Ian, > IMO this is not the first time he has overstepped the mark; on another > memorable recent occasion, after an enormously acrimonious debate, 15% > of Debian's governing body thought he had offended badly enough that > he should be sacked over it[1], as many as endorsed his actual > decision[2].
This may affect the DPL's re-election prospects but it's completely irrelevant to the normalization of relations between Debian and SPI. In the case you cite (Dunc-Tank) the DPL clearly communicated with us what things he was asking for as DPL and what things he was arguing as Anthony Towns, SPI member. If AJ was "overstepping", he'd simply have asked me to cut Vorlon a check, which I would have done, or represented Dunc-Tank as having the support of Debian, which he did not, even though it cost him what he wanted. So you're essentially saying that the DPL role is broken because the DPL created controversy, which viewpoint I don't agree with. > This would be one way of doing it but it doesn't seem necessary to go > to that level of formality. SPI is a lot closer to Debian than a bank > is to its customers, and we have plenty of Debian Developers here to > make sure we find out if anything goes wrong. I'm going to vote against any version of the resolution which does not spell out Debian delegates' powers and responsibilities. While we haven't (to date) had a problem with the DPL misrepresenting Debian constitutional decisions, the same cannot be said of all DDs on spi-private. As the Treasurer who is not a DD, I can't be satisfied by anything which says the SPI board should "just know", or that they should take the word of just any Debian-SPI member for it. Any resolution I support will: a) explicitly spell out the authority of the DPL b) indicate who (by office, presumably) can bring us a Debian constitutional decision in the event that it is not communicated by the DPL (such as after a ratified recall vote) c) indicate which other offices, if any, can ask for which other things from the Board without explicit DPL delegation d) indicate where we can verify the credentials of these officers. All of this can be as simple as: "The Debian Project Leader will be responsible for all communication between Debian and SPI, and has full authority over all Debian assets held by SPI. In the event that the DPL office is vacant, the Debian Secretary will communicate decisions according to the Debian constitution to the SPI Board. These decisions may be verified at www.debian.org/decisions." -- Josh Berkus Treasurer Software in the Public Interest, Inc. www.spi-inc.org _______________________________________________ Spi-general mailing list Spi-general@lists.spi-inc.org http://lists.spi-inc.org/listinfo/spi-general
