On Tue, Jul 31, 2007 at 10:56:01AM +0200, Marc Haber wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 31, 2007 at 05:04:21PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> > What happens when you send a single email like that has already been
> > demonstrated:
> > http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2006/10/msg00332.html
> > Add to that that this time there've been explicit threats to blacklist
> > applicants and make use of DSA access, and I think you'll find the ability
> > of a single e-mail to change things isn't quite so straightforward.
> So you admit that the DPL is not the one really in power, but
> ftpmaster/DSA are?
No, that's not what I'm saying. In the example above, it would be
Manoj having the power (policy, secretary, tech-ctte, whatever), but
the revocation of the delegation wasn't blocked by Manoj [0], it was
blocked by a bunch of independent DDs who were predisposed to trust
Manoj's judgement rather than mine. As it turns out the whole thing was
pretty much a no-op, since there hasn't been a policy upload since the
whole kerfuffle.
So the first thing I'm saying is I don't think the DPL has the moral
authority within the project to actually suspend delegations, or do
anything much more than rubberstamp the decisions of the delegates. That's
not unique to my experience either: I've seen similar efforts fail
for similar reasons during Branden's term, though naturally all done
in secret.
In theory that would just leave the project as a whole with the authority,
via GR; but I personally have doubts about whether the project has
the courage to exercise that authority when it comes to sanctioning a
developer who's actually doing useful work.
Second, "in power" is a relative term -- the DAMs have a lot of power of
accepting and removing developers, DSA has a lot of power over Debian's
hardware resources, the listmasters have a lot of power over what's
allowed to go on lists, the press team have a lot of power over what's
allowed to go out in press releases or announcements in Debian's name, the
debconf team have a lot of power over everything that happens in debconf,
and so on. But those are all different groups, and the power is fairly
compartmentalised.
So I don't think there's anyone or any group you can point to as being
in power as to the whole of Debian, but I can't really say that's a bad
thing either.
> That's interesting knowledge. Why do we keep people
> in power who were not elected and who threaten to ignore the elected
> leader to stay in power?
What makes you think anyone who'd replace them would be any different?
You spend a lot of time working on something, often because you're
the only person who can; people who'd like things to work better can't
help, so start demanding you do better, and complaining when you don't.
Whatever stuff you do manage to do better makes the job harder, and
thus increases the requirements for anyone else to contribute, at which
point you also get criticised for not accepting help. At some point
the criticism becomes enough that you end up not listening to outside
comments for your own sanity, just because they're always negative. And
at some point beyond that, you end up with people who've got absolutely
no clue what the job actually involves these days interfering because
that's what they've been elected to do.
I think that's going to need structural changes; which is why I suggested
the concept of "forced additions":
http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2007/05/msg00240.html
A different approach I've been pondering more recently is "term limits",
so that, say, after three years into a role the DPL can tap you on
the shoulder and say "time to pass the baton", at which point you get
a couple of months to clean anything up, and from that point you can
only contribute to the role in the same way any other DD can. Which
for free software shouldn't be much of a problem -- doing dak work
just requires the ability to send patches to someone who's willing to
actually accept them, and you can ensure continuity just by having the
new caretaker listen to the advice of the old guard. And if people want
to keep contributing (which I expect they often will want to do -- I'd
certainly like to keep doing dak stuff even if not an ftpmaster), then
that just means they've got to make sure things are arranged so *anyone*
can contribute.
> And, is "there is no cabal" really a lie?
I don't know, but I don't think so. If there is, I guess I've been one
of their useful idiots for the past few years; lucky me.
Cheers,
aj
[0] AFAICS he didn't do anything to block it, but I guess it's
theoretically possible there was a coordinated campaign to block
the decision somehow.
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature