On Fri, Apr 30, 2004 at 04:55:41PM -0500, Chad Walstrom wrote:
> I'm also not comfortable with adding verbose documentation for solutions
> that can be succinctly implemented.
What about actually saying in the constitution what the meaning of the
Social Contract is? Also, DFSG is according to the constitution a
similar document, while it's in a certain POV a piece of the SC
(addendum, clarification, as the SC itself says, and Bruce in his
announcement mail also implies[3]).
How about something like this:
Replace constitution 4.1.5, currently reading:
| Issue, supersede and withdraw 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.
|
| They may also include position statements about issues of the day.
|
| 1. A Foundation Document is a document or statement regarded as
| critical to the Project's mission and purposes.
| 2. The Foundation Documents are the works entitled Debian Social
| Contract and Debian Free Software Guidelines.
| 3. A Foundation Document requires a 3:1 majority for its
| supersession. New Foundation Documents are issued and existing ones
| withdrawn by amending the list of Foundation Documents in this
| constitution.
with
> Issue, supersede and withdraw nontechnical policy documents and
> statements.
>
> These include documents describing the goals of the project, its
> relationship with other free software entities, and nontechnical
> policies.
>
> They may also include position statements about issues of the day.
(dropping the second part of the second paragraph, and dropping the
three enumerated points)
And adding the following as a new chapter two, shifting the current
chapters 2-9 one position further:
> 2. Goals
>
> The goals of this project are written down in the document entitled
> 'Social Contract'[1], as was ratified on April 26, 2004[2].
>
> It is required that all Debian Developers agree by and promise to
> uphold the Social Contract to the best of their ability.
[1] Social Contract is including the DFSG, which is technically more
like an addendum, as the SC itself already says: ``We provide the
guidelines that we use to determine if a work is "free" in the
document entitled "The Debian Free Software Guidelines".''
[2] This is why those three points in 4.1.5 can be dropped, you change
the SC by changing the constitution, which already required 3:1, in
a kind of cleaner way than before. Unfortunately, the most recent
vote didn't treat the DFSG that way, although in [3] you can see
that it was originally intended that way.
[3] http://lists.debian.org/debian-announce/debian-announce-1997/msg00017.html
Rationale:
- This explicitely says that all developers are supposed to promise to
uphold the SC, as is currently asked from NM's.
- By means of a versioned reference to the SC from the constitution, no
need for the enumeration in 4.1.5 which is a bit out-of-style at that
place
- It explicitely says 'to the best of their ability', meaning that if it
is not possible due to time-constraints because a release is upcoming,
that is not a too bad a problem. My wording could still be improved
though.
I'd like some opinions and possible editorial improvements before
seeking seconds.
Especially since there are some issues with this proposal still:
- Unknown what Anthony Town's opinion on this one is
- What to do with the fact that the last vote replaced the SC which
included the DFSG with a SC that did not include the DFSG?
- What about the requirement of DD's to uphold the SC, should that be
more formally phrased? How to practically implement that?
- I dropped the second part of the second paragraph, because the example
was too much like it was referring to the SC. It could also be
replaced with simply a better example.
- That enumeration I propose to drop was only recently added, I didn't
have the time to look through the whole threads at that time whether
there maybe was a good reason for that, rather than solving the same
issue in a different way
--Jeroen
--
Jeroen van Wolffelaar
Jeroen@wolffelaar.nl (also for Jabber & MSN; ICQ: 33944357)
http://Jeroen.A-Eskwadraat.nl
Attachment:
pgpXISDSq6SAw.pgp
Description: PGP signature