the folks who put the internet
together: "rough agreement, and working code".
--
Raul
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