Re: Second Call for votes: General resolution: Sarge Release Schedule in view of GR 2004-003
You know, my first impression, when I saw this posted to -announce,
was something along the lines of how embarrassed I would be if my
faith in progressive procrastination were put so publicly on display...
My second however, was to wonder what this does to the validity of
the gr vote.
Considering the circumstances that brought this gr to the table, and the
many options I've been presented with in it for quietly weaseling out of
the consequences of the previous hasty attempt at changing things, I do
have to wonder more than I normally might about the irregularity of
posting a 'how to vote' card to -announce right as the polls are
closing...
Frankly, I'm not really sure what basis to legitimacy either of these
gr's can really have. The Social Contract is something each of us
entered into or affirmed individually on our own shared understanding
of it with whoever vouched us into the keyring. But I also understand
that it is a contract between _me_ and the users of Debian. Anyone
who fobs off that responsibility by suggesting it is a contract between
Debian as a committee and some mythical user demographic of their own
choosing, and moreso that it is a contract which can be changed on any
whim by simple super majority vote from only one of the contracted
parties, needs an even bigger dose of growing up than overfiend just got.
The people that bind this project together can do so because they have
their own personal commitment to keeping software they care about free.
Documents such as the DSC can vaguely express what we all think after a
lot of word trading on the late night lists, but they can never usefully
regulate what we think -- because no matter how much you polish it, it only
becomes a valuable document once everyone ignores it. When no group of
developers is trying to use it to score some forced action from another
group, then it is a social contract that properly reflects our real
community values, not the ones we hold some pretence to.
Please people, all this admin stuff boils down to two simple questions.
Is issue(x) helpful to some or all of our regular users? Is it
disproportionately harmful to the project?
Think about it, then let's either revert, reaffirm, or put one last
piece of lipgloss on the SC and we can all get back on with faithfully
ignoring it, which seems to be the best way to get most of the other
things it talks about done.
Anyone who voted to drag this out even longer, I hope you still have
time to reconsider.
If we dick this about again, I don't really see much choice except to
put the matter of whether we should continue to support non-free to a
plebiscite of our users. They after all are the people who's
productivity and good faith we will be messing with -- and they, more
than a handful of spinmeister lobbyists, are the users to whom I
am bound by the contract that is under discussion.
Faithfully, and as pissed at bureaucracy as ever,
Ron
Who would be interested to note the relative distribution of votes
(whatever the result) that arrived after:
On Wed, Jun 30, 2004 at 11:07:37PM +0200, Andreas Schuldei wrote:
> > -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> > [ 2 ] Choice 1: Postpone changes until September 2004 [needs 3:1]
> > [ 1 ] Choice 2: Postpone changes until Sarge releases [needs 3:1]
> > [ 3 ] Choice 3: Add apology to Social Contract [needs 3:1]
> > [ 7 ] Choice 4: Revert to old wording of SC [needs 3:1]
> > [ 4 ] Choice 5: "Transition Guide" foundation document [needs 3:1]
> > [ 5 ] Choice 6: Reaffirm the current SC [needs 1:1]
> > [ 6 ] Choice 7: Further discussion
> > -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
>
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