Re: Non-Constitutional Voting Procedure
On Mon, Sep 25, 2000 at 12:22:58PM -0500, John Goerzen wrote:
> 5.Issue nontechnical policy documents and statements.
>
> These include documents describing the goals of the project, its
> relationship with other free software entities, and nontechnical
> policies such as the free software licence terms that Debian
> software must meet.
>
> By declaring that the Social Contract modification does not meet the
> criteria for a GR, and thus fails the §4.1(5) test, he is saying that
> it is not a document describing the goals of the project, nor does it
> describe its relationship with other free software entities, nor does
> it describe nontechnical policies. Clearly all three of these
> assertions are false. Only one need be true for the modification to
> be legal as a GR. Any reasonable person can see that clearly the
> Social Contract, BY ITS VERY NATURE, is in fact a document that
> defines Debian's relationship with other free software entities and
> describes the goals of the project! To claim otherwise is ludicrous.
Indeed, the Social Contract is "a document that defines Debian's relationship
with other free software entitites and describes the goals of the project."
However, the above quoted section does not refer to the modification
of existing documents or revoking existing documents, only to the issuing
of documents.
The constituition does not seem to refer to modification of existing
documents at all (except the constituition itself). There are therefore
two alternatives:
1. Modify the constituition to add provision for modifying and revoking
existing documents fitting the criteria above, or
2. Treat them as of equal importance to the consitituition.
(1) may be a good idea, but will not necessarily give you the result
you want ie modification of the social contract by GR. In itself
it will require a supermajority. (2) is a reasonable compromise
if you want a decision on this issue sometime before the end of 2001.
Either way, a supermajority will be required on one issue or the
other. There is no reasonable interpretation of the current
constituition that only requires a GR to modify the social contract.
> The Constitution lays out specific methods for modification of itself
> and other Debian-related documents. Regardless of your own personal
> opinion on the matter, the Constitution is straightforward in this
> regard and you do not have the authority to second-guess the
> Constitution here.
There is no reference to revocation or modification of existing
nontechnical documents such as the Social Contract.
<commentary>
Is this an attempt at death by formality? Do you hope that if
you use enough legal waffle, nobody will turn up to vote against
your proposal? You obviously doubt that your proposal would win 3:1.
</commentary>
Regards
Hamish
--
Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <hamish@debian.org> <hamish@cloud.net.au>
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