On Sun, Jul 18, 2004 at 05:48:52PM +0200, Hamster wrote: > I'm still none the wiser. > > What is GR? > > Or in other words, what does it stand for?
A GR stands for General Resolution. It's the way by which Debian's written documents are changed. Basically, any Debian Developer can propose a GR and all developers have a vote. Certain votes, like those to change the Social Contract, require more votes than others. One of the major recent GR's was to change the Social Contract. These changes, which passed with a 2/3 majority vote, caused a serious potential delay in Debian's ability to release sarge, so another GR was voted on with a set of options to deal with the problem. The outcome of this vote was to postpone the Social Contract changes until after sarge released. The flamewars over these two GR's were massive and wearisome. Within the past few days, there was a GR proposed to make sure sarge releases with amd64 support. No one has ever proposed a GR based on technical issues before, and there's a great amount of controversy as to whether this is effective and fitting with the spirit of the project. It's lead to hundreds of mails each day on debian-devel, and has not only raised questions of forking the project but also brought multiple key developers within Debian to publicly question whether their devotion to the project is worthwhile. Part of the reason I poked fun at the issue is that the whole debian-women effort seems to be a good way to get people interested in Debian without having to slog through the tiresome political vitriol that recent GR's have created. Erinn has created a great opportunity here, and I hope people take advantage of it. - David Nusinow
