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Re: Policy about policy



Hi,
>>"Raul" == Raul Miller <moth@debian.org> writes:

 Raul> Could you expand on this a bit?  

        I'll treat this point by point.

 Raul> That means to me that the proposal document ought to be talking
 Raul> about
 Raul> (a) documenting existing practice, and

        The proposal document not only documents existing practice,
 but shall be modified to detail new mothodologies and protocols as
 and when they are decided, whether or not they have been in practice
 prior to that ppoint or not.

 Raul> (b) getting approval from relevant package developers, and

        This, I believe, is the crux of my obje3ction. If we have to
 get all developers to buy in whose packages may be affected, we can
 never make policy that affects very many packages. And even one
 developer objects, we have to rely on the tech committee, and, quite
 frankly, I do not have that level of trust in that small a group of
 people who are not quite accountable to any on (and half of whom seem
 to have no interest in the proceedings).

 Raul> (c) getting the technical committee to approve (or disapprove) a
 Raul>     completed proposal, and

        Why do we need instructions on doing this? The proposal
 document is a guidelines to how this group operates. If the tech
 committee has protocols that need be followed, it should come up with
 a document detailing those protocols.

        They certainly do not belong in policy group guidelines.

 Raul> (d) getting the developers as a whole to overturn a technical committee
 Raul>     decision.

        Again, why do we need instructions for that in thet policy
 guidelines? People can just send a mail message (possibly to -devel,
 or to -ctte, and register their objections. At any rate, this has
 nothing to do with this group, and the guidelines.

 Raul> Reading the proposal document, I'm guessing that you're saying that
 Raul> point (a) is too narrow, or you're objecting to the idea that point (b)
 Raul> is important.  [You can't be objecting to point c -- that's already in
 Raul> the proposal document.  Though perhaps you have a different definition of
 Raul> "contentious" than I do.  And given what little you've expressed here
 Raul> I don't think you're objecting to point (d).]

        I am objecting to all these things being in the policy group
 guidelines.

        We ahve a working, (though not complete or perfect) set of
 informal guidelines. They do work for us. I see no need to bloat it
 with irrelevant things, or to formalize and make the document heavy
 weight.

        Frankly, I see any further hardening of the guidelines, and
 pulling in extraneous things as unnecesary red tape.

        You may argue that the -policy group has no power to change
 policy under the constituion. If so, we should get the DPL to
 delegate some authority to this group, or add powers in a
 constitutionsl amendment. 

        Emasculating this mailing list down to the powers of
 an individual developer would, in my opinion, be detrimental to the
 project. I think we do need an open policy crafting arm to the
 project. This group has been functioning fairly well as that so far
 (and we need to ensure that the glitch that caused the committee to
 be called in not happen again -- we need to work out the formal
 objection clause).

        manoj
-- 
 We all agree on the necessity of compromise.  We just can't agree on
 when it's necessary to compromise. Larry Wall
Manoj Srivastava   <srivasta@debian.org>  <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
Key C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05  CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E


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