Re: Process is no substitute for understanding

[Julian Gilbey <J.D.Gilbey@qmw.ac.uk>]

On Fri, Mar 24, 2000 at 10:00:58AM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> I think that the fundamental problem is that the policy manual needs
> to be coherent and well-thought-out, which means that it needs to be
> edited by one or more people who are technically excellent, have the
> foresight to anticipate problems, and who are not afraid to put their
> own opinions into practice (after discussion, of course).
> [...]
> 
> We must take control over our key technical standards away from a
> mailing list and give it back to technical experts !

I totally agree, Ian.  We have seen the problems which occur
otherwise.  I think that a balance can be achieved by having the
technical team write policy or evaluate proposals, but allow
discussion on them before they actually become policy.  Hopefully, in
that way, policy will actually be healthy with problems being spotted
in advance.

I also agree with your take on the packaging manual, although there
clearly has to be close co-operation between the two manuals.

   Julian

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  Julian Gilbey, Dept of Maths, QMW, Univ. of London. J.D.Gilbey@qmw.ac.uk
        Debian GNU/Linux Developer,  see http://www.debian.org/~jdg
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