Bug#210879: marked as done (constitution.txt: revise odd language -- "K Developers"... "not integers")
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and subject line Bug#210879: constitution.txt: fractured developers
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From: A Costa <agcosta@gis.net>
To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>
Subject: constitution.txt: revise odd language -- "K Developers"... "not integers"
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Severity: wishlist
There's some odd language in '/usr/share/doc/debian/constitution.txt':
1 A resolution or amendment is introduced if proposed by any Developer
2 and sponsored by at least K other Developers...
...and the number 'K' is later defined, in part, as follows:
3 Q and K need not be integers and are not rounded.
This implies fractional Developers. In line #2 above the author must
have meant an integer, (or rather a natural number -- there aren't any
negative numbers of Developers), but saying "at least" leaves room for
doubt, especially since line #3 says K isn't rounded!
Example: suppose K=4.4; but by line #3 'K' is not rounded, (if it were we'd
know a quorum would be at least 5, or 4.4 rounded up), and if it's not
rounded then .4 of a Developer means who knows what.
For line #3 I suggest changing 'integers' to 'natural numbers' or 'whole
numbers', and 'and are not rounded' to 'and are rounded up when counting
people, but not when counting votes.' ...or something to the same
effect.
(Of course we all know a Constitution is by design not as easy to amend
as a garden variety typo. Difficulty shouldn't justify errors though.)
Hope this helps us become wholly impartial.
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>From asuffield@suffields.me.uk Thu Oct 02 22:51:57 2003
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Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 04:51:50 +0100
From: Andrew Suffield <asuffield@debian.org>
To: 210879-done@bugs.debian.org
Subject: Re: Bug#210879: constitution.txt: fractured developers
Message-ID: <20031003035150.GB2716@doc.ic.ac.uk>
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To hell with this, it's way past ridiculous. The bug submitter is
clearly more interested in writing lengthly dissertations on nothing
in particular than in making his case, since he has done the former
several times but never responded to any serious rebuttals of his
argument, except to state his opinion that the constutition is already
written in the style of low-level prose, and should therefore be
(re)written in this style in the places where it is not
already. Despite his own admissions that this style is less accurate.
So he doesn't appear to actually have a point, or even self-consistency.
--=20
.''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield
: :' : http://www.debian.org/ |
`. `' |
`- -><- |
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