On Wed, Jul 29, 2026 at 10:52:45PM -0400, Christine Lemmer-Webber wrote: (...) > The fact of the matter is that GCD 008 was a massive success in terms of > consensus building. The fact that the one disapproval pointed at the > structure of the GCD debate process and that every other vote was either > in support of or in acceptance of the GCD 008 *contents* tells me three > things: > > - GCD 008 was a massive success in consensus-building. > - However, the "consensus process" in GCD 008 failed. > - And the fact that the consensus process in GCD 008 failed in such a > *meta way* indicates that we are in real trouble indeed. > > As Andreas said, the particular objections that tanked the GCD could > have been used with any GCD at all. > > And thus, effectively, we have no consensus gathering mechanism anymore. >
I don't think it's true that the consensus process has failed. It was designed to priortise keeping the group together and moving policy only when all agreed to do so. I know because I brought this issue up during the design discussion, since it struck me that a minority could prevent movement. However, the view at that time was that the opinions of the minority were important, and that consensus should prioritise the overall group. There was a lot of discussion about the "Accept" status, as a way for someone to go forward with something they didn't whole heartedly agree with. So from what I can tell the mechanism is working as intended - it's intentionally a conservative decision making process. I feel a general point of Guix has been that it's a welcoming project that has a wide range of perspectives within it, which we know is not always the case. Between this and the GCD process there's a natural slow movement built into the system. As with all these things, the principles are most tested when they turn up results that don't align with our own personal goals. We can consider, as a group, whether the principles have to change and iterate. A lot of the pressure on this process is because we're not discussing policy around technical matters, we've landed up in socio-political policies that divide the group. Steve / Futurile
