> On 1/1/20 9:46 pm, Martin Steigerwald wrote: >> I agree with Andrew that at least some of the options in the GR >> were not about diversity or inclusion, but about exclusion and the >> opposite of diversity. I pointed it out *clearly* before hand, but >> that was all I could do. > > Yes, but it's much more than that. The diversity in decisions > relating to Debian's future need to be able to be influenced by the > people and for the people -- not by the political classes. In this > case, the political classes are the DDs that have absolute privilege here. > > IOW, the GR process itself is severely flawed and it cannot, in it's > current state provide what is needed for Debian from the eyes of all > reasonable stakeholders, it is very limited to a small group of Debian > users known collectively as DDs .. the current "gods" of Debian whom > have ultimate power to do good or do bad with or for the project. > [Such] Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
So Debian is a volunteer project. We build an OS - together. Those who do the work get the say. And as far as our Social Contract goes, either there is a trust of the user base that we consider the needs of our users or they will go elsewhere. I think as Devuan has shown, they don't actually do the latter. And if they do, more power to them if that serves their need better. This is Free Software after all. If there is a greater need and valuable *actual new software* (like - from hearsay - elogind and opensysusers) as the output, someone who is intrigued by that can package and integrate it. Telling others to completely stifle any kind of progress because of almost religious[1] opposition is not acceptable. In every decision there will be people who feel misrepresented. Thus is democracy. In fact the outcome was not the absolutist Proposal F but the slightly more inclusive Proposal B. I think it is fair to assume that the world can move on and what we settle on a default that serves as the baseline for others to work against. There was clarity missing and I would expect that now the actual assumptions will be clarified in policy, as Russ already started in [2]. So there should be something to work against for alternative systems. Of course we can go and argue that only a small subset voted and if those people are the most active in the project. But I don't think that this is particularly useful distinction. For the best we know the others did not care enough to vote (or were unable to for technical reasons) and were thus ok with any outcome. Also we welcome people to join the project, if they do contribute in whatever way. And that comes with a vote. Kind regards Philipp Kern [1] I looked for a more neutral word here, but failed to find one. Please give me the benefit of the doubt, given that I am a non-native speaker. [2] https://lists.debian.org/debian-policy/2019/12/msg00025.html
