Re: RFD: amendment of Debian Social Contract
On 2003-11-09, Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 07, 2003 at 03:27:14PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
>> Sure there is; people might legitimately want to vote:
>>
>> [ ] Change social contract, remove non-free
>> [ ] Change social contract, don't remove non-free
>> [ ] Don't change social contract, don't remove non-free
>> [ ] Further Discussion
>
> I disagree that those who want to change the Social Contract as I have
> proposed will necessarily have one position or another on keeping or
> dropping non-free. The result of your proposed ballot is that those who
> support my GR will be split among two ballot options, with the highly
> likely consequence that the proposition will fail due to the 3:1
> majority required.
The Standard Resolution Procedure specifies that options requiring a
supermajority need to defeat the default option by 3:1. Otherwise all
options are treated equally. Thus "splitting the vote" would only
make a difference to the outcome if there is:
* a significant percentage of developers who want to change the social
contract only on the condition that we keep non-free; AND
* a significant percentage of developers who want to change the social
contract only on the condition that we drop non-free.
If neither of the first two options above actually defeats the default
option by a 3:1 supermajority, it seems highly questionable to me that
Debian should actually modify the social contract: if that is the
case, then evidently the proposed change is too ambiguous. Someone
who definitely wants to change the social contract and has only a mild
preference about whether or not to keep non-free (for the moment)
would rank both options above the default option, and "splitting the
vote" would have no effect on supermajority requirements.
(BTW, in this proposed ballot, would the default option per the SRP be
"Further Discussion" or "Don't change social contract"?)
Peace,
Dylan
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