Re: draft alternative proposal: fix problem at the root
>>>>> "Russ" == Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> writes:
Russ> There's another alternative to using the CTTE, and my
Russ> understanding is that this was generally the method used prior
Russ> to the existence of the CTTE, but I'm not sure it's really any
Russ> better.
Russ> There are specific teams in Debian, generally delegates at
Russ> this point, that sit at choke points and can effectively make
Russ> decisions like this as part of the course of their duties.
Russ> For example, for the init system decision, I suspect a lot of
Russ> the pressure would have been on the d-i team to pick a
Russ> default. In the past, the usual victim for many of our
Russ> disputes has been ftp-master, since they can block archive
Russ> uploads or eject things from the archive. For others (and I
Russ> can recall some epic ones), it was the DAM.
I remember back in my first years of Debian thinking that the TC wasn't
very effective. Stuff would get brought to them and not really
decided.
Some folks (Ian's name springs to mind particularly but I don't recall
without going back to mail from the 2004-2006 time frame) really made an
effort to make sure that the TC responded to issues brought to it. The
TC became effective in that it gave answers if you brought issues to
them.
Today, I think we have an opportunity to see if we can transform the TC
into a body that's good at helping people make these sorts of decisions
when there is conflict. I think it will be as much about mediation,
about asking people to work together, about pointing out to people they
are talking past each other, about asking people to reconsider their
decisions with certain criteria in mind than about overriding people.
I think that if we can do that well, it will be very valuable.
I think it will also be very different than giving the power to the
individual teams.
I'd really like to see the TC be given an opportunity to try that sort
of thing before we start doing major changes.
--Sam
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