Re: Consensus?

[Sam Hartman <hartmans@debian.org>]

>>>>> "Bernd" == Bernd Zeimetz <bernd@bzed.de> writes:

    Bernd> On 2019-08-26 23:41, Sam Hartman wrote:
    >> I don't think you're part of our consensus.

    Bernd> Yes, that might be very true. But what you describe by "our
    Bernd> consensus" is the opinion of a few people who actually read
    Bernd> this mailinglist regularily and consider to reply. I really
    Bernd> hope that you do not consider this "consensus" as the opinion
    Bernd> of the Debian project.  It is the opinion of 10-20 random
    Bernd> people, nothing more.

I am not in agreement with the above.

First, this work was discussed in the DPL campaign, in every bits from
the DPL mail I've published, in my keynote, in several sessions at
DebConf, and heavily in the DebConf hallway track.
I think that  most active members of the project are aware the
discussion is going on.
More over, debian-devel is the list where we have such conversations.
Also, I've been saying it was happening on debian-devel.

I know people have joined or started following debian-devel again to
follow this conversation.

So, given that we've made an appropriate effort to inform people, this
is the discussion amongst the people who care about the issue enough to
join a discussion.

Also, one of the assumptions about consensus discussions is that many
more people are reading than contributing.  But if those people disagree
strongly enough they'll speak up.

So, we have:

* The active support of say 10 people.

* We have fairly confidence that members of debian-devel (the list) have
  researched these issues enough to have an informed opinion.

* We'll eventually get to a point where few people disagree with my
  summary enough to comment on it.

* No one disagrees enough to start a GR process.  If we really get this
  wrong here it only takes 6 to make a very loud statement that we need
  to consider more deeply.

And assuming that none of the things that invalidates a consensus
process happens like driving people away or bullying, then yeah, for
this discussion, I think we do have a project level consensus.

--Sam