On Fri Dec 19 14:00, Russ Allbery wrote: > Matthew Johnson <mj...@debian.org> writes: > > On Fri Dec 19 13:08, Russ Allbery wrote: > > >> This is the root of the argument, really, and is what I'm trying to get > >> across. Foundation documents do not have some sort of Platonic True > >> Meaning that exists outside of the governance process. The words mean > >> what people with the authority to make decisions decide they mean, and > >> those decisions have no special protection or role in the constitution. > >> Therefore, in a very real sense the DFSG and SC mean whatever a simple > >> majority of developers decide that they mean in each specific case > >> where a GR is applied. > > > Then the 3:1 requirement is nonsense > > No, a 3:1 requirement is still required to change or replace those > documents, and as long as they're not changed or replaced, they will have > a powerful persuasive effect on voting. This was also Raphael's point. > We all agreed to follow them. This is not a negligible effect.
I mean that you can effectively ignore them through a series of 1:1 votes which have the same effect as rewriting them. The repeated 'release X with firmware' votes we've had are an example of this. We could rewrite the DFSG to always allow them which would need 3:1, but why bother when we could just have a 1:1 vote every release. > > I don't believe that was the intention when they were drafted. > > Whether it's the intent or not, I believe what I've spelled out is the > practical effect. If you want some other effect, you *have* to spell out > who decides what the meaning is. You cannot rely on everyone "just > knowing" the meaning. People aren't going to agree, and someone has to > pick which meaning is correct. Sure, which is what we have now. Hence I will be seconding all options on Manoj's RFC because I think we need to pick a position and spell it out explicitly. We clearly disagree about what the current position is. matt -- Matthew Johnson
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