On Thu, May 20, 2004 at 09:53:50AM -0700, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> That's not what we're asking. We're asking: What effect would the
> following language have on release timing?
It's remarkable how much talking you do and how little listening.
Anyway. Language has no effect on release timing. Release policies have
an effect on release timing. The following release policies are possible:
* All programs in main must be DFSG-free
* All GPLed firmware in main must comply with the GPL
* All program documentation in main must be DFSG-free
* All documents in main must be DFSG-free
* All firmware in main must be DFSG-free
* All data in main must be DFSG-free
Apart from the first two, I don't believe any of the latter are being
distinguished; I might be wrong, that's up to the tech ctte. They
probably could be if people wanted to. (Arguably the third point --
program documentation -- should be more carefully considered; pre-GFDL
that was semi-formally considered a requirement, though never particularly
thoroughly enforced ttbomk)
I don't have any particular estimates on how long satisfying and verifying
each independent issue would take; I expect achieving the first two can't
be reasonably avoided under any circumstances, and will take some time,
on the order of a month or two hopefully, and that handling all of them
together without significantly harming the quality of our release will
take the rest of the year (or just a couple more months if we decide we
don't care if what we release is actually pretty crap).
If folks want more fine-grained estimates, they should be perfectly
capable of doing them themselves; I don't have any particular numbers
readily available. If folks want more accurate estimates, I can't think of
any particular ability I have that makes my estimates better: certainly
my last estimate for sarge's release doesn't seem to have panned out
particularly well.
Which of those release policies get adopted (or some other variation)
needs to be decided by the technical ctte. At present the social contract
appears to require that all of them be adopted.
If you want to work out what language will allow which release policies,
then you should discuss that with folks who can speak English. There's
plenty of them about. If you're concerned that the folks making the
decision are irrational morons and will have a completely oddball
interpretation, then you should talk to the tech ctte, since they're
the ones making the decision [0]. Or you could pre-emptively overrule
the tech ctte in the GR. Or you could do something else. Whatever.
None of the above required any special RM superpowers to think through.
I'm presuming of course that "thinking things through" isn't an RM
superpower. The evidence for that doesn't seem particularly strong at
the moment, though.
> But one key
> piece of information is missing: what is the release manager's
> estimates of the effect different possible wordings would have on
> release timing.
You know, a google search for `"release timing" debian-vote', turns up
no messages on this list. Clearly a topic of great interest for the vote.
Cheers,
aj
[0] Perhaps you should talk to the DPL and ftpmaster too, though the
tech ctte can trivially override any decision they might make if
they come to a consensus on the correct policies.
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
Don't assume I speak for anyone but myself. GPG signed mail preferred.
``Like the ski resort of girls looking for husbands and husbands looking
for girls, the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem.''
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