Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Philip> [Oxford English Dictionary] policy[1]: noun. prudent conduct, > Philip> sagacity; course or general plan of action (to be) adopted by > Philip> government, party, person etc. > > Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> also quoted things > similar. So, we have officially accepted and ratified the Policy > documents, I take it, and I just missed the party? > > If the project has indeed ``adopted'' the Policy documents, I > have nothing further to say. I just wish you guys had brought this up > when people were fighting the Policy tooth and nail. > > If we have not adopted policy, then quoting the lexicon is a > meaningless play on words; and even though they be named policy, they > are evidently not. > > Which is it? (can't have it both ways, folks).
Are you suggesting that we should interpret the meaning of the policy differently depending upon whether it has been adopted by the project ? If that is the case, we can never adopt it, since the act of adoption would (according to you) change it's meaning, and therefore it would no longer be the document we decided to adopt. I would say that it is self evident that a policy document should accurately reflect one's intent, and that people should generally abide by it. I would also say that there is no need to adopt it in any formal way, since the constructive thing to do is to follow it where appropriate, and fix it otherwise --- what other use would we have for a policy document ? Regardless of any adoption of policy, I will still reserve the right to apply my judgement to the way I construct packages, and I would hope you would too. Are you suggesting that you would do something destructive if it were allowed by policy ? Do we really have to close all loopholes, or can we rely on one another to be reasonable and constructive, without needing a watertight policy with which to cudgel one another ? People that are going to be destructive: a) wouldn't join Debian in the first place, b) wouldn't care about policy even if it were ratified, and c) could just be expelled from the project if they don't mend their ways so why start writing rules with a sub-text of ``you developers are a bunch of untrustworthy skumbags'', when we can rely on one another to be reasonable instead ? If you treat people like children, they will tend to act like them. Let's decide to be adult about this instead. Cheers, Phil. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
