-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 With the resignation of our project Secretary, under section 7.2 of the Debian Constitution, as Chairman of the Debian Technical Committee, I now serve as the Acting Secretary.
Thank you to those of you who have shown your support over the past few days as I have worked to understand the mechanics of our voting system, and to comprehend the status of the current ballot. I wasn't expecting to have to deal with this right now, and it helps my attitude immensely that 100% of the comments I have received so far are positive and supportive! There are a few people who deserve special mention. First is Manoj Srivastava, our outgoing secretary, who served us admirably and honorably in his long tenure, and who provided me a detailed "to do list" to complete the current vote. Neil McGovern serving as our assistant secretary and Peter Palfrader from our admin team have both been great, helping me with needed technical support. And Steve McIntyre and I are working well together on the process of finding a new Secretary for the project. I spent the weekend reviewing the sequence of events leading up to the current vote, and seeking advice on how to proceed. My initial reaction, clearly mirrored by some others of you in the project, was to want to stop the current vote and start over. It is clear that there are flaws with the way the current ballot is constructed. In particular, mixing choices that need supermajority with choices that don't seems likely to always lead to confusion. However, after thinking long and hard about this, I can find no real constitutional basis for terminating the current vote. Therefore, attached you will find the second call for votes. The only substantive change is that I corrected the date and time for ending this vote which were in error in the first call for votes, and I've signed the key already in use for this vote. I strongly encourage *every* Debian Developer to vote on this ballot. The beauty of our Debian voting system is that ranking the options allows us to convey a great deal of information about how we feel, beyond just picking a winning choice. By carefully placing "Further Discussion", we can indicate which options we think are acceptable and in what rank above it, and which options we think are unacceptable and in what rank below it. For example, if you think this ballot is a mess and don't want to figure out what all the options mean, then the right choice is to vote a ballot that ranks "Further Discussion" ahead of all other options. If you choose *not* to vote, then you are in effect saying that *any* of the options presented would be ok with you. A vote for Further Discussion tells the world that you think we should start over and try again with a better set of choices. That is a completely ok result for the project. It wouldn't "solve" anything, but it would do no harm. I also strongly encourage every voter to take the time to read, understand, and rank *all* of the presented options. Even if you choose to rank some or all of them below Further Discussion, ranking the various choices helps to convey your thinking about which choices would be better or worse, regardless of whether you think any of the choices are what you really want. Thank you again for your continued support, and commitment to Debian! Bdale SECOND CALL FOR VOTES FOR THE Lenny Release General Resolution ====== ==== === ===== === === ===== ======= ======= ========== Voting period starts 00:00:01 UTC on Sunday, December 14th, 2008 Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC on Saturday, December 28th, 2008 This ballot is for a vote being conducted as required by the Debian Constitution. You may see the constitution at http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution. For voting questions contact secret...@debian.org. Also, note that you can get a fresh ballot any time before the end of the vote by sending a mail to bal...@vote.debian.org with the subject "gr_lenny". HOW TO VOTE First, read the full text of the various proposals. To cast a vote, it is necessary to send this ballot, with the text form (which is embedded later in this ballot) filled out, to a dedicated e-mail address, in a signed message, as described below. The dedicated email address this ballot should be sent to is: gr_le...@vote.debian.org The form you need to fill out is contained at the bottom of this message, marked with two lines containing the characters '-=-=-=-=-=-'. Do not erase anything between those lines, and do not change the choice names. There are 7 choices in the form, which you may rank with numbers between 1 and 7. In the brackets next to your preferred choice, place a 1. Place a 2 in the brackets next to your next choice. Continue until you reach your last choice. Do not enter a number smaller than 1 or larger than 7. You may skip numbers, leave some choices unranked, and rank options equally. Unranked choices are considered equally the least desired choices, and ranked below all ranked choices. Make sure you have read the proposals in detail. To vote "no, no matter what", rank "Further Discussion" as more desirable than the unacceptable choices, or you may rank the "Further Discussion" choice and leave choices you consider unacceptable blank. (Note: if the "Further Discussion" choice is unranked, then it is equal to all other unranked choices, if any -- no special consideration is given to the "Further Discussion" choice by the voting software). Finally, mail the filled out ballot to: gr_le...@vote.debian.org. Don't worry about spacing of the columns or any quote characters (">") that your reply inserts. NOTE: The vote must be GPG signed (or PGP signed) with your key that is in the Debian keyring. The voting software (Devotee) accepts mail that either contains only an unmangled OpenPGP message (RFC 2440 compliant), or a PGP/MIME mail (RFC 3156 compliant). You may, if you wish, choose to send a signed, encrypted ballot: use the vote key appended below for encryption. - - - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 41b0a520-c6c1-4e7b-8c49-74ee85faf242 [ ] Choice 1: Reaffirm the Social Contract [ ] Choice 2: Allow Lenny to release with proprietary firmware [3:1] [ ] Choice 3: Allow Lenny to release with DFSG violations [3:1] [ ] Choice 4: Empower the release team to decide about allowing DFSG violations [3:1] [ ] Choice 5: Assume blobs comply with GPL unless proven otherwise [ ] Choice 6: Exclude source requirements for firmware (defined) [3:1] [ ] Choice 7: Further Discussion - - - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- The actual text of the various options are as follows. Please note that this does not include preludes, prologues, any preambles to the resolution, post-ambles to the resolutions, abstracts, fore-words, after-words, rationales, supporting documents, opinion polls, arguments for and against, and any of the other important material you will find on the mailing list archives. Please read the debian-vote mailing list archives for details. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Choice 1: Reaffirm the Social Contract ========= ======== === ====== ======== 1. We affirm that our Priorities are our users and the free software community (Social Contract #4); 2. We acknowledge that we promised to deliver a 100% free operating system (Social Contract #1); 3. Given that we have known for two previous releases that we have non-free bits in various parts of Debian, and a lot of progress has been made, and we are almost to the point where we can provide a free version of the Debian operating system, we will delay the release of Lenny until such point that the work to free the operating system is complete (to the best of our knowledge as of 1 November 2008). - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Choice 2: Allow Lenny to release with proprietary firmware [3:1] ====== == ===== ===== == ======= ==== =========== ======== ===== 1. We affirm that our Priorities are our users and the free software community (Social Contract #4); 2. We acknowledge that there is a lot of progress in the kernel firmware issue; most of the issues that were outstanding at the time of the last stable release have been sorted out. However, new issues in the kernel sources have cropped up fairly recently, and these new issues have not yet been addressed; 3. We assure the community that there will be no regressions in the progress made for freedom in the kernel distributed by Debian relative to the Etch release in Lenny (to the best of our knowledge as of 1 November 2008); 4. We give priority to the timely release of Lenny over sorting every bit out; for this reason, we will treat removal of sourceless firmware as a best-effort process, and deliver firmware as part of Debian Lenny as long as we are legally allowed to do so. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Choice 3: Allow Lenny to release with DFSG violations [3:1] ====== == ===== ===== == ======= ==== ==== ========== ===== 1. We affirm that our Priorities are our users and the free software community (Social Contract #4); 2. We acknowledge that there is a lot of progress in the kernel firmware issue; however, they are not yet finally sorted out; 3. We assure the community that there will be no regressions in the progress made for freedom in the kernel distributed by Debian relative to the Etch release in Lenny (to the best of our knowledge as of 1 November 2008); 4. We give priority to the timely release of Lenny over sorting every bit out; for this reason, we will treat removal of sourceless firmware as a best-effort process. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Choice 4: Empower the release team to decide about allowing DFSG violations [3:1] ====== == ======= === ======= ==== == ====== ===== ======== ==== ========== ==== 1. Debian's priorities are our users and free software. We don't trade them against each other. However, while getting a release out of the door, decisions need to be made about how to get a rock-stable release of the high quality Debian is known for, release more or less on time, and to minimize the usage of problematic software. We acknowledge that there is more than just one minefield our core developers and the release team are working on. 2. We as Developers at large continue to trust our release team to follow all these goals, and therefore encourage them to continue making case-by-case decisions as they consider fit, and if necessary we authorize these decisions. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Choice 5: Assume blobs comply with GPL unless proven otherwise 1. We affirm that our Priorities are our users and the free software community (Social Contract #4); 2. We acknowledge that there is a lot of progress in the kernel firmware issue; most of the issues that were outstanding at the time of the last stable release have been sorted out. However, new issues in the kernel sources have cropped up fairly recently, and these new issues have not yet been addressed; 3. We assure the community that there will be no regressions in the progress made for freedom in the kernel distributed by Debian relative to the Etch release in Lenny (to the best of our knowledge as of 1 November 2008); 4. We give priority to the timely release of Lenny over sorting every bit out; for this reason, we will treat removal of sourceless firmware as a best-effort process, and deliver firmware as part of Debian Lenny as long as we are legally allowed to do so, and the firmware is distributed upstream under a license that complies with the DFSG. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Choice 6: Exclude source requirements for firmware (defined) [3:1] Firmware is data such as microcode or lookup tables that is loaded into hardware components in order to make the component function properly. It is not code that is run on the host CPU. Unfortunately such firmware often is distributed as so-called blobs, with no source or further documentation that lets us learn how it works or interacts with the hardware in question. By excluding such firmware from Debian we exclude users that require such devices from installing our operating system, or make it unnecessarily hard for them. 1. firmware in Debian does not have to come with source. While we do prefer firmware that comes with source and documentation we will not require it, 2. we however do require all other freedoms that the DFSG mandate from components of our operating system, and 3. such firmware can and should be part of our official installation media. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The responses to a valid vote shall be signed by the vote key created for this vote. The public key for the vote, signed by the Project secretary, is appended below. - -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) mQGiBEk//6wRBAD7CH1mElXRhrTJnTrTZZQDcQjG4mRBaFEAe+azE3t6L9JMXVOp Ups7m8u9xwKYr0qfpJWw5oTFEebvN6wLP90tJrqavBfBY6YpO5LZdhnki3ddLni5 vWlHtpcUmmELJW7xXLjvzZQYtzanwV3qyUJYBqSoCtb5RYXIWaus8fGJVwCgrtoZ AdTAmX7xsUMNZMi9guvrcyEEAPptWEI6KHmv3UlR3+9O+fKnCCgk43ll591qxw68 pbXfYSAY6PUfh7xcz/z9hnlWBbSYCMbrykovCTO85A77O5NT9SwKb3oKk+s4NxWi Ylx6DDK6q/+9DmGK/1yXg0vZ8ylybImjbRp7d5S2MSnX/GWvQXOPX6LKu6hXb2lN ZlkiBADcKq8jTjXdtRkqTRDKPM39yCk/90locWDdA4umSmpNRszQZkWcxJ/bTdIb mr9MBqv4dIn1QR2H+Kd8L4HSZtgTZu9QbosGYDC2ddrAmkqUw4Mzazp5IaZ2p1H+ E07hxn5Ex5Fv8o1hTsOxu6tVtahhgq4245hHF3onN+1FGliXfLQ8TGVubnkgR1Ig dm90ZSBrZXkgKEVwaGVtZXJhbCBLZXkpIDxncl9sZW5ueUB2b3RlLmRlYmlhbi5v cmc+iGYEExECACYFAkk//6wCGwMFCQAk6gAGCwkIBwMCBBUCCAMEFgIDAQIeAQIX gAAKCRDElT8+Z8sSYje+AJ96psJX6s59kM4CFsIcrOn1FXa93wCfbLi1kzpbWKMj VQ2ATo/lDgL11syIRgQQEQIABgUCSUAB7gAKCRAhutq7vyRCTOHaAJwPIbDOF9bC orHryY/u48uPcXOqqwCfYwqAF8qaSzhkaPK2CFkfVVbKhK6IRgQQEQIABgUCSVAT LgAKCRBkp8Cn8s8BqM84AJ9W7FtbQHIzlzu1xPQLbawBxHupkQCfcEQDSeup8hM0 btGyR87uKMjWK1a5Ag0EST//sRAIAISc/3f41mVRM9aw/pNADIGTajm/HwBm89fx UpV8/8dG2oQu6BLMXEWjwMweqWDDQDi7dYzy+/TpTmyB7x9ELrZi8n89E0Z1nII1 CnhCtak+yNf2I9rgk4FrDmfjIfB8UZD/zHtKVdrACw7pBZAawfeg0NXZoaqroDXv Rke+s7TEHZ2N+hRkhsdztqTy0Dz2/HMJfOV/DEwhM8LtU83ZyiFLioLZvKJINc8J MSX3PwUOgqeig3JwBPGlrzF/H8gdZ4Ogk8nlfQOafoSc6UI99BzKh+VcJJgyJH4u tWD26Xpni7TS0W/pWeL0Kz126BU87uccTW7D/vGkzBfP3UjOFQMAAwYH/RSkEuOt Eu2u9x29ZsvFuN076Ef+3r5YmAOH0EBtKJfIWPSivEbGtrE4/VgoESIX8/jpnG2X hFxOB79AOBUw7UHyF2uo9FtwQdv0N/DoWjcgr/v+Ex874HjBF4yocy2jU36efAM+ Yy8G0N9pM2ZA59YDXQsUf1XX56m37fV5LCkSbdfBNVJcWZJTczrTZIq+JdGT0hwi aQISd7QCVAQ78/X1k+en8Tzbo35+KOdBFjDu4xjCA9H2W9MVK6ztBJNcfF0P/5dA 57v0BFiEn/+BxNhGizv74joI3dcctP4LA1d83xIm6AodmbaG1Rvgbx48uU0BSZj3 vK3POqEoHQ2b4OCITwQYEQIADwUCST//sQIbDAUJACTqAAAKCRDElT8+Z8sSYgE4 AKCao/vj8qRc4Egxh7R+xKBRUhMLsACfS82/N6RTpAqhnFrj1WAqa+72eHk= =9YyM - -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.5.8+ <http://mailcrypt.sourceforge.net/> iD8DBQFJUBcgZKfAp/LPAagRAhkFAJsFObNklyCmZGyWM/Bdx/Xk8HENiwCfe4U7 vvg95QsnZS2V5Pv80JkltTk= =Oj39 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". 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