On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 01:33:50AM -0500, Nathanael Nerode wrote:
BTW, fix your mail reader. There's no excuse for breaking threads, nor for
Cc'ing people with a Mail-Followup-To set when posting to debian lists.
> AJ Towns, doing his best idiot impression, said:
Man. We need a "Insulting HOWTO". That's just lame. How about,
] AJ Towns, acting like the idiot he is, jibbered:
And trust me, I can do waaaay better idiot impressions.
> >Well, I'm sorry that you're so blinkered as to think that software cannot
> >possibly mean programs, but not documentation,
> It could, but (a) that's not the most proper meaning, and (b) it's not the
> meaning of the people who wrote the phrase.
It's not what Bruce claims he meant now. OTOH, it's how it's been
interpreted since it was written, and it's how it's being interpreted
by the delegates at the moment.
I know you don't like that, but, well, tough biscuits.
The easiest way to fix this if you really want to is to make sure it's
easy for the relevant maintainers -- in particular glibc, gcc, gdb,
libtool, etc to be able to include unambiguously DFSG-free versions of
the manuals for their packages. That means, aiui, going back to the
pre-GFDL versions of the docs, forking them, and, where necessary,
updating them to at least ensure they're not woefully inaccurate.
Acting like your priority is "adherence to my ideals, no matter the cost"
contradicts the prioitisation we give our users and the free software
community, IMO. I'm not willing to support that, and I'm certainly not
willing to accept that because a few people, or even a mailing list,
insists on it.
> And more important, what would your justification be for treating the two
> categories differently? Nobody's come up with one, really.
The justification is that not distributing docs harms our users. Not
to mention that declaring the FSF is against free software harms the
community.
> Quite a number of maintainers have removed non-free materials from their
> packages in main. That qualifies as persuasive.
Unfortunately, it's not the issue. Most of Debian agrees that non-free
documentation is bad. The issue is whether we should drop the stuff even
when, on balance, the maintainer thinks it should be kept.
> The
> opposition repeatedly comes from people who haven't thought it through,
Well, you can tell yourself that as much as you like, but it doesn't make
it true.
> and
> it would be preferable if the same damned arguments which were gone over in
> excruciating detail didn't have to be gone over yet again.
Well, we were having a different argument, but if you're so addicted to
the old ones that you try to convert it to that, there's not much anyone
can do for you.
> Actually, have you considered adding a disclaimer to Sarge, noting that it is
> known *not* to satisfy the Social Contract?
No more so than has been done for every previous release, which have all
suffered similar problems.
I'm happy to debate the issue, and thus raise awareness of what we're
doing and why, though.
> >You think that the Social Contract
> >should be amended so that people who disagree with you are *forced*
> >to do what you want.
> Did you *ing READ what I wrote? It sure doesn't sound like it.
> I want the Social Contract to be amended to eliminate an ambiguity which is
> currently present.
So, at the moment it's possible to interpret the social contract to either
allow you to do A (but certainly not require it), or to disallow you from
doing A. You want to eliminate that ambiguity to ensure they're disallowed.
Your alternative is to persuade them not to do A, and not worry about the
amibguity at all.
(I should note that it only requires a simple majority on a GR to
override any delegate's decision in this area, so is presumably simpler
than changing the social contract)
> When there is an ambiguity of interpretation, there will have to, eventually,
> be one interpretation which is considered the "correct" or "current"
> interpretation. I think that that was pretty well worked out through months,
> or perhaps years, of argument, and it's the one I've taken.
Well, that might be your interpretation, it might even be -legal's
interpretation, but it's certainly not the project's.
> Or perhaps you're saying that you prefer to have an ambiguous, confusing
> Social Contract?
I prefer to have a social contract that allows us to make the best
technical decisions on a day to day basis, while ensuring we keep heading
towards our ideals.
Having every decision, even every important decision, spelt out in
advance would be harmful, IMO, yes. I'm not sure that's exactly the
same as an ambiguous social contract, but I'm not sure I could name any
differences in practice.
> >Because it's clear that the Social Contract *doesn't* say what you think
> >it already says; because if it did, there wouldn't be any disagreement
> >with you in the first place.
> Please stop pretending to be an idiot, since I think you aren't. It's
> *unclear* what the Social Contract says. That much is clear. ;-) I believe
> my interpretation is essentially correct -- it also agrees with the
> interpretation of the people who have thought about it the most.
Let me make it clear: I think our principles of freedom should apply to
*everything*; programs, scripts, documentation, art, music, licenses,
laws, whatever. I think, on balance, our users would be harmed if we
restrict main to free documentation at this point, that they aren't
harmed by dropping non-free programs, and that the best way to make
this distinction at this point is a blanket exemption for non-programs,
even if that distinction doesn't make any sense if you try to draw that
conclusion from principles, rather than practice.
> So, you're claiming that "the delegates involved" have total authority.
Yes, that's the way Debian works. Maintainers have total authority
over their packages, delegates have total authority over their area
of responsibility.
> Leader: Martin Michlmayr
> -- Has expressed no opinion, as far as I can tell.
No, Martin doesn't go looking for flamewars, unlike some people.
> Let's see who's delegated the authority to decide what satifies the Social
> Contract: Why, nobody! Isn't that interesting!
Maintainers have the responsibility of working out how the social contract
applies to their packages, delegates likewise. Where that overlaps --
eg, working out what packages go in main, both have to make the decision.
> Let's see who's delegated the authority to decide what's in Debian:
> the FTPmasters, apparently, which includes you.
> Let's see who's delegated the authority to decide what's in the stable
> releases: You, personally, apparently.
Strictly, I decide what goes into the r0 release, Joey decides what goes
into every release thereafter.
> So, I guess you personally get to decide what satisfies the Social Contract.
> I can see why you like this interpretation ;-)
Mmm. And I can see why you and Andrew like to think -legal gets to decide it;
hey it's much the same reason. Imagine that.
The real reason I think it's the responsibility of the appropriate
delegates is (a) that that's what the constitution says, as far as I can
see, and (b) that they're the ones who have to implement the decision,
and they're the ones who have to answer to other maintainers and to
users for enforcing the decision.
> There's no delegate who's actually formally delegated to interpret the Social
> Contract, of course, but I mentioned that already. Maintainers disagree, and
> who is to deal with that? Also, sometimes (rarely) maintainers flagrantly
> violate the Social Contract, or worse, distribute packages with flagrant
> disregard for their licenses. Whose responsibility is it to deal with that?
Maintainers disagreeing over issues that they're both responsible for can
be resolved either by them, or by the technical ctte, if it's urgent enough
that they actually wake up. If only one of them's responsible for the
decision, and the other is just unhappy, tough biscuits.
I'm not sure what you mean by maintainers flagrantly violating the social
contract. If you mean doing things like letting non-free documentation
into main because they don't think that's a violation at all, well,
whatever: you're loopy. Likewise if you think being on private security
lists is "hiding problems". Otherwise, it's the responsibility of everyone
to discuss the issue, and at worst the responsibility of the DAM to remove
the offender from the project.
It's the maintainer's responsibility to play nicely with upstream,
which includes not distributing the package against their wishes. It's
the archive admin's responsibility too. On the other hand, making sure
highly strung subscribers -legal don't get offended isn't anyone's
responsibility.
> No, that's not delegated either. Hmm.
I'm sorry, but you're wrong.
> >And? Plenty of developers who've done more work than you on this cycle or
> >others care and have opinions too.
> Yeah, and you've gratuitously attacked them too. So?
Gratuitously? As far as I'm aware, I've gone out of my way to hypothesise
noble motives for everyone involved, even when I think what they're
doing is actively harmful to the project. I certainly haven't gone out
of my way to avoid offending people who're saying non-sensical things,
but that's hardly gratuitously attacking people.
> >RMS has done more for free software than you have, and he
> >thinks that GFDL licensed docs are entirely free enough. Again, why do
> >you think your opinion matters, let alone enough to trump RMS's?
> A large number of people agree with me, including many other FSF developers.
That's nice. Lots of people like rpm too; shall we drop dpkg and switch?
> I have explanations which convince people who are willing to listen to
> reason. In other words, my opinion is not just my opinion; it has *backing*.
Great. So talk about your backing. It's what matters. Your opinion
doesn't.
> Contrast RMS, who has apparently decided that it is not the business of
> anyone else to attempt to influence him,
I doubt you'll find RMS saying that anywhere. What you're more likely to
find is him saying something like, oh, I dunno, "it would be preferable
if the same damned arguments which were gone over in excruciating detail
didn't have to be gone over yet again."
> >If you're really the kind of person who thinks his opinion is worth
> >anything to anyone else for it's own sake, you're probably going to end
> >up disappointed if you ever bother to join Debian, too.
> I don't know what you mean by "for it's [sic] own sake". If it's a good,
> well-grounded opinion, with lots of rationale and evidence backing it up --
> which in this case it is -- it's worth something.
No, it's like stone soup. It's the rationale and evidence that are
worth something. Take away the statement of opinion and it's just as
valuable. Take away the rationale and evidence, and it's nothing.
Cheers,
aj
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.
Linux.conf.au 2004 -- Because we could.
http://conf.linux.org.au/ -- Jan 12-17, 2004
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