Hi Mo,
At 2025-05-08T13:05:08-0400, M. Zhou wrote:
> I decided to withdraw the proposal A: "AI models released under
> DFSG-compatible license without original training data or program" are
> not seen as DFSG-compliant.
>
> Based on the overall discussions and feedbacks, we as a community is
> underprepared to vote on this. Even if we vote, it is leading to a
> less convincing result. According to the constitution, I think it is
> completely fine to withdraw the proposal and cancel it temporarily,
> and get back when we are ready for it.
>
> However, if the other proposals suddenly get enough sponsors in the
> last minute, the proposal A has to be there. So this is a
> "conditional" withdraw, and I'm expecting the GR to be canceled.
I think your heart's in the right place, and you've handled this
difficult subject with style and diligence (and grace!), but...
I'm not sure our Constitution contemplates a "conditional withdrawal" of
a GR ballot option. An option is either eligible for inclusion or it is
not, and the less discretion we demand of the Project Secretary to judge
that fact, the more predictable our processes will be.
"A.2. Withdrawing ballot options
The proposer of a ballot option may withdraw. If they do, new
proposers may come forward to keep the ballot option alive, in which
case the first person to do so becomes the new proposer and any
others become sponsors if they aren't sponsors already. Any new
proposer or sponsors must meet the requirements for proposing or
sponsoring a new resolution.
A sponsor of a ballot option may withdraw.
If the withdrawal of the proposer and/or sponsors means that a
ballot option has no proposer or not enough sponsors to meet the
requirements for a new resolution, and 24 hours pass without this
being remedied by another proposer and/or sponsors stepping forward,
it is removed from the draft ballot. This does not change the length
of the discussion period.
If all ballot options except the default option are withdrawn, the
resolution is canceled and will not be voted on."
You might have put the Project Secretary in the position of having to
make a §7.1.3 ruling.
I would advise you to stick to a conventional withdrawal of your ballot
option. It seems likely to me that with at least one other option
having already been withdrawn,[1] the GR will dissolve per §A.2.4.
If someone tries to game the process, I have no doubt they'll be called
out, by me (who cares?) and likely others (wuh-oh!), and I would expect
"Further Discussion" to win the day. And if by some chance it doesn't,
we can expect the people who have thought the most and hardest about
this to champion a new GR cancelling the one that got gamed.
In short, let us exercise the procedures as currently written and see if
they serve us adequately before attempting to improvise new ones.
> Some of my comments:
>
> * People holding different opinions have too short time to prepare
> (although I already signaled everyone long time ago that I'll press
> the start button). The lack of other options can make the result
> less convincing.
To put my own spin on Russ's response to you, developers, being human,
love to procrastinate. Reasoning carefully about the impact of LLMs on
software development, software freedom, copyright law, and Debian's
mission is a significant demand and to the serious-minded, likely sounds
suspiciously like "hard work".
So I think it was understandable for you to both put the topic on the
shelf for a few weeks/months while it percolated a bit, and then to
raise it again more formally, to get other brains cogitating on it.
Like many organizations, Debian sometimes kicks a can so far down the
road that we eventually reach a coastline, and then stand over the can,
dithering, while a semi-truck barrels toward us at 100 kph.
The rest of the world is not going to wait for us, and very likely will
make decisions with less careful consideration, as we've seen (IMO) with
OSI. In many places, the deepest pockets make the biggest decisions.
One of the nice things about our Project is how that's less true here.
[snipped a bunch of good plans that you have for continuing to develop
a second attempt at this GR]
> I do not believe I can fill in those blanks within a short time. Maybe
> a couple of months are needed.
>
> BTW, I cannot attent DebConf. If anybody wants to host some relevant
> discussion there, please let me know what I can do online.
I suggest that it would be good practice for us to workshop this
difficult and somewhat contentious (although so far quite politely
discussed) issue on the mailing lists. In my opinion too many
significant decisions in this Project get made via unofficial and
unrecorded channels. Historically, IRC is a major factor here, and I
recall a recent -devel thread where much confusion and some
consternation was the result of an official(?) decision getting made
unofficially there by someone who might not have had authority to make
it. (If I'm misremembering this, and the best evidence thereof would be
the brandishing of IRC chat logs, I think that reinforces my point
rather than undercutting it.) The use of mail aliases rather than
archived lists for most(?) delegate activity compounds the matter.
One of the few less-than-salutary aspects of DebConfs, mini and major,
is the opportunity they present for further off-the-books decision
making. While some amount of this is understandable and possibly even
necessary, I have a gnawing concern that the Project has, over the past
20 years or so, evolved such that our mailing lists are de facto
deprecated as a forum for deliberations. The more our governance
processes come to resemble a game of _Diplomacy_[2], the more poorly we
manifest the democratic values that informed the drafting of our Social
Contract and Constitution.
To close on a positive note, I think our conferences are excellent
opportunities to share and acquire technical expertise, to broaden one's
horizons culturally and with respect to the tools and problem-solving
techniques we employ professionally and otherwise, and to socialize
happily with our like-minded colleagues.
Regards,
Branden
[1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2025/05/msg00111.html
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomacy_(game)
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