Re: Editorial changes to the Social Contract
On 9 Feb 2006, Marco d'Itri spake thusly:
>On Feb 09, Thomas Bushnell BSG <tb@becket.net> wrote:
>> Moreover, while I think a majority of the developers are surely
>> honorable, this is not true of everyone. Now that this is the *third*
>> time we are being asked to vote on essentially the same question, I
>> suspect that many of the proponents of the measure are simply
>> unwilling to let it drop, and will continue to pester the rest of the
>> project forever. This is not honorable behavior.
> Well, maybe the people who mislabeled the "everything is software"
> vote as an "editorial change" and deceived many other developers
> should have tought about this.
Err, that would be me. And yes, I do agree with the hardware,
software or wetware division, so it was not, in my eyes, a
mis-labelling. If hordes of people thoought it was, they could have
blocked the proposal, I would think.
So, you are saying by making the SC reflect what I believe in,
I should have expected my fellow developers to keep on calling for
GR's until they eventually succeeded in changing it, as opposed to
them not voting for it in the first place, when a mere 25% of them
could have blocked it?
I find that thought process to be distinctly odd.
>>On 9 Feb 2006, Jérôme Marant spake thusly:
>>> The only people it made happy are extremists.
Oh, so I am extremist now. By believing that all bits
modifiable by the computer are software? And the overwhelming
majority that voted for the proposal are all .... extremeists? As
well as the people who did not vote to revert the proposal in a later
GR?
What a wonderful world you live in.
>>> I'd propose to revert this and clearly define what software is.
>>> Also, I can't see a definition of what Software is. I've not seen
>>> any definition going beyond that (of wordnet)
,----[ From Wikipedia: ]
| http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_hardware
| Computer hardware is the physical part of a computer, as
| distinguished from the computer software or computer programs
| and data that operate within the hardware. The hardware of a
| computer is infrequently changed, in comparison with software
| and data which are "soft" in the sense that they are readily
| created, modified or erased on the computer. Firmware is
| special software that rarely, if ever, needs to be changed and
| so is stored on hardware devices such as read-only memory
| (ROM) where it is not readily changed (and therefore is "firm"
| rather than just "soft").
|
| http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_software
| Computer software (or simply software) is that part of a
| computer system that consists of encoded information (or
| computer instructions), as opposed to the physical computer
| equipment (hardware) which is used to store and process this
| information. software is so called in contrast to computer
| hardware, which is the physical substrate required to store and
| execute (or run) the software. In computers, software is loaded
| into RAM and executed in the central processing unit.
|
| The term "software" was first used in this sense by John
| W. Tukey in 1957. In computer science and software
| engineering, computer software is all information processed by
| computer systems, programs and data. The concept of software
| was first proposed by Alan Turing in an essay.
`----
>>>>On 9 Feb 2006, Xavier Roche verbalised:
>>>> And after that, the font madeness maybe ? (after all, fonts ARE
>>>> also software, and they shall be distributed with their original
>>>> sources)
I would tend to agree. I have used metapost in the past to
modify fonts to be to my liking, and would love to be able to tweak
fonts. It is a freedom that I miss with a lot of fonts.
>>> That was a 3:1 majority out of 200 voters, considering that Debian
>>> counts almost 1000 developers
Let us examine your thesis in more detail.
constitution: 86 out of 357 24.08963%
logo license: 107 out of 497 21.52917%
New logo: 143 out of 509 28.09430%
Condorcet: 160 out of 804 19.90049%
Section 4.1.5: 254 out of 928 27.37068%
non-free section: 491 out of 908 54.07488%
Editorial: 216 out of 911 23.71020%
Release Sarge: 415 out of 909 45.65456%
Declassify mail: 305 out of 967 31.54084%
By no means does the Editorial changes vote stand out as
having low turnout; we generally get 20-30% turnout, unless the issue
is seen as a hot button one a priori. Now, the vote announcement was
sent to d-d-a no less than 4 times. It is on a mailing list meant to
be read by every developer. The mail said it was modifying the
SC. What would you call people who did not bother to read that email,
and chose not to exercise their right to vote?
If people think the quorum requirements are too low, I would
not be averse to raising K and Q to be higher than their current
values.
>>> and considering that many pros are convinced they have been
>>> deceived.
I see. If you are saying that they voted on the GR, but felt
deceived by title "editorial changes", then, in essence, they voted
on a GR that changes a foundation document, where the full text of
the GR was available on Debian's web site, and had been sent to their
mail box no less than 4 times, and they call not reading the actual
text "being deceived"? I would label it as gross dereliction of duty
as a Debian developer exercising their franchise, Sloth,
incompetence, or illiteracy.
I would further go and state that turning around and calling
their not reading the ballot they were voting on, not getting
themselves to be an informed voter, being deceived, as intellectual
turpitude.
Now, I was taken aback by the immediate consequences of the GR
as well, but by no means do I think I was "deceived" by the release
manager. I did not understand where the RM came from, but that is a
lack of understanding, not of anyone being deceptive.
If you mean that people were surprised by the consequences of
the GR, well. Misunderstandings are a different beast then being
"deceived"
>>>>>On Feb 10, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh <hmh@debian.org> wrote:
>>>>> A lot of us thought it was far and beyond "editorial", which is
>>>>> why GR 2004-04 was held with options to *entirely revoke* GR
>>>>> 2004-03 (the "editorial" one).
We discussed the editorial changes vote for weeks on
-vote. Why did these people not come out and say even *ONCE* that
they thought it was mislabelled? The GR announcement was sent out to
d-da. How come this "lot of us" raised nary a cheep? There was a
draft ballot, and then 3 call for votes, with the full text. Why was
there never an email saying "hey look, fellers, this is more than an
editorial change"?
After the vote happened, of course, accusations of deceptive
practice started flying around.
>>>>>> On 10 Feb 2006, Adam McKenna verbalised:
>>>>>> The changes could only have been referred to as 'editorial' if wide
>>>>>> consensus and understanding had already been reached about their
>>>>>> effects.
>>>>>> > I think it's fair to say that this was not the case at the time.
The emails on the topic, the discussion, and all, on vote
never expressed an opinion that there was another interpretation. If
we need a vote to decide on every word in the topic of a gr, and
another vote for the wording of that gr ....
If there is no expression of dissent, how do you know it is
not consensus, merely dissenters hoarding their views to come forth
with accusations of deceit and duplicity after the fact?
I certainly considered the changes to be editorial. No one
expressed a dissent with that title, and not much of an opposition to
the concept either, so there was nothing to clue one in whether or
not it was a consensus.
>>>> Maybe we could suggest another "editorial change" and revert to
>>>> the previous wording (not everything is software)
Feel free. However, it will not be called an editorial change,
since I, as a DD, would object (which no one did for the other
GR). And please do get together K developers and propose a GR. I
would oppose it, and I can bring a bunch of references from the ACM
library about what the term software has meant to the computing
community for the last half a century.
>>> This has already been voted. And the answer was "no".
>>>> Well, maybe the wording was not deceptive enough ?
>>>> No, no. The funny joke is to modify the constitution with a
>>>> deceptive wording, with 214 votes out of 911 developpers.
If you think the wording, or the subject, of the editorial GR
was deceptive, I am underwhelmed by you reading comprehension and
language skills, and suspect moral turpitude as well, so I hope you
shall not hurt you side by actually being involved in that GR. If you
are unclear about the depths of my disdain for you, or perhaps are
deceived by this deceptive wording (for the sake of the otherwise
polite audience reading this), please contact me in private email and
I'll let you know in no uncertain terms what I feel about you.
manoj
--
SHOP OR DIE, people of Earth! [offer void where prohibited]--
Capitalists from outer space, from Justice League Int'l comics
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
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