On Thu, Dec 04, 2003 at 03:00:44AM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
> On 2003-12-04 00:52:17 +0000 Joel Baker <fenton@debian.org> wrote:
>
> >Frankly, I'd wonder if the most suitable answer isn't simply an
> >annotation
> >of some form, to the effect of "[1] Since one can't have fractional
> >developers, and the rule is 'at least', we always round up to the next
> >integer".
>
> As previously explained (by Andrew Suffield, I think), that is not
> what happens.
Then I would have to say that we have, in fact, gone far enough into the
realms of esoteric math (or pedantry) to have utterly lost any casual
reader.
In what was are the statements "at least <real> Developers are required",
and the one above functionally different? Can you present any number
for which one is true, and the other isn't? Or is this arguing over the
pedantry "we don't round up", which could be rephrased in a number of ways.
As someone else pointed out, a requirement of 2/3 majority (or 2/3 quorum,
or any other count) doesn't bring the world to an end when the number
is not divisible by 3 - but if you're going to claim that this does not
have exactly the same effect as applying an integer comparison against
ceil(<quorum>), then I want to know where we departed from the math I grew
up learning, or where you came up with a fraction of a developer.
Annotations are frequently separated from a document precisely so that
the document can be explained in casual terms (for this case, read: not
in formal mathematics), without diluting the actual document itself with
the explanations. Thus, talking about "effectively" is not unreasonable;
perhaps you would prefer "we effectively end up rounding upwards to the
next integer"? That, at least, would satisfy pedantry while still conveying
useful information to the casual reader.
--
Joel Baker <fenton@debian.org> ,''`.
Debian GNU NetBSD/i386 porter : :' :
`. `'
`-
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