Re: Proposed change to Debian constitution
Edward Brocklesby <ejb@klamath.dhis.org> writes:
> Please offer sensible, well considered, useful comments. Replies from
> rude, abrasive people (you know who you are) will be ignored.
How very diplomatic of you ;-)
> 3. The Project Leader's Delegate(s) may decide not to admit any new
> Developers (close the New Maintainer process), until the next
> release of debian, provided Developers are in favour of this
> by a 3:1 majority. New Maintainer may be reopened either when the
> Developers agree to do so by a 3:1 majority, or the next version
> of Debian has been released. New maintainer may be closed for longer
> than this time only if a General Resolution is passed.
This (closing n-m) is not something anyone seems to want, so codifying
a way to make it happen seems a little pointless to me.
> 8.4 Composition
>
> 1. Any critical package or system team (e.g, the New Maintainer team,
> the FTP Admin team, any Essential package's maintainers) must have
> a reasonable number of active members at all times.
and what happens if this condition is not met ?
> 2. If, for any reason, it is not possible for a reasonable number of
> members of any team to be active, the Project Leader, one of
> the Leader's Delegates, or a member of the team must appoint
> enough members to ensure there are at least two active.
how about if there are no volunteers ? and if there are volunteers
with the right skills, why would this not happen naturally without the
need for the above clause.
> 3. All mailing lists for a particular team must be open, unless
> the Developers agree that it may be closed, by a vote with a
> majority of at least 3:1, or the Project Leader gives permission
> for the list to be closed, and no Developers object to this.
If people on a team decide that the list is better closed for some
reason, and the project attempts to bar this, then they'll just take
it to private email --- this is unenforcible.
> 4. An "Active" member shall mean a member who, in any given day, would
> be able to take suitable action on any situation relating to that
> particular team.
Hm, I wonder how many ``active'' developers we have by that definition.
> 5. "Reasonable number" shall mean either the amount of people required
> to handle all issues relating to that team, or two, whichever is
> greater.
I think we generally assume that our fellow developers will act in a
sensible manner, so writing constitutional clauses to that effect
seems somewhat redundant.
> 6. An "open" mailing list shall mean a mailing list to which anyone
> can subscribe to and read. The list may restrict who is allowed
> to post to it (a "moderated" list). The list must be archived
> in a publically accessible place, for a period of at least two
> years.
Again, why on earth do we need this in the constitution ?
It strikes me that this proposal is just a way of airing your
grievance about n-m being closed. As far as I can tell, the matter is
in hand and will be resolved in the near future, so perhaps you should
do us all a favour and spend your time on something constructive
instead.
<general rant>
I generally object to anything that introduces or supports the idea
that voting on things is a good way to run Debian. Things get done
around here because people feel like doing them, not because we all
voted and told some poor sod that they've been elected to do the job.
</general rant>
Was that abrasive enough for you to ignore me?
Cheers, Phil.
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