Hi Andreas, At 2026-02-10T20:43:22+0100, Andreas Tille wrote: > thank you for setting out your position so clearly. > > I want to be equally clear in response.
Thank you for your prompt attention to my message and request. > The Debian Community Team acts under my delegation and enjoys my full > confidence. [...] > With respect to your request for an independent appellate process: > Debian's Constitution and current governance structures do not define > such a mechanism for reviewing Community Team actions of this kind. > What you are proposing reflects a personal interest in procedural > review, not an established project process. That is not the case; rather it reflects a lack of confidence that an independent review of Community Team action can survive scrutiny without a slate of procedural reforms, irrespective of such reforms' applicability to my case. If such reforms were implemented, even without any alteration to the disposition of any actions against me personally, and they seemed to seriously address my concerns regarding the transparency of delegate procedures and accountability to the project membership (see generally my messages to -vote and -project over the past year), I'd be happy and more hopeful for Debian's future. > Creating ad-hoc bodies or new review structures in response to > individual cases would itself consume significant time and attention - > time that is already scarce and that the project owes first and > foremost to its users. [...] > Due process in Debian does not mean that every enforcement action > requires the creation of a new institution. I agree. While I left the point unspecified, I did not request an ad-hoc body, but rather a standing, permanent one, chartered to meet any such scenarios as may arise in the future. > Delegation exists precisely so that the project can function without > continual escalation and paralysis. That claim can be made in opposition to any appellate process anywhere, in any context. To understand why Debian needs one here, you can discount my words and experiences, directing your attention instead to other concerns, worries, and objections Debian Developers have raised, on the debian-private list and elsewhere, over the past few years. > The Community Team has acted within its mandate, and I support its > actions. Acknowledged. > My expectation is that all Debian Developers communicate in ways that > are constructive, proportionate, and mindful of the shared resource > that is our collective attention. Continued failure to do so will have > consequences, as already communicated to you. Understood. While I applaud your recent actions to dissolve one of several fiefdoms within project administration, I worry that leaving others to fester, and/or permitting those surviving to strengthen, will reflect as poorly on your tenure as Project Leader as it did on mine (and my predecessors' and successors'). I predict further unhappy episodes involving individual Debian Developers who adopt a stance of critical inquiry toward sites of personal power in project administration, even if such critics carefully avoid the hazards, off-putting to some, of long emails and hard words. I feel that the Debian Project and I no longer have anything to offer each other. Time will tell if mine serves as the last cautionary tale. I resign from the Debian Project, effective immediately. I express no preference regarding my placement in emeritus status. Do as you will. Regards, Branden
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