Re: RFD: amendment of Debian Social Contract
On Sat, 8 Nov 2003 18:56:15 -0500, Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org> said:
> On Thu, Nov 06, 2003 at 02:48:32PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
>> On Wed, Nov 05, 2003 at 01:54:39PM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> [...]
>> > > [ 1 ] Change social contract, remove non-free [ 1 ] Change
>> > > social contract, keep non-free
> [...]
>> Depends who they want to punt to. If they're happy to punt to other
>> developers (ie, the ones that do express a preference between the
>> first two options), or to the DPL (the elector with a casting
>> vote), there's no problem.
>>
>> > And suppose there is an explicit option
>> > [ ] Change social contract, remove non-free [ ] Change social
>> > contract, keep non-free [ ] Change social contract, punt on
>> > archive
> Anthony's example splits a potential "change social contract"
> supermajority into two, and yours splits it into three.
Split is the wrong term; in my version, three different
options would all result in changing the social contract
> This pretty much ensures the defeat of any option that requires a
> 3:1 majority, and makes it extremely difficult even to satisfy a
> propostion that requires only a simple majority.
I am afraid that does not follow. Unlike conventional voting
systems, our voting mechanism allows one to select all possible
options that one likes; people that want the social contract to
change could vote to have all these options above the default
option.
> Again, the point of my proposal to strike clause 5 from the Social
> Contract is to make the removal or preservation of the non-free
> section an administrative decision. Anthony has said elsewhere that
> he considers this "daft", but it nevertheless is my intention.
Well, I would think that my observation that this is the vote
when a non admin debian developer can weigh in on the decision holds,
then.
If the GR passes, then the decision of removing non-free
would, in your own words, be an administrative one, and can be
handled by the admins without any input from the run of the mill
developer.
Or is that not what you are saying?
> If people who agree with the proposal are nervous about passing it
> for fear of rapid and precipitious action on the part of some cabal,
> then I suggest we subject our administrative procedures to more
> scruitny.
If it is merely an administrative action, it would be
perfectly in the purview of the administrators to remove the non free
section, and thus, as far as the rest of us go, this is the vote
where we have any say in the matter.
> If SC #5 is the *only* thing stopping some nefarious actor within
> the project from taking single-handed, irreversible, and
> unaccountable action to drop non-free from our archives, then we
> have a big problem, and it has nothing to do with clause 5 of the
> Social Contract.
If the projects acts to remove SC #5, then actually removing
the non free section would not be nefarious, underhanded,
unaccounted, or even surprising; that is what we gave the admins
permission to do, by making the action a mere administrative task.
> I suspect that if we had more confidence in our mechanisms for
> making administrative decisions, people wouldn't need to wring their
> hands so much over the so-called "true meaning" of removing clause 5
> from the Social Contract.
I am not wringing my hands about whether the admins are going
to make admninstrative decisions, I am merely pointing out that this
would be the logical effect of removing #5; from that point on, it is
merely an administrative action. People should not be under the
mistken impression that they would have any further say in the
removal, or non-removal, of non free of the GR goes through.
And there is nothing wrong with that, as long as we all know
what it is we are voting on.
manoj
--
"Because my name is Daffy, They think that I'm insane Please pass the
ketchup, I think it's going to rain! Oh, you can't bounce a meatball,
Try with all your might. Turn on the radio, I want to fly a kite!"
Duck (daffy@wb.com)
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
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