Hi Debian Developers Over the course of the last few days, I've received many mails regarding the RMS GR, both on this list, on debian-private and in private. These mails contain a wide spectrum of concerns and even ideas on how to improve our situation, each of which come with their own set of upsides and downsides. There's been wide acknowledgement within our community that our GR process isn't perfect, and there's been some good ideas already that could help improve it, some might even need GRs themselves to update our constitution towards a better GR and/or voting/polling process. In this particular case, I feel that the process is more than just imperfect, and that it may be failing us. While it's premature to do a full postmortem on this GR, it's already clear where some cracks have formed early on. Initially, the RMS open letter[1] contained a list of individuals supporting the removal of RMS and the existing FSF board from their positions there. Soon after, some organisations were added and the list of organisations grew quite fast, begging the question for some: Should Debian also sign this letter? [1] https://rms-open-letter.github.io/ At this stage, many Debian Developers (including myself) have signed the letter. I felt that this was both sufficient in terms of a Debian presence there, and in terms of what needed to be achieved with such a letter. While I'm not scared of making a unilateral statement on behalf of the project when needed, at the time, I just didn't feel it would be appropriate for the DPL to unilaterally add Debian to the list of organisations there. Members within the project felt that we should represent Debian on that letter more formally, and whether it's the best tool or not, the only tool that we do have for that is the GR process, and it didn't take long for the initial proposal[2] to be sent and be seconded[3]. [2] https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2021/03/msg00083.html [3] https://www.debian.org/vote/2021/vote_002#proposer Now, I know and acknowledge that the circumstances we find ourselves in here are a bit extraordinary, but, even within that context, what happened here so far was perfectly in accordance with our constitution and the processes it mandates. The project members who wanted to ratify the letter followed the exact procedure they were supposed to. Although, this is also when the cracks start appearing. It seems that in both this vote, and some previous GRs that have happened, it seemed that a lack of metadata on the GR has hurt us. In this case, what we're voting on has seemingly subtly, but significantly changed since the initial proposal. Initially, the question that the original GR proposal raised was more or less binary in form. It basically asked, "Should we as a project sign this letter?", which ultimately, can only end up as a yes or no option. I say "more or less" binary, because of course, it ends up being more complicated than that. If that option ran by itself, we'd end up with an option on the ballot for the affirmative of the GR and for FD (Further discussion), which in itself causes some problems, since some might literally want further discussion on the topic, while it is also typically used as a "None of the above" option in votes with many options. I was comfortable reducing the discussion period on the vote, especially since the question it poses is relatively simple (even though it might be a difficult choice for some to make). I thought that there might have been another option proposed option for the GR, so that the votes would extend to the equivalent of "yes/no/FD", but didn't quite expect that there would be additional proposals that would change the nature of the GR. So to recap, initially the GR proposal was to ratify the RMS open letter, which is basically (albeit with caveats) a yes/no question. With the addition of more proposals, the question that the original poster was asking, "Should we signed this open letter" changed to a much broader question of "What should our public position on RMS be?". It might sound like a subtle difference, but it's really an entirely different kind of vote that may need a different kind of discussion period and even a different level of timeliness. At this point, I'd like to state that I'm not blaming any individual involved with this GR whatsoever, for the most part, everyone did what they were supposed to do or what they could do to get their voices heard, my problem is that this process is really a clumsy fit when it comes to nearly any decision other than constitutional changes or a DPL election. The privacy aspect has brought another dimension to the problem. There are concerns that some might not vote because this vote will be public, and might open themselves up to further real-world harassment. Unfortunately, our constitution doesn't seem to provide us with any tools to deal with this, I don't think the authors at the time could have anticipated the current social climate in the world and on the Internet. Some people have called for this vote to be made private, and while I 100% support that, it seems unclear if that's possible in time. I'm in support of the secretary changing the vote to a secret vote, although the secretary has indicated in private that he'd only be willing to make such a change if there is consensus for that, which may prove difficult in the remaining time that we have in this vote. If the vote were to change to a private vote, it has also been pointed out that it might change how some people would like to vote in this GR. In the case that this vote would be turned into a private vote, I would urge the secretary to extend the voting period by 72 hours and send an initial announcement about the change, and then another reminder at the start of the 72 hour period in addition to the usual vote reminders that are sent. Having said all of the above, our voting stats are public, and at the time of writing, 327[4] people have voted for the DPL election (a private vote) while 293[5] people have voted for the RMS GR. So even though a significant people who could make a difference in terms of our voting population haven't voted, at the same time, it's also a significant proportion that have. As for cancelling the vote, I see that as something that's a much more severe route and that I won't be imposing as DPL. For that to happen there would have to be significant consensus within the project that would have to be able to convince our secretary. I doubt there's much chance of that happening before the end of the vote. The situation might seem bleak, but it's not completely hopeless. It's still possible for any member to vote FD above all other options if needed, and we can learn from this experience to improve our decision-making mechanisms going forward. While I certainly have my own views, agendas and biases within the project (as does any other DD), as DPL I aim to be both transparent about them and be fair to those with opposing views within the project. Sometimes this has been like walking a tightrope, but I think that we can all work together on improving our processes. Regardless of how both our current votes turn out, I resolve to start discussions on how we make decisions in Debian on the -project mailing list and also register BoF sessions at future events like DebConf (or even have a dedicated event for it, if there's enough interest). This is unlikely to be the last tough decision that we'll have to deal with. At the very minimum, please remember to treat other people with civility, and even kindness. It's ok to not agree with someone, but if you need to take someone on, do it based on their ideas that you don't agree with, don't get personal, don't call names, don't discredit someone based on their identity. As a project we also have some baggage that have built up, and we're still hauling that while at the same time navigating some difficult space. I believe that it's possible for us to get better, let's put it to the test to what extent that is possible. -Jonathan
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