Hi, >>"Ian" == Ian Jackson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Ian> According to the proposed constitution, the policy documents do Ian> not of themselves have any power to override a developer's Ian> decisions. I think that to allow this would be to hand far too Ian> much power to the policy editor(s), so I think this situation Ian> should be preserved. The policy editor is supposed to be someone who starts discussions about policy, and incorporates the consensus into the document itself. I suppose a formal process could be worked out, but, by and large, this works quite well. There also is a process to get policy amended, in case the developers feel the policy editor has exceeded their authority. In the light of this, I find the statement about too much power to the policy editor, umm, unconvincing. Ian> If Christian or anyone else disagrees they should take the matter Ian> up on debian-devel, where the proposed constitution is being Ian> discussed. I have copied the developers list on this. Ian> The question then arises: what does it mean when something is Ian> policy ? Answer: policy is a set of technical specifications and Ian> procedures which developers are expected to use to make Ian> decisions, which people reporting bugs can refer to as Ian> authoritative, and which bodies like the Technical Committee will Ian> refer to (though not unquestioningly) when asked to adjudicate. So, people may report bugs for policy violations, and when it comes to adjuducation the Technical committee refers to this, but apart from that, Policy has as much relevance as Wodehouse? Ian> So what power does a policy document have, in and of itself ? Ian> Answer: just the power to declare what is and is not policy. I find the intent quite unclear. Is policy like a standards document? Are individual maintainers at liberty to flout, say, the WWW standard, of the file system standard? Can my package start modifying /var/lib/dpkg/status at will? I mean, if policy has no power whatsoever exept say this does not conform, where exactly does that leave us? I understand that one may want a little more leeway than say the policy documents are writ in stone (I personally prefer that), but to deny that and make no mention of any mechanism of enforcement of policy is disquieting. manoj -- "I asked you not to have a spaz attack in tx.general, BUT NOOOOO!!!!" Karl, via John Belushi Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://www.datasync.com/%7Esrivasta/> Key C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]