I hereby attach myself as a sponsor of the proposed General Resolution. On Wed, Oct 31, 2001 at 11:35:42AM +0100, Raphael Hertzog wrote: > > PROPOSED GENERAL RESOLUTION > > IRC AS A DEBIAN COMMUNICATION CHANNEL > > 1. Context > > A #debian-devel operator regularly kicks (sometimes bans) people from the > channel if they are not Debian developers. He does so even if > they have been introduced by developers as valuable Debian contributors > and behave correctly in the channel. > > The invoked reason is historic. #debian-devel used to be for developers > only and from time to time issues discussed on > debian-private@lists.debian.org are discussed on #debian-devel. Even the > channel founders argued about the policy that should be applied to > #debian-devel. > > Other facts : > - #debian-private exists and is key protected (the key should be known > by debian developers only), although it is not really used > - #debian-devel is useful for many people and is useful for Debian > contributors (not yet developers) : > * the topic regularly ask for testers of prerelease of some packages > * the topic usually warns about the worst problems of unstable > * future developers can learn many things by following the discussions > - #debian-devel is used for day to day work related to Debian's > development > > > 2. Problems > > * The IRC channels #debian-* are not officially recognized as part of > Debian's communication channels. > > * Debian can't treat valuable contributors like it's done actually on IRC. > Kicking a person who naturally has its place within the developer's > community (because of his interest and his work) is not reasonable. > > (Personal note: this kind of behavior gives Debian its bad image of a > closed community preaching openness) > > * Debian's philosophy concerning the development has always been to open > the communication channels. There's a mismatch here. > > > 3. Proposed changes > > We should ackowledge the fact the IRC channels are used to communicate > within Debian. They are only an alternate way to discuss things. They > are not the main communication channels (the mailing lists are). This > should be documented in Debian Developers Reference and wherever it's > applicable. > > By acknowledging their existence, we also have to apply the usual Debian > policies : > - all #debian-* channels on OpenProjects should be open to everyone > except #debian-private which is for registered debian developers only > (the actual "key protection" may be replaced by a better identification > mechanism at any time) > - the "netiquette" (RFC 1855, section 4.1.2) applies, channels' > subjects should be respected > > Nevertheless, some specific IRC rules apply : > - the channels should not be publicly archived without notice > - public quotations may not be accepted by everyone > > > 4. Item proposed to vote (after the discussion period) > > [ ] I accept the ratification of IRC channels as a communication medium > and as such they have to follow the usual Debian policies (adapted > for IRC habits)
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