On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 12:18:01PM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote: > If we're going to have a vote on this topic, I feel quite strongly that > every option which states the social contract is binding should include in > it a constitutional amendment specifying *who* decides for the project > what those documents mean and what the procedure is to override that > decision (can't be overridden, requires a 3:1 majority to override, etc.).
While formally I agree that this should be a requirement for such a system, I will vote against any such GR because all this does is add another layer of indirection to our decision-making process that we don't need. The heart of the dispute over the current ballot is that the secretary has assumed the power to intervene in the very process of how the project takes decisions. Regardless of whether this is acceptable under the constitution (which I don't believe it is), I think it's a very wrong model, and that if we're to make any changes at all they should be to *correct* this instead of codifying it. > * Each individual developer when doing their own work (advantage: what we > have now, according to my reading, but gives rise to lots of debate when > those scopes overlap, such as when a GR is proposed and the secretary > has to prepare the ballot) Given the privileged position of the secretary (immune even to direct recall by the developers), I think it should be made unequivocally clear that the secretary should not be interpreting the SC at all as part of the ballot drafting, and should be interpreting the constitution parsimoniously. But given that the constitution already calls for the secretary to engage in consensus-driven decision-making, I'm not sure how the latter can be made any more clear. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/ [email protected] [email protected] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected]
