Hi Sam, On Fri, Sep 04, 2015 at 02:28:20PM +0000, Sam Hartman wrote: > ----- GENERAL RESOLUTION STARTS ----- > > > Constitutional Amendment: TC Supermajority Fix > > Prior to the Clone Proof SSD GR in June 2003, the Technical > Committee could overrule a Developer with a supermajority of 3:1. > > Unfortunately, the definition of supermajorities in the SSD GR has a > off-by-one error. In the new text a supermajority requirement is met > only if the ratio of votes in favour to votes against is strictly > greater than the supermajority ratio. > > In the context of the Technical Committee voting to overrule a > developer that means that it takes 4 votes to overcome a single > dissenter. And with a maximum committee size of 8, previously two > dissenters could be outvoted by all 6 remaining members; now that > is no longer possible. > > This change was unintentional, was contrary to the original intent > of the Constitution, and is unhelpful. > > For the avoidance of any doubt, this change does not affect any > votes (whether General Resolutions or votes in the Technical > Committee) in progress at the time the change is made. > > Therefore, amend the Debian Constitution as follows: > > Index: doc/constitution.wml > =================================================================== > --- doc/constitution.wml (revision 10982) > +++ doc/constitution.wml (working copy) > @@ -913,7 +913,7 @@ > </li> > <li> > An option A defeats the default option D by a majority > - ratio N, if V(A,D) is strictly greater than N * V(D,A). > + ratio N, if V(A,D) is greater or equal to N * V(D,A) and V(A,D) is strictly greater than V(D,A). > </li> > <li> > If a supermajority of S:1 is required for A, its majority ratio > > > > > > > Constitutional Amendment: Fix duplicate section numbering. > > The current Debian Constitution has two sections numbered A.1. > This does not currently give rise to any ambiguity but it is > undesirable. > > Fix this with the following semantically neutral amendment: > > - Renumber the first section A.1 to A.0. > > > ----- GENERAL RESOLUTION ENDS ----- I second this amendment. However, as I've said in <[🔎] 20150903164145.GB23960@grep.be>, I think the better fix is to update 6.1.4 as follows: - 4. Overrule a Developer (requires a 3:1 majority) + 4. Overrule a Developer (requires a 2:1 majority) This way, the off-by-one change that was introduced with CSSD is reverted *for the TC*, while the supermajority definition isn't. I say "change", because I don't buy the argument that it's a "bug"; I think the removal of the "X + one" requirement would be a bug. However, I do accept that requiring 3 + 1 votes in favour per opposing vote is problematic for the TC, so I do agree that reducing the required number of votes is desirable. The above does that. To clarify, I've always interpreted a "majority" to mean "One vote more than X over Y". This definition is easily proven correct when one considers a simple majority: to get a simple majority, strictly more than 50% of the vote is required (otherwise you don't have a majority, you have an equilibrium). While the constitution doesn't specifically refer to 1:1 simple majorities (it doesn't need to, since a result that doesn't manage to reach simple majority wouldn't be the condorcet winner), I think it would be inconsistent and wrong for us to change the constitution in this manner. If that argument manages to convince you, I would appreciate it if you could update your proposal in that manner. Having said that, I don't feel strongly enough about it to make this a formal amendment; while I think the change would be undesirable for regular GRs, I doubt it would make much difference in practice, so I'm not going to pursue this unless someone pokes me. Regards, -- It is easy to love a country that is famous for chocolate and beer -- Barack Obama, speaking in Brussels, Belgium, 2014-03-26
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