Much noise has been made by certain proponents of the earlier GR over the fact that there are three very similar options on the ballot. They have suggested that this means the sponsors of these ballot options don't have their act together, and are incapable of agreeing on anything. It is precisely because we all agree on the importance of releasing sarge soon that we have proposed so many paths to reaching this goal. This is an effort to build consensus, not a lack of consensus on our part. Debian is a large community, and it's not easy to know what the outcome of such a vote will be before it happens. The range of ballot options has been provided partly in the hope that at least *one* among these options will receive the necessary support from developers and will put us back on the road to releasing sarge. This means that, if your objective in voting on this GR is also to undo the damage that has been done to our release process, you should consider voting *multiple* options above "Further Discussion", not just one. If you believe the changes should be reverted completely, please consider: if there is not support for reverting the changes at this time, do you really want the Social Contract to stay as it is now, with the release schedule continuing to slip, while we continue to "discuss further"? If you believe that the previous GR does represent a direction that Debian wants to be heading in, but you also believe that releasing sarge now with the same warts we've always had is better than waiting until next year to release a blemishless distribution, please consider: doesn't this GR itself show us that it's possible to change our minds about decisions, and doesn't that mean reverting the changes for now will still let us head down that road later? If you believe Debian needs to handle transitions better, please consider: isn't it important to handle *this* transition now, even if we can't yet agree on how to handle them in the future? I have no intention of telling people which option should be their preferred option; indeed, I myself question whether September is far enough away to let us release before then, because we've lost a lot of momentum over the last month and a half while this has been hanging over our heads. But it is precisely because of the momentum being lost that I think it's hard for us to do *worse* than the status quo, which is why I still plan to vote choice 1 above the default option -- along with choices 2, 3, 4, and 5. If you agree with me that the release of sarge is already long overdue, I encourage you to do likewise. And if you have already voted, I would also remind you that the Debian voting system does allow you to change your vote any time up until the close of the polling period. Thanks, -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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