Streamlining the policy process

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Hi Russ,

Russ Allbery wrote[1]:

> Every time I've tried to streamline the process, someone equally upset
> rips me a new one for changing the Policy rules without consulting the
> project sufficiently.

The last time I raised the topic[2], I was told that what is stalling
most policy bugs is a lack of patches and that changing the process
would not help with that.  It was a useful reply, but I don't think it
got to the heart of the matter.

Here is a rant and a question.  Feel free to skip the rant if you're
not in the mood.

Rant
~~~~
See [*].

Question
~~~~~~~~
I'm happy to hear you have ideas for a smoother policy process.  Could
you suggest a few?  Maybe we can batch them up and make a general
resolution. :)

Hope that helps,
Jonathan

[1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors/2012/07/msg00037.html
[2] https://lists.debian.org/debian-policy/2011/11/msg00099.html
[*]
Here are some conterpoints from someone who has occasionally written
small patches to address policy bugs.

 - Uncertainty about the policy process leads to a stilted and
   uncertain discussion.  For example, I would not mind writing a
   patch documenting the consensus from bug#678607 (which is about the
   requirement to list original authors in debian/copyright) but I
   have no idea what the consensus is.  The conversation stopped for
   no good reason.

 - After a patch is written, it can sit for a long time afterward
   without being applied despite consensus.  This takes away some of
   the reward of writing a patch.

   For example, I think there is a strong consensus behind bug#578597
   (dpkg-buildflags is the interface for retrieving compiler flags in
   debian/rules) but even the proposed change to an example in
   bug#613046 has not been applied.

   Another example: there seems to be a strong consensus that symbols
   files are a part of the package format that we support and that
   they basically work as described in the patch from bug#571776.  But
   nothing happens.

In all these cases, if I understand correctly then nothing is
happening because no one knows what the next step is.

In most packages, that would be a situation for interested people to
ask the maintainer what is needed next and for the maintainer and
others to give guidance.  The current policy process means that even
the policy maintainers can wonder why a bug is stalled and there is no
one to offer guidance.

To put it another way: I don't think a lack of patches is the only
problem.  Sorry for the ramble.