Re: Bug#727708: Both T and L are wrong, plea for something simpler
On Sat, Feb 08, 2014 at 03:30:10PM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> writes:
>
> > I question the whole notion of DPL delegation of policy powers to the
> > policy editors. The power to decide the contents of the debian-policy
> > package follows from their status as package maintainers; package
> > maintenance is not something that I believe it's in the purview of the
> > DPL to delegate.
>
> This came up in the discussion over the delegation text. I disagree with
> this characterization of the Policy Editor role, and I think the other
> Policy Editors also disagree. I don't think we are just package
> maintainers in the normal sense. The debian-policy package is an artifact
> of the process and a means for documenting its results, not the only
> purpose of the group.
>
> If debian-policy were merely a package like any other, then anyone else
> who introduced a similar package into the archive would have the same role
> within the project as the debian-policy package maintainers. I don't
> think this is how the project actually looks at the matter. The Lintian
> maintainers, the release team, the ftp-masters, and many other teams in
> Debian take formal notice of the acts of the Policy Editors in a way that
> wouldn't equally apply to some other package that people introduced into
> the archive, and would continue to do so even if the results weren't
> published as a Debian package.
Without going into the constitutionnal question, for me the essential
role of the Policy editors is to ensure that the policy update process is
followed, and that the policy changes reflect the consensus in Debian.
On the other hand, Policy editors do not have more authority to issue
policy proposals than any other developers except they are likely
to be more experienced.
This is different from package maintainers which has much more freedom
when dealing with their packages.
Cheers,
Bill
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