Dear fellow Developers, I would like to propose the following amendment proposal, and I hereby call for seconds. ** Begin Alternative Proposal ** 0. Rationale Debian has decided (via the Technical Committee) to change its default init system for the next release. The Technical Committee decided not to decide about the question of "coupling" i.e. whether other packages in Debian may depend on a particular init system. This GR reaffirms the Debian Social Contract #4, in such a way that Debian acknowledges the choices made by both the software developers (also known as upstream developers) and the Debian package maintainers to provide the best free software to our users. Upstream developers considering specific free software (including, but not limited to, a particular init system executed as PID 1) fundamental to deliver the best software releases, are fully entitled to require, link, or depend on that software, or portions of it. Debian maintainers' work is aiming to respect the Debian Social Contract, in such a way to provide our users the best free software available. Debian maintainers are fully entitled to provide modifications to the free software packages they maintain as per DFSG #3, if they judge this necessary to provide the best software releases. On the other hand, Debian maintainers are fully entitled to adhere to upstream's decisions to require, link, or depend on specific free software (including, but no limited to, particular init system executed as PID 1), if they consider it necessary to prevent delivering broken, buggy, or otherwise incomplete software packages. The Debian Project states that: 1. Exercise of the TC's power to set policy For jessie and later releases, the TC's power to set technical policy (Constitution 6.1.1) is exercised as follows: 2. Specific init systems as PID 1 Debian packages may require a specific init system to be executed as PID 1 if their maintainers consider this a requisite for its proper operation by clearly mark this in package descriptions and/or by adding dependencies in order to enforce this; and no patches or other derived works exist in order to support other init systems in such a way to render software usable to the same extent. 3. Evidence of defects (bugs) We strongly reaffirm Debian maintainers are not deliberately hiding problems (Social Contract #3). No technical decisions shall be overruled if no proper evidence of defects, issued in the Debian Bug Tracking system, is found. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt are not considered as evidence of defects. This resolution is a Position Statement about Issues of the Day (Constitution 4.1.5), triggering the General Resolution override clause in the TC's resolution of the 11th of February. The TC's decision on the default init system for Linux in jessie stands undisturbed. However, the TC resolution is altered to add the additional text above in sections #1, #2 and #3. ** End Proposal ** Thank you for reading so far. Cheers, Luca
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