Hi folks,
Since I am no longer merely an interested observer in the GR
process, this is going to be hard.=20
When we talked about this the last time around, in the summer
on 2000, there were two camps, with two wildly different
interpretations of the constitution. Given the different
interpretations, I think that is time to revisit the section 4.1.5,
and
Even though the intent may have been to have that section
apply to the non technical documents like the social contract, I
don't think we properly appreciated the importance of the social
contract and the DFSG even a few years ago. The social contract is
the soul of the project, the one common cause that we all rally
around, and have agreed to. Also, in a sense, large segments of the
free software community have defined free software around the DFSG
(and its derivative, the open source definition).
While clarifying the language in the constitution about
_changing_ nontechnical documents I like us to also address special
case core documents of the project, and require that a near consensus
be achieved before these documents are changed. I think that the
social contract and the DFSG are no less important than the
constitution to the well being of the project, and they deserve at
least equal protection from being changed unless we all (well, more
or less) agree to such change.
The social contract, defining as it does what Debian is, is
important to the people who have committed to Debian, and converted
their companies to use Debian servers, against using the common
distributions. I think the social contract, seeing that it is with
the fee software community, should indeed involve people from our
user community when we are trying to change it.
One of the fears voiced the last time around was that the
constitution was impossibly hard to change, given the super majority
requirements. I would like to offer the voting method GR as an
example demonstrating that that fear is groundless. It was not as if
the voting methods GR was unopposed, certain luminaries in the
project voiced opposition, on the grounds that the GR was not
explained well enough, and there was an attempt to amend the proposal
radically. And yet the constitution was amended in a 9:1 landslide;
obviously, it is possible to amend the constitution if one manages to
convince the rank and file that the amendment is a good one.
In my opinion it would be a good idea to require that changes
to the documents that form the core of the project, and one which we
signed on to uphold, be vetted by most of the membership (as opposed
to 50% + 1).
I would like to re-propose what I had proposed on -project
more than three years ago:
======================================================================
4. The Developers by way of General Resolution or election
4.1. Powers
Together, the Developers may:
1. Appoint or recall the Project Leader.
2. Amend this constitution, provided they agree with a 3:1 majority.
3. Override any decision by the Project Leader or a Delegate.
4. Override any decision by the Technical Committee, provided they
agree with a 2:1 majority.
- 5. Issue nontechnical policy documents and statements.
- These include documents describing the goals of the project, its
- relationship with other free software entities, and nontechnical
- policies such as the free software licence terms that Debian
- software must meet.
- They may also include position statements about issues of the day.
+ 5. Issue, modify and withdraw nontechnical policy documents and statements.
+ These include documents describing the goals of the project, its
+ relationship with other free software entities, and nontechnical
+ policies such as the free software licence terms that Debian
+ software must meet.
+ They may also include position statements about issues of the day.
+ 5.1 A special clause applies to the documents labelled as
+ "Foundation Documents". These documents are those
+ that are deemed to be critical to the core of the project,
+ they tend to define what the project is, and lay the
+ foundations of its structure. The developers may
+ modify a foundation document provided they agree with a 3:1
+ majority.
+ 5.2 Initially, the list of foundation Documents consists
+ of this document, The Debian Constitution, as well as the
+ documents known as the Debian Social Contract and the
+ Debian Free Software Guidelines. The list of the documents
+ that are deemed to be "Foundation Documents" may be changed
+ by the developers provided they agree with a 3:1 majority.
6. Together with the Project Leader and SPI, make decisions about
property held in trust for purposes related to Debian. (See
s.9.1.)
======================================================================
Rationale: The clause being modified has been seen to be quite
ambiguous. Since the original wording appeared to be amenable to two
wildly different interpretations, this change adds clarifying the
language in the constitution about _changing_ non technical
documents. Additionally, this also provides for the core documents of
the project the same protection against hasty changes that the
constitution itself enjoys.
======================================================================
I think we should be careful about the documents that we
afford the same deree of protection from changes. While I think that
there are indeed documents that should be afforded this protection,
it may not be a bad idea to require a 3:1 super majority to add to
this set. Frivolous additions to this document set may also be
detrimental to the project, and limit our ability to adapt.
We should be very sure that the documents in this list are
indeed ``Foundation'' documents, changing which may well change the
nature of the project. This is why I want to specifically name the
set of documents labelled foundation in the constitution itself.
I am now formally looking for seconds for this proposal.
--
"Inquiry is fatal to certainty." Will Durant
Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
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