Re: Summary of voting irregularities
On Wed, Oct 11, 2000 at 03:25:07AM -0700, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> > > explicitly provide for -any- method to modify the Social Contract. It
> >
> > It explicitly provides that: §4.1(5)
>
> John: Again, I'm on your side here on the actual substantive issue.
> But surely you can't be blind to the fact that the actual wording of
> 4.1(5) is "issue" and not "modify". You might *interpret* that issue
> includes modify, but this is an issue about which people can
> legitimately disagree, and which the Secretary is *obligated* to
> render an authoritative interpretation.
Yes - interpret whether or not issue includes the ability to re-issue. If
it does, then Branden's GR is simply clarification of language. If it
does not, then both Branden's and Manoj's proposals server to change the
constitution to correct the deficiency that non-technical documents are
set in stone once issued at the moment, which is arguably ludicrous[1].
> Again, 4.1(5) does not say anything about modification, but only issuance.
And again, nothing about interpretation of whether or not issuance implies
modifications results in a 3:1 supermajority for a particular vote because
one single person has deemed it a more important issue than constitutional
protections provide for those documents.
It may well be that it _SHOULD_ require such a ridiculous supermajority to
modify such foundational documents, however nothing in the constitution
can be construed as even implying this. Either foundational documents are
modifyable or they're not. Anything else is a change to the constitution
and any such change requires 75% agreement of participating developers.
> > I agree that the Secretary's failure should not kill the proposal but
> > I am unsure of whether the Constituion actually allows him to do so.
>
> Given that the Chairman of the Technical Committee may step in, it
> isn't actually possible for one person to kill the proposal. And,
> even if it were, the proposal could simply be reintroduced again.
Who needs to kill the proposal when you can simply make up new procedure
to ensure that it never sees a vote as has been done here?
--
Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@debian.org> GnuPG key 1024D/DCF9DAB3
Debian GNU/Linux (http://www.debian.org/) 20F6 2261 F185 7A3E 79FC
The QuakeForge Project (http://quakeforge.net/) 44F9 8FF7 D7A3 DCF9 DAB3
[1] I was just waiting for an excuse to say "ludicrous"...
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