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Re: call for seconds: on firmware



Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com> writes:
> On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 08:08:36AM +0100, Andreas Barth wrote:
>> Though I agree that the release team cannot put any foundation document
>> aside, I don't think the release team is overriding the social contract,
>> but chooses a certain interpretation (that I think is the correct one
>> btw). Other people obviously prefer a different interpretation, and so
>> the relevant question is: Whose interpretation is the binding one?
>> Currently, it seems to me that unless decided otherwise by a GR, the
>> release team has the final say (as explained by Russ).
> When you say "chooses a certain interpretation", are you referring to the
> one in which SC #4 is interpreted in a way that cannot be complied with no
> matter what, only to use this impossibility as proof that SC #4 and SC #1
> contradict each other, and in turn resolving that because the SC is
> inconsistent, SC #1 is meant to be read "figuratively"?

I discussed this with Andi in the past, so let me answer: From our point
of view, SC#4 is relatively clear: Our users need to be able to use a
stable release of Debian and the free software community (not "free
software"!) needs us to spread the use of _free_ software.
Driving off people to another distribution because we have found yet
another sequence of magic numbers that might, or might not, have source
code somewhere is a clear violation of SC#4 in our eyes.

This is also the reason why I am unhappy about the 3:1/1:1 discussion:
From my point of view, releasing with possibly sourceless firmware blobs
is what the SC asks us to do, so these options should be 1:1. Not doing
that would violate it, so those options should require a 3:1
majority. Now, other people, including our secretary, have quite a
different opinion. 
The problem here is that the secretary's opinion is actually more
important than mine, because Manoj can decide the majority
requirements. And that sucks - not because Manoj doesn't share my
opinion, but because his opinion has a bigger influence on the outcome
of this than mine.

> I think we discussed this before [1].  In any case, if you think the SC is
> so badly broken, you should be ammending the text to disambiguigate it, like
> we did in GR 2004 / 003, or even in GR 2003 / 003.

What, more editorial changes? This is going to be a lot of fun.

Marc
-- 
BOFH #333:
A plumber is needed, the network drain is clogged

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