On Wed, Dec 06, 2006 at 12:21:59AM +0000, Stephen Gran wrote: > This one time, at band camp, Steve McIntyre said: > > On Tue, Dec 05, 2006 at 09:08:54PM +0000, Bill Allombert wrote: > > >On Fri, Dec 01, 2006 at 01:00:46PM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote: > > >> > > >> The best thing that can be done to reconcile the conflicting > > >> concerns right now, as far as I'm concerned, would be for all of us > > >> to stop telling other people what to do. > > > > > >This would start by rescinding the Vancouver proposal, and generally > > >not conflating executive and legislative power. > > > > What on earth are you babbling about? > > Bill's apparently under the impression that Debian has either a > legislative or an executive branch that exists and wields some power, > and this idea has apparently made him grumpy. It's good for all of us > that this idea doesn't actually exist. I wrote power, not people. In every society, power belong to three kind: executive, legislative and judicial. Debian is no exception. There is no much point using Condorcet vote system if we are going to ignore Montesquieu. Executive power is the power to do stuff, legislative power is the power to write rules how stuff are done and judicial power the power to force rules to be followed. For example developers have executive power over their packages, but the Debian Policy group has legislative power to set up policies that packages should follow and the technical commity has judicial power to ensure the policy are followed. If we follow the Debian constitution (section 2): The executive power is split belong: 1. The Project Leader; 2. Delegates appointed by the Project Leader for specific tasks; 3. The individual Developer working on a particular task, (like maintaining a package) The legislative power is held by: 1. The Developers, by way of General Resolution 2. The Developers, by way of Debian policy update process. (6.1(1), 6.3(5), Policy Process 3.) The judicial power is held by: 1. The Project Secretary. (7.1(3) Adjudicates any disputes about interpretation of the constitution. ) 2. The Technical Committee; (6.1(4) Overrule a Developer (requires a 3:1 majority). Cheers, -- Bill. <ballombe@debian.org> Imagine a large blue swirl here.
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