Re: Status of Proposals [CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT] Disambiguation of 4.1.5
On Thu, Nov 09, 2000 at 01:12:22AM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote: Hi, [ ] yes to a [ ] no to a [ ] yes to a AND b [ ] yes to b === [ ] yes to b alone [ ] no to b [ ] further discussion [ ] further discussion Would [ ] no to a and b be needed also ? So that you could vote for none of the changes without further discution (not that that is what i want ot vote, bt the possibility should be there ... Friendly, sven Luther
Re: Status of Proposals [CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT] Disambiguation of 4.1.5
On Wed, Nov 08, 2000 at 11:37:58PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: That's not precisely what I recall us agreeing to. I recall us agreeing to a ballot that, I suppose, could take a form like this: [ ] YES to Foundational Documents amendment [ ] NO to Foundational Documents amendment [ ] YES to modify and withdraw amendment [ ] NO to modify and withdraw amendment I think that was the orignal suggestion on the mailing lists, but there were objections to it. As you can see, both proposals amend only the first sentence of section 5, and they amend it in exactly the same way (whitespace aside). That's true, but... This is why I suggested that we have, on the same ballot, the following two choices: * amend Constitution to change language of section 5 * amend Constitution to add sections 5.1 and 5.2 These are, of course, nonexclusive options; a person may vote for either, both, or neither. However, a person's decision on one option may be dependant on the outcome of the other. People who wish to make it hard to modify the foundation documents would ideally want to have both options pass but would not wish to see the modify and withdraw amendment go through without some additional protection being provided for the foundation documents. As well as eliminating an inconsistent (or at least somewhat peculiar) outcome Manoj's proposal also seems to answer this problem. I'm not sure how well it allows people to say I want to modify the foundation documents but I'm not concerned about how easy that is, although I think preference ranking ought to DTRT. -- Mark Brown mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Trying to avoid grumpiness) http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~broonie/ EUFShttp://www.eusa.ed.ac.uk/societies/filmsoc/
Re: Status of Proposals [CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT] Disambiguation of 4.1.5
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hi, If my memory serves me correctly, Branden I decide that our proposals should be on the same ballot; though there does remain some difference in them. We think that there should be three options of the ballot: (ordering of A and B was done by a coin toss) a) Allow modification of non technical docments as long as certain documents are recognized to be ``foundation'' documents, and require the same super majority to modify that the amendments to the constitution require (this is my proposal) [Full text below] b) Allow non technical documents t be modified (without any provision for special treatment for any document (this is branden's proposal, stated far more informally and imprecisely than he did) [Full text below] c) further discussion. For the record, I want to state that I do not consider my proposal (a) to be a ``sperset'' or ``subset'' of branden's; personally, I prefer c) to b) in the above list. It should be noted that both proposals are proposed amendments to the Project Constitution, and under the terms of 4.1.2 (quoted below) will require a 3:1 supermajority to pass. For context, here are the two proposals as last seen on this list. manoj == Proposal A: Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] == 4. The Developers by way of General Resolution or election 4.1. Powers Together, the Developers may: 1. Appoint or recall the Project Leader. 2. Amend this constitution, provided they agree with a 3:1 majority. 3. Override any decision by the Project Leader or a Delegate. 4. Override any decision by the Technical Committee, provided they agree with a 2:1 majority. - - -5. Issue nontechnical policy documents and statements. - - - These include documents describing the goals of the project, its - - - relationship with other free software entities, and nontechnical - - - policies such as the free software licence terms that Debian - - - software must meet. - - - They may also include position statements about issues of the day. +5. Issue, modify and withdraw nontechnical policy documents and statements. + These include documents describing the goals of the project, its + relationship with other free software entities, and nontechnical + policies such as the free software licence terms that Debian + software must meet. + They may also include position statements about issues of the day. + 5.1 A special clause applies to the documents labelled as + "Foundation Documents". These documents are those + that are deemed to be critical to the core of the project, + they tend to define what the project is, and lay the + foundations of its structure. The developers may + modify a foundation document provided they agree with a 3:1 + majority. - - -- + 5.2 Initially, the list of foundation Documents consists + of this document, The Debian Constitution, as well as the + documents known as the Debian GNU/Linux Social Contract and the + Debian Free Software Guidelines. The list of the documents + that are deemed to be "Foundation Documents" may be changed + by the developers provided they agree with a 3:1 majority. 6. Together with the Project Leader and SPI, make decisions about property held in trust for purposes related to Debian. (See s.9.1.) __ Rationale: The clause being modified has been seen recently to be quite ambiguous. Since the original wording appeared to be amenable to two wildly different interpretations, this change adds clarifying language to the constitution about _changing_ or withdrawing nontechnical documents. Additionally, this also provides for the core, or Foundation, documents of the project the same protection against hasty changes that the constitution itself enjoys. == - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= == Proposal B: Branden Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] == 4. The Developers by way of General Resolution or election 4.1. Powers Together, the Developers may: 1. Appoint or recall the Project Leader. 2. Amend this constitution, provided they agree with a 3:1 majority. 3. Override any decision by the Project Leader or a Delegate. 4. Override any
Re: Status of Proposals [CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT] Disambiguation of 4.1.5
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hi, If my memory serves me correctly, Branden I decide that our proposals should be on the same ballot; though there does remain some difference in them. We think that there should be three options of the ballot: (ordering of A and B was done by a coin toss) a) Allow modification of non technical docments as long as certain documents are recognized to be ``foundation'' documents, and require the same super majority to modify that the amendments to the constitution require (this is my proposal) [Full text below] b) Allow non technical documents t be modified (without any provision for special treatment for any document (this is branden's proposal, stated far more informally and imprecisely than he did) [Full text below] c) further discussion. For the record, I want to state that I do not consider my proposal (a) to be a ``sperset'' or ``subset'' of branden's; personally, I prefer c) to b) in the above list. It should be noted that both proposals are proposed amendments to the Project Constitution, and under the terms of 4.1.2 (quoted below) will require a 3:1 supermajority to pass. For context, here are the two proposals as last seen on this list. manoj == Proposal A: Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] == 4. The Developers by way of General Resolution or election 4.1. Powers Together, the Developers may: 1. Appoint or recall the Project Leader. 2. Amend this constitution, provided they agree with a 3:1 majority. 3. Override any decision by the Project Leader or a Delegate. 4. Override any decision by the Technical Committee, provided they agree with a 2:1 majority. - - -5. Issue nontechnical policy documents and statements. - - - These include documents describing the goals of the project, its - - - relationship with other free software entities, and nontechnical - - - policies such as the free software licence terms that Debian - - - software must meet. - - - They may also include position statements about issues of the day. +5. Issue, modify and withdraw nontechnical policy documents and statements. + These include documents describing the goals of the project, its + relationship with other free software entities, and nontechnical + policies such as the free software licence terms that Debian + software must meet. + They may also include position statements about issues of the day. + 5.1 A special clause applies to the documents labelled as + Foundation Documents. These documents are those + that are deemed to be critical to the core of the project, + they tend to define what the project is, and lay the + foundations of its structure. The developers may + modify a foundation document provided they agree with a 3:1 + majority. - - -- + 5.2 Initially, the list of foundation Documents consists + of this document, The Debian Constitution, as well as the + documents known as the Debian GNU/Linux Social Contract and the + Debian Free Software Guidelines. The list of the documents + that are deemed to be Foundation Documents may be changed + by the developers provided they agree with a 3:1 majority. 6. Together with the Project Leader and SPI, make decisions about property held in trust for purposes related to Debian. (See s.9.1.) __ Rationale: The clause being modified has been seen recently to be quite ambiguous. Since the original wording appeared to be amenable to two wildly different interpretations, this change adds clarifying language to the constitution about _changing_ or withdrawing nontechnical documents. Additionally, this also provides for the core, or Foundation, documents of the project the same protection against hasty changes that the constitution itself enjoys. == - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= == Proposal B: Branden Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] == 4. The Developers by way of General Resolution or election 4.1. Powers Together, the Developers may: 1. Appoint or recall the Project Leader. 2. Amend this constitution, provided they agree with a 3:1 majority. 3. Override any decision by the Project Leader or a Delegate. 4. Override any decision by
Re: Status of Proposals [CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT] Disambiguation of 4.1.5
On Wed, Nov 08, 2000 at 01:50:49PM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote: If my memory serves me correctly, Branden I decide that our proposals should be on the same ballot; though there does remain some difference in them. We think that there should be three options of the ballot: (ordering of A and B was done by a coin toss) [snip] That's not precisely what I recall us agreeing to. I recall us agreeing to a ballot that, I suppose, could take a form like this: [ ] YES to Foundational Documents amendment [ ] NO to Foundational Documents amendment [ ] YES to modify and withdraw amendment [ ] NO to modify and withdraw amendment For the record, I want to state that I do not consider my proposal (a) to be a ``sperset'' or ``subset'' of branden's; That's fine; but the fact remains that text of my amendment is included in yours. All I wanted was for people to be able to vote on the issues as separate changes, not necessarily disjunct in time. I recall us talking at ALS about the danger of there being a window wherein the Foundational Documents amendment, if passed, would not be in force because my modify and withdraw amendment had been passed beforehand. If we structure the ballot as I propose, or equivalently, there will be no such accidental window. [Manoj] +5. Issue, modify and withdraw nontechnical policy documents and statements. + These include documents describing the goals of the project, its + relationship with other free software entities, and nontechnical + policies such as the free software licence terms that Debian + software must meet. + They may also include position statements about issues of the day. + 5.1 A special clause applies to the documents labelled as + Foundation Documents. These documents are those + that are deemed to be critical to the core of the project, + they tend to define what the project is, and lay the + foundations of its structure. The developers may + modify a foundation document provided they agree with a 3:1 + majority. - - -- + 5.2 Initially, the list of foundation Documents consists + of this document, The Debian Constitution, as well as the + documents known as the Debian GNU/Linux Social Contract and the + Debian Free Software Guidelines. The list of the documents + that are deemed to be Foundation Documents may be changed + by the developers provided they agree with a 3:1 majority. [me] - -5. Issue nontechnical policy documents and statements. +5. Issue, modify, and withdraw nontechnical policy documents and + statements. These include documents describing the goals of the project, its relationship with other free software entities, and nontechnical policies such as the free software licence terms that Debian software must meet. They may also include position statements about issues of the day. As you can see, both proposals amend only the first sentence of section 5, and they amend it in exactly the same way (whitespace aside). This is why I suggested that we have, on the same ballot, the following two choices: * amend Constitution to change language of section 5 * amend Constitution to add sections 5.1 and 5.2 These are, of course, nonexclusive options; a person may vote for either, both, or neither. This is what I recall us agreeing to; does this satisfactorily match your recollection? -- G. Branden Robinson | One man's magic is another man's Debian GNU/Linux| engineering. Supernatural is a [EMAIL PROTECTED] | null word. http://www.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Robert Heinlein pgpvInMmmKtEs.pgp Description: PGP signature
