On Thu, May 20, 2004 at 07:23:03PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > You have been asked whether (and which) one of the proposed GR's will > make the decision sufficiently clear to you that you will not need to > have the tech-ctte decide explicitly. Eh? What difference does that make? The decision's delegated to the technical ctte; if you want to know which GRs will ensure they will make the decision you want you'll need to ask them. I don't really think any GR would avoid me wanting the tech ctte's explicit decision. Obviously my judgement on what the obvious implications of a GR isn't shared by a significant portion of the project. If they're unable to manage to actually vote on the issue and come to a formal decision, I'm confident the DPL will step in under his emergency powers (5.1.3) to clarify the issue. Is anyone keeping count of how many times I've said I've delegated this decision to the tech ctte? Any guesses on how many more times I'm going to have to say it? > You are still not answering that. It seems like kind-of a stupid question, and it hadn't been asked. Pretty amazing I didn't answer it, hey? > > That's nice. I've repeatedly told people that asking me questions isn't > > the right way to resolve this issue. > The sub-issue at hand is how you will act in the precense of one of > the proposed GRs. For finding out that, asking you is the *only* way. In the presence of all the proposed GRs, and any hypothetical GRs that may be proposed, or the lack of any GRs, or flamewars, or anything else, I've delegated this decision to the technical ctte, and will not be making the decision myself. > We're asking about a *fact*, namely how your actions in the role you > fill will be influenced by each outcome of the vote. No, you're asking for me to take back a decision that I've delegate to the technical committee. I'm not going to do so. Any questions you need answered about that decision should be directed there at this point. > > If you wish to rely on my opinions, > We don't. We wish to rely on facts. Then find them out yourself. The difference between facts and opinions is that you can find out the former without having to ask anyone. Misusing terms isn't going to get you your scapegoat either, sorry. > > The correct phrasing is "A part of the project thinks it's best to release > > on the original timescale [...]". This is not about me. > It is about the release. You are the one who are going to do the > release. I am? That's rather definite, don't you think? Weird, I thought I still had the option to retire if I chose. But anyway, as far as going back to the "original timescale" is concerned, which is just one component of how the release gets out after all, we can be quite definite: I am _not_ the one who is going to decide that. > > If what you're saying isn't clear, I'll be happy to discuss it with > > you until it is. > That seems to be exactly what you are refusing to do now. You won't > even tell us whether it is or is not clear. Work it out yourself. If you get half the project to tell me the correct course of action; I'll happily oblige. At the moment, there don't seem to be even a handful who'll quietly suggest that there's an alternative, or one that'll stand up for it in front of the technical committee. If you're worried that I or someone else'll come up with something you didn't think of beforehand, well, that's always possible; but the only way to avoid it is by asking everyone what they think in the first place, which isn't possible. It doesn't matter if I come up with an argument that convinces everyone that we're screwed, or if a 12 year old Windows convert does. The way to avoid it is by having the discussion up front, and thinking through the options. And for that you can do without me just as easily as you can do without random 12 year old Windows converts. Stop asking for cheat notes, and do the homework yourself. Coz, you know, I don't actually get issued with cheat notes either. > Does that mean that the answer to each of the five questions above is > uniformly "no"? I don't really care what your five questions are; the answer is that the technical ctte have been delegate this decision, and I won't be making it. > Nonsense. Asking the five easy factual questions above does not equal > "setting you up to take a fall". I cannot even see which possible, > likely or unlikely, fall you are referring to. Uh, you do realise infallibility isn't a RM superpower either, right? If I say "Voting for these options will let us do such-n-such; and these options won't", and it turns out to be wrong -- which it may well do, because, hey, I do make mistakes -- that lets you say "Well, _AJ_ said we could do this, but now he says we can't. Fucking hypocrite." Which would be fine, except that if that happens, people will actually say that, and if I dare ask for an apology, or try to defend myself, I'll just get lovely folks telling me how I've misinterpreted the comment and how thin-skinned and just plain stupid I am. Fuck that. There's nothing here you can't work out on your own; and odds are if you screw it up, people aren't going to bother calling you names. And if they call me names, I can just blame you. It's win-win. And hey, if you screw it up, you can always fix it again but better. Release early, release often, etc. Well, that is unless you _want_ to be able to call someone names, which is the only good reason to want my opinion on what you should do about this. Work it out yourself. Cheers, aj -- Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/> Don't assume I speak for anyone but myself. GPG signed mail preferred. ``Like the ski resort of girls looking for husbands and husbands looking for girls, the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem.''
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