Re: Proposal G (was: Proposal - Deferment of Changes from GR 2004-003)
* Don Armstrong (don@donarmstrong.com) [040601 11:40]:
> On Tue, 01 Jun 2004, Andreas Barth wrote:
> > We, Debian, reaffirm that our priorities are our users and the free
> > software community. We keep to that, both are our priorities. We
> > don't intend to give one of them up for the other. We strongly
> > believe that, in the long run, their interests are the same.
> That's a nice thing to say, but in the short term, what exactly does
> this mean for the various clases of controversial works under
> discussion here?
See the last part of the proposal.
> > For our users, we promise to do regular releases; as a guideline, a
> > major release of the distribution should happen about once a year.
> I have no idea why this is being discussed in the context of this
> vote. I suggest that this is an anciliary issue that should be voted
> on separately. [Secretary: is this your understanding as well?]
Because this proposal does speak about what the Social Contract
promises, and the Social Contract does in fact not only speak about
the Free Software Community, but also about our users. A GR that only
speaks about one part of the promises is putting some priorities on
the different promises in the Social Contract.
> > Furthermore, by this decision, we overrule the decision by the
> > release manager in
> > http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/04/msg06588.html and
> > re-inforce the release policy that was valid prior to this
> > date[1]. Of course, the Release Manager team is authorized to adjust
> > the release policy.
> I would suggest using a positive direction instead of the nebulous
> concept of "overruling the decision". That is, direct the release
> manager to make a release policy along a specific line to resolve
> whatever problem you believe exists in the RM's interpretation of
> policy.
This proposal does very clear adopt a certain policy for the Release.
I can't see any nebulous concept here, and overruling a decision is
very clear, according to 4.1.3 of the Constitution (well, I should
have written "overwrite" instead of "overrule").
> Finally, this resolution seems to conflict with the social contract as
> it stands.
That's your interpretation of the social contract. With my
interpretation of the social contract, proposal F conflicts with the
social contract, as it ignores our users.
> This conflict should be resolved within this proposal by
> recinding appropriate sections of the contract, or inserting specific
> language to the contract itself.
Please accept the fact that any document is conflicting with itself
and/or has holes. Please don't try to convert Debian to a
law-producing company. I'm here to contribute to the great
distribution, and provide as many of our users the possibility to use
free software as possible, and not to make the formal documents as
long as possible.
Cheers,
Andi
--
http://home.arcor.de/andreas-barth/
PGP 1024/89FB5CE5 DC F1 85 6D A6 45 9C 0F 3B BE F1 D0 C5 D1 D9 0C
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