Re: Q: NEW process licence requirements
On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 09:44:45AM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Adrian Bunk <bunk@debian.org> writes:
>
> > The ftp team has repeatedly stated that it is working as a team and
> > that decisions are not arbitrary decisions by individual team members.
>
> > This implies that for tasks like NEW handling there exist guidelines
> > in some form, that might need some polishing before publication.
>
> People often assume there's some sort of "real" documentation for what is
> and isn't acceptable, but it's being kept secret from the rest of the
> project, and point to the above as a justification for that belief.
>
> However, I think it's worth realizing this isn't necessarily true. A
> group can share a consensus opinion without having written documentation
> in the case where training is via mentorship and apprenticeship rather
> than through written instruction. And I believe that's exactly the case
> for FTP master. The team arrives at the same practices because they are
> taught the same practices through apprenticeship, IRC discussions, and
> corrected practice, not because there's some secret reference manual.
>
> So yes, in some sense there are some guidelines, but they could well be
> entirely unwritten tribal knowledge that has been communicated through
> innumerable fragmentary IRC conversations and in-person chats. Which
> means that turning them into something that can be given to the rest of
> the project as reference is still extremely difficult.
It is also a technical process that is executed
~ 1000 times each year, by 10 different people.
> Unfortunately, due to the nature of this ongoing discussion, there's also
> now a ton of *pressure* around the first release of that document. It
> would be met with a ton of scrutiny and discussion, which makes it even
> harder to be the one to put oneself on the line and try to write down
> unwritten tribal knowledge, possibly incorrectly or incompletely.
The main problem might well be whether it has to justify all past
actions of the tribe as correct under the new rules, or whether
it is seen as part of an effort that might result in changed rules.
I already mentioned "contents of NEW cannot be made available" as
an example of tribal knowledge that stopped making sense years ago.
I also suspect there might be tribal rules that are strictly applied to
all packages, except some packages like src:linux that are too important
to be rejected.
In such cases it might be most convenient for the tribe to simply delay
everything until the day when the President of the United States
releasees his tax returns. Perhaps not even intentionally, but it can be
painful when you have to question whether some things you have enforced
for years actually make sense.
cu
Adrian
--
"Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
"Only a promise," Lao Er said.
Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed
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