Re: Procedure for submitting requests for clarification to the committee
> Raul> Standards set up without any real experience are almost always wrong.
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> wrote:
> We are not talking about standards here, for gods sake. We are
> not even talking Policy. We are twalking about setting up guidelines,
> and something that can be adapted as we go along. Jumping in without
> even tinking about scalable methods is unwise.
Scalable? If the technical committee needs to scale up that means
that Debian's technical standards are changing incredibly rapidly.
Even if this were an issue, it's very likely that the best way to
handle such a situation would involve proceeding at a sedate pace.
Also, remember that the committee isn't a design body, it's an approval
body -- someone needs to submit a completed proposal to the committee.
The committee has some latitude on what they do with a proposal (and,
I suspect that the most useful work the comittee will do involves sending
proposals back to the submitter with recommendations and/or criticisms),
but it's not like the debian-policy list where people are hashing out
the details of policy.
> This of this as a business plan that one needs to have before
> anyone lends you money to start off. We need a plan, something that
> takes care of the problems that we can envisage right now. It may not
> be the final form that we need to use, but a well thought out plan
> may take us most fo the way there, and not require disaster-mode
> changes.
Except that (a) there are no venture capitalists involved (a good
thing too), (b) we already have an extensive set of guidelines laid
out in the constitution.
Which reminds me, your suggestion about a committee for approving
the submission of proposals to the technical committee seems to
conflict with 6.1.3 of the constitution:
Any person or body may delegate a decision of their own to the
Technical Committee, or seek advice from it.
[Which, given the other constraints on the technical committee's
operations probably means that the person doesn't really care about
that particular issue, or perhaps is simply uncertain that it's
the right choice.]
Finally, I really don't see that the technical committee is so dangerously
powerful [which I think you've been implying]. For example, if we had
made any decisions, they could have been overturned with a 15:7 vote by
the developers. And, 10 developers could have decided that a decision
needed to be put on hold, leading up to a potential overturning vote...
[And for some decisions even less than that's needed.]
--
Raul
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