Re: draft alternative proposal: fix problem at the root
On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 9:31 AM, Sam Hartman wrote:
>>>>>> "Russ" == Russ Allbery 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.
Doesn't that require constitutional change? The current powers as
written make the TC a decision-making body, not a mediation body.
Best wishes,
Mike
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