-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Anthony Towns <[email protected]> writes:
> Okay, incorporating Manoj's proposed changes, and some other ideas: > > On Tue, Nov 15, 2005 at 12:08:15PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: >> One of the issues Debian often stands for is transparency and openness >> -- indeed, the openness of our bug tracking system is codified in the >> Social Contract's statement "We will not hide problems". However, one >> particular area of significance within the project is not open at all: >> the debian-private mailing list. >> >> This list has hosted a number of significant discussions over the years, >> including most of the discussion inspiring the original statement >> of Debian's Social Contract and the Debian Free Software Guidelines, >> the reinvetion of the new-maintainer process, debate on the qmail to >> exim/postfix transition for Debian mail servers and more. This trend >> continues today, with the six months just past have averaged around 190 >> posts per month. >> >> Especially given Debian is the focus of academic work (such as Biella >> Coleman's paper), and has inspired other groups to emulate our commitment >> to free software and our community (GenToo, Wikipedia, the Open Directory >> Project and OpenSolaris), we should make our discussions on issues like >> these and the reasoning behind the solutions we adopt accessible to the >> rest of humanity. >> >> I think the easiest way to do that is to adopt an approach similar to that >> of governments that deal with classified documents; that is by setting a >> specific time after which -private posts will be required to be considered >> for declassification (ie, publication) and redacting only those posts (or >> portions of posts) for which there's still a good reason to keep private. > > Thus, I propose that the Debian project resolve that: > > --- > In accordance with principles of openness and transparency, Debian will > seek to declassify and publish posts of historical or ongoing significance > made to the Debian Private Mailing List. > > This process will be undertaken under the following constraints: > > * The Debian Project Leader will delegate one or more volunteers > to form the "debian-private declassification team". > > * The team will automatically declassify and publish posts made to > that list that are three or more years old, with the following > exceptions: > > - the author and other individuals quoted in messages being reviewed > will be contacted, and allowed between four and eight weeks > to comment; > > - posts that reveal financial information about individuals or > organisations other than Debian, will have that information > removed; > > - requests by the author of a post for that post not to be published > will be honoured; > > - posts of no historical or other relevance, such as vacation > announcements, or posts that have no content after personal > information is removed, will not be published, unless the author > requests they be published; > > - comments by others who would be affected by the publication of > the post will also be taken into account by the declassification > team; > > - the list of posts to be declassified will be made available to > developers two weeks before publication, so that the decisions > of the team may be overruled by the developer body by General > Resolution, if necessary -- in the event such a resolution is > introduced (ie, proposed and sponsored), the declassification > and publication of messages specified by the resolution will be > deferred until the resolution has been voted on. > --- > >> According to the interweb, classified US government documents relating >> to national security have to be released after at most ten years (unless >> there're particular reasons to extend that); the oldest mail in the >> -private archives turns ten on January 21st next year. I don't want to >> see Debian be more secretive than the US military industrial complex :) >> >> And beyond that, there really are a lot of good ideas stuck in the >> -private archives that it'd be nice to be able to refer to properly. > > The changes since the original: > > - authors have a veto over publication (Manoj's changes) > - people quoted in messages rather than other recipients should be > contacted > - security problems don't get special treatment; they can be vetoed > by the post's author though > - specific details for overriding the team's decisions by the > developers > > Seconds so far: > > Don Armstrong (original or Manoj's changes) > Joey Hess (original only, no comment on Manoj's changes) > Wouter Verhelst (Manoj's changes, no comment on original) > Bas Zoetekouw (Manoj's changes, no comment on original) > Daniel Ruoso (original preferred over Manoj's changes) > > Five's enough to second a proposal, but only if they all second the same > one :) > >> Comments, suggestions and seconds appreciated. > > Cheers, > aj > I second this proposal. - -- * Sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology (T.P) * * PGP public key available @ http://www.iki.fi/killer * -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.5.8 <http://mailcrypt.sourceforge.net/> iD8DBQFDfa1ZkuYKi19tgBURAl8sAKCyUli2LodThiBWmpRqFNFCwN6QJwCfc/OX bEMJs/lTIhlwywyExIUEAww= =fUhB -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
