On Tue, Dec 02, 2014 at 06:42:40PM -0500, Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote: > * Do away with the Technical Committee entirely. > > The main questions this raises are: > > How would we deal with conflicts that would currently be addressed by > the TC? Hopefully, the answers would be something like: collaboration > and teamwork, negotiation, mediation, and GRs (in that order).
That is a very legitimate question. But I think there is another (or maybe a sub-)question that we should use as a benchmark: what would be the impact on the quality of the decisions? This is lame rhetoric, but one could arbitrate disputes by tossing a coin (or by fiddling with $RANDOM for a number of contestants larger than 2) but that doesn't maximize the chances of a wise resolution. I know that there are people in the Project who have been unhappy about recent CTTE decisions, but I still think the processes and the bodies behind those decisions is very close to the best we could do in a project the size of Debian. (FWIW, the trust in those processes and bodies is also what we have just collectively affirmed with https://www.debian.org/vote/2014/vote_003 . Personally, I would be very surprised if shortly after that vote we will find out that a [qualified!] majority of project members were in favor of dropping the CTTE.) From those who want to drop the CTTE, I'd like to know what would they have done to decide upon the init system for Jessie. It seems to me that we have tried not to use the CTTE on that dispute for several years, with the net result of raging flamewars and no decision. These days we still have (now dissipating, IMO) flamewars, but at least we have a decision. And the CTTE seems to have reached that decision after having studies very deeply the problem ( https://lists.debian.org/debian-ctte/2013/12/msg00234.html and similar messages come to mind). The only alternative to a CTTE seems to be using GRs to settle otherwise non-settlable disputes. But that (old arguments follow) seems to go against the wisdom of not using GRs for technical decisions, and also against the common sense of turning technical disputes into popularity contests. I'll choose a working CTTE over the latter scenario any day. If there are other options, we definitely need to hear about them before deciding to dismantle the CTTE. Cheers. -- Stefano Zacchiroli . . . . . . . z...@upsilon.cc . . . . o . . . o . o Maître de conférences . . . . . http://upsilon.cc/zack . . . o . . . o o Former Debian Project Leader . . @zack on identi.ca . . o o o . . . o . « the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »
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