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Re: Conflict of interest in Debian

On 10/14/2014 12:47 PM, Brian wrote:

On Tue 14 Oct 2014 at 12:06:11 -0400, Henning Follmann wrote:


On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 11:02:10AM -0400, Steve Litt wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Oct 2014 08:05:06 -0400
> Henning Follmann <hfollmann@itcfollmann.com> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 07:56:40AM -0400, Marty wrote:
> > > It seems like free software employment and market share come with
> > > increasing risk to objectivity and technical quality. It's my main
> > > concern as a Debian user, as I consider recent trends.
> > >
> > > I hope that Debian members consider an amendment to restrict voting
> > > rights for members who have a financial interest in Debian or in any
> > > project used by Debian, to promote and protect the public interest.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Why, what is the reason for that? Explain why they are less objective
> > or anyone having no financial interest is more objective.
>
> You know darn well, Henning. In anything, not just Linux, not just
> Debian, not just systemd, when somebody has the responsibility of doing
> the best thing for the community or other entity, but they also have a
> financial stake in which way the thing goes, they have a huge incentive
> to vote in a way detrimental to the community or other entity. This is
> why bribery is a crime.
>

Well thanks for pointing that out. But this effort can be seen as a way to
tilt the voting based on one aspect. And this being _systemd_. Now a group
has identified that another group with "financial interest" is more likely
to vote for sytemd. So lets disenfranchise those. That is equally bad.

And second "financial interest" != bribery. This is a very distorted view.
My work is based on debian as a development platform. So I do have a
financial interest in debian being a stable platform. So I shall be
disenfranchised?


The depths are really beginning to be plumbed. We have a proposer of an
resolution linking financial gain with the work people do in their free
time to give us a free OS. This is rapidly followed by a seconder who
has found another bandwaggon to jump on. All this is supposed to be for
the benefit of Debian.
When I started using Debian it was a hobby toy and something like this would never have come up. Now I have a hard time convincing myself that individual volunteers will ever again have that role or voice. The invisible hand of the market should not be the guiding force in Debian. 


Give me swearing in posts rather than innuendo and attempted character
assassination of a group dedicated workers.
I've seen some of that too, and it's sad, as well as undeserved, but it's the kind of dynamic that these conditions might give rise to. An honor or ethics code might defuse some of that, but I leave that for members to decide.
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