Ben Finney <[email protected]> writes: > Russ Allbery <[email protected]> writes: >> Ben Finney <[email protected]> writes: >>> Russ Allbery <[email protected]> writes:
>>> So, in effect, you advocate the position that “the foundation >>> documents”refers to a different set of documents depending on who >>> is being asked? >> No. That's an absurd interpretation of what I said. > Yet I can't disambiguate it from this: > I presume this is referring to the practice of leaving the > determination to each individual person acting. Which, in effect, is > allowing that the foundation documents have a different meaning for > each person and none of them are wrong. Yup. If there's no project 3:1 majority about what the foundation documents mean in a specific case, that is indeed the case. This is not the same thing as using completely different documents. This happens in law all the time. That's one of the big reasons why nations have a court system: resolving disputes between people with different competing legal interpretations of the law. It's not equivalent to everyone having a completely different legal code. Maybe an analogy would help. I'm pointing out that people have a bunch of different philosophical beliefs about the nature of the world, and what you're saying sounds to me like arguing that's equivalent to belief in solipsism. No, it's not. Disagreement is not the same thing as lack of any common basis for discussion whatsoever. > Where have I misunderstood you, and how do you resolve this apparent > absurdity? I don't see any absurdity. I see a dispute which doesn't have the required majority to resolve one way or the other. Your interpretation doesn't magically win despite not having a 3:1 majority just because you think it's obvious, and neither does mine. There are two ways to deal with that. Either we say that in that case we simply cannot make any binding decision and proceed on the basis of everyone doing the best that they can in their own work, which is what we currently do, or we create a position that is empowered to determine what the foundation documents mean for everyone (like a court does in a conventional legal system). -- Russ Allbery ([email protected]) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected]
