Hi Peter, On Thu, Jan 25, 2007 at 05:08:42PM -0600, Peter Samuelson wrote: > > [Josip Rodin] > > I also think that a social committee would be a good idea. Even if > > unrefined and/or undefined, just the notion of having both a > > technical and a social committee would indicate major progress in our > > way of thinking. > > Pretty words. What problem is this supposed to solve? What benefits > can we expect from "major progress in our way of thinking"? > > > This one could be tricky to phrase. Maybe - "Decide on any social > > matter, including social norms and customs, non-technical > > communication among developers, and day-to-day organization matters > > within the Project." > > For example? For every social problem I can think of in Debian, the > solutions are not enforceable by a committee vote, unless you give them > the authority currently held by the DAMs, listmasters and ftpmasters. Those people have authority to restrict people's action in Debian, which I would say is the major 'punishment' in a free software project, so maybe the soc-ctte can influence the actions of those who currently have power rather than it having any real power. > That is, the only ways I can see to effect social reforms is to be able > to throw people out of the project, or restrict their list postings, or > restrict their uploads. The reasons why people are thrown out, have their postings or uploads restricted usually has some social component relating to a violation of Debian social norms. Would it not be good to have the reasons why someone was restricted be more transparent as opposed to wondering why person X did it? > Anything less is just empty gestures. People > who cause social problems don't stop just because someone asks them to > stop. As I said, technical means of restriction to the project is the most obvious way to make it clear that someone's actions are not appreciated. > > Or is this, just like way too many other threads in Debian, really > about Sven Luther needing a better ombudsman? I guess if someone felt that a technical decison was wrong, they'd go to the tech ctte. And similarly, if someone felt an enforment of social policy through technical restriction was unfair, they'd go to the soc cttee. -Kev -- | .''`. == Debian GNU/Linux == | my web site: | | : :' : The Universal |mysite.verizon.net/kevin.mark/| | `. `' Operating System | go to counter.li.org and | | `- http://www.debian.org/ | be counted! #238656 | | my keysever: subkeys.pgp.net | my NPO: cfsg.org |
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