Re: Overriding vs Amending vs Position statement
Ben Finney <ben+debian@benfinney.id.au> writes:
> Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> writes:
>> Ben Finney <ben+debian@benfinney.id.au> writes:
>>> Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> writes:
>>> So, in effect, you advocate the position that “the foundation
>>> documents”refers to a different set of documents depending on who
>>> is being asked?
>> No. That's an absurd interpretation of what I said.
> Yet I can't disambiguate it from this:
> I presume this is referring to the practice of leaving the
> determination to each individual person acting. Which, in effect, is
> allowing that the foundation documents have a different meaning for
> each person and none of them are wrong.
Yup. If there's no project 3:1 majority about what the foundation
documents mean in a specific case, that is indeed the case.
This is not the same thing as using completely different documents.
This happens in law all the time. That's one of the big reasons why
nations have a court system: resolving disputes between people with
different competing legal interpretations of the law. It's not
equivalent to everyone having a completely different legal code.
Maybe an analogy would help. I'm pointing out that people have a bunch
of different philosophical beliefs about the nature of the world, and
what you're saying sounds to me like arguing that's equivalent to belief
in solipsism. No, it's not. Disagreement is not the same thing as lack
of any common basis for discussion whatsoever.
> Where have I misunderstood you, and how do you resolve this apparent
> absurdity?
I don't see any absurdity. I see a dispute which doesn't have the
required majority to resolve one way or the other. Your interpretation
doesn't magically win despite not having a 3:1 majority just because you
think it's obvious, and neither does mine.
There are two ways to deal with that. Either we say that in that case
we simply cannot make any binding decision and proceed on the basis of
everyone doing the best that they can in their own work, which is what
we currently do, or we create a position that is empowered to determine
what the foundation documents mean for everyone (like a court does in a
conventional legal system).
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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