Re: Proposed GR: Acknowledge that the debian-private list will remain private
Jonathan Dowland writes ("Re: Proposed GR: Acknowledge that the debian-private list will remain private"):
> This seems a shame to me. It's a promotion of pragmatism over idealism,
> suggesting that despite the project believing that a course of action is
> the right one, it won't happen, pre-supposing any future interest or
> effort will not exist, which is quite pessimistic (however realistic);
Thanks for your message. I do agree that it's a shame. I want to try
to reassure you and/or disagree with your suggestion that this is an
retrograde ethical step.
As others have said, the problem is that the previous declassification
procedure promised something which we actually weren't delivering and
which there is no prospect of us delivering.
> essentially closing the door on the issue. I don't know what the driver
> is for this to done now.
As I see it the driver is the passage of time. Essentially, I think
we are saying we have timed out on the implementation of the 2005 GR.
It's been just over a decade.
Don's proposed resolution clearly does not close the door. It makes
it possible for someone who is interested in declassification to try
to develop a workable process, consult listmaster and the project, and
to actually declassify things. If there is in fact anyone who wants
to do this.
(I don't think Nicolas's version closes the door either but the
clarification of intent in Don's amendment is useful.)
> What precedent does this set for any other
> idealistic goals for the project? Perhaps we should give up on annexing
> non-free firmware, or relax other aspects of our committment to freedom
> in the face of hard realities like hardware not having free drivers?
I don't understand your analogies.
In general, we mostly implement our principles in relation to those
kind of issues by _not_ doing things that we consider would breach the
principles. So for example we don't ship non-free drivers in main.
I don't think we have ever promised to write free drivers or to write
free firmware. It would be foolish of us to do so.
If you think that -private is a breach of our principle of openness,
then the corresponding response would be to abolish it. Or perhaps
implement some kind of restrictions on its (ab)use (beyond mere social
convention, which we already have and which we do indeed occasionally
breach).
Ian.
Reply to: