Re: Second call for votes for the Lenny release GR
On Tue, 2008-12-23 at 00:56 +0100, Frans Pop wrote:
Hi Frans!
> That is not the only problem.
I agree, but I didn't think a CFV preamble was the right place to try
and discuss this in detail. Happy to have further discussion about it
in debian-vote.
> > However, after thinking long and hard about this, I can find no real
> > constitutional basis for terminating the current vote.
>
> I agree that this is a real problem. Could we in theory have a GR to rule
> that the current vote is declared to be abandonded and its results void?
> Given procedural timings that could of course only happen after the fact.
Yes. Resolutions are sort of "most recent one wins", so there is
certainly the possibility of a GR after the current vote changing the
result. However, rather than trying to say this vote is vote, it'd be
better to have a future vote *for* a better outcome if such is needed.
> Although I agree that concordet is normally great when it comes to ranking
> choices, I see a fundamental problem with this in this particular case,
> and that would be my main reason why I still feel this vote should be
> declared void.
>
> Let's take this vote that was CCed to debian-vote today (accidentally or
> not) as example:
> >[ 6 ] Choice 1: Reaffirm the Social Contract
> >[ 5 ] Choice 2: Allow Lenny to release with proprietary firmware [3:1]
> >[ 5 ] Choice 3: Allow Lenny to release with DFSG violations [3:1]
> >[ 4 ] Choice 4: Empower the release team to decide about allowing DFSG
> > violations [3:1]
> >[ 2 ] Choice 5: Assume blobs comply with GPL unless proven otherwise
> >[ 3 ] Choice 6: Exclude source requirements for firmware (defined) [3:1]
> >[ 1 ] Choice 7: Further Discussion
>
> Excellent: the vote is a mess; we all already knew that.
>
> However, the voter's 2nd preferred "real" option requires a 3:1 super
> majority. But because it is ranked below FD in this ballot, this ballot
> will not actually count towards that! If there is a significant number of
> voters who do this, it effectively means that all of the options
> requiring 3:1 are effectively buggered as it means they stand a much
> bigger chance of being dropped _before_ they get ranked.
Right. That's why I mentioned the super-majority issue in my CFV
preamble. But note that even if the super-majority issue causes some
choices to have a low priority of winning, we the project at large can
still learn very interesting things by studying the Condorcet
intermediate results. And that could lead us to craft a better option
or set of options for subsequent vote. This is clearly not an ideal
situation, but it's not fatal either!
> P.S. I personally would accept, and respect, and very much welcome a joint
> decision by the secretary and DPL to abandon the current vote and declare
> it void. Even if not explicitly covered by the constitution it would IMO
> be much more in the spirit of the same constitution and our project than
> to let the current farce continue.
Several people suggested I do something like this. But, personally, I
think it would be better for us to demonstrate that our system remains
robust even in the face of a ballot that is this "messy". That could
happen by Further Discussion winning. It could also happen by someone
proposing a better GR in the wake of this vote if the outcome is somehow
a real problem. The only bad outcomes, really, would be if people in
positions of power within the project for some reason choose to behave
precipitously in the wake of this vote. I really don't expect that.
Bdale
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