Re: call for seconds: on firmware
On Sun, Nov 16 2008, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Josselin Mouette <joss@debian.org> writes:
>> Le dimanche 16 novembre 2008 à 12:43 -0800, Russ Allbery a écrit :
>
>>>> It’s not that your interpretation of the Social Contract is flawed;
>>>> but it is only your interpretation. The secretary is not a superhuman
>>>> – unless he is leading a double life chasing evil aliens at night,
>>>> but that would be irrelevant to Debian – and as such it would be
>>>> inappropriate to consider only his interpretation as valid.
>
>>> However, the Constitution does that, so far as I can tell.
>
>> No. The Secretary has the power to interpret the Constitution (§7.1.3)
>> but not the Social Contract.
>
> Hm, good point.
>
> In fact, looking at it from that angle, it looks like interpretation
> of the foundation documents when it comes to work in Debian follows
> the normal decision-making process in Debian, since it's not an issue
> of the Constitution. That means that the primary decision rests with
> individual developers doing their own work (section 3), overridable by
> the DPL or a delegate of the DPL (section 5 and 8), which in turn is
> overridable by a General Resolution (section 4).
> Manoj, am I misinterpreting something here? The question isn't what the
> SC says, but rather who gets to decide what it means and how it applies to
> their work.
Sure. I, as secretary (as opposed to with other developers in a
GR) can not, and ahve never said I can, decide for the release team how
to interpret the SC. I have said that my personal read on this is that
the firmware blobs are not source code, so unless we decide to override
the DFSG, we can't release.
As secretary, I can say that the foundation documents can't be
superseded or overridden by the DPL or delegates.
So, if the release team states that they are not violating the
SC, and can defend that stance, they are within their rights -- and the
people who do not like that can, via GR, override their decision. But
the release team can't say they decided to bend the rules and disregard
the SC, since the power to do so is not granted by the constitution.
manoj
--
Meekness is uncommon patience in planning a worthwhile revenge.
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>
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