Re: Draft resolution formalising Debian's Associated Project status

On Sun, Mar 11, 2007 at 04:35:19PM -0700, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> >>>I really don't think that MJ and Ian realize how opaque and chaotic
> >>>Debian politics are to outsiders.
> >>I would second that. When I researched the OpenSource.Org domain issue,
> >>I was stunned at how convoluted and emotional everything was. Debian has
> >>really appears to have grown (at least from an outsider view) into a
> >>very political self spinning organization.
> >
> >I'd like to respond to that, but I really don't understand what you mean by
> >'political self spinning organization'? A political organization that
> >spins on its own? WTF? :)
>
> Perpetual motion, never stops, never moves forward.

That happens when an issue remains unresolved. It can happen everywhere
where many non-trivial issues are dealt with, it's not specific to Debian...

> >Regarding Debian vs. OSI in general, it's an inevitably strange
> >relationship
> >because of the simple fact that a closed organization forked a foundation
> >document of an open project. Like in that other thread - we don't like to
> >leave things as a matter of faith, let alone to a closed group. Sure, it's
> >reasonably easy to believe that OSI will do no harm, but us technical types
> >aren't inclined to like such uncertainty.
> >
> >Which is amusing - this apparently became "opaque and chaotic" as described
> >above, and that's the very thing that we would like to have avoided...
>
> Well I certainly don't want to start up the discussion again. I was just
> making a point about a particular incident that I saw.
>
> The most gentle way that I could put it, is:
>
> As an outsider, it appears that Debian is more interested in policy than
> actually achieving goals.

In this particular matter, that's true in a way that there was never anybody
else equally interested in "open source dot org" (other than the OSI folks),
someone who would implement a non-closed organization to handle the same
thing. People generally wanted for it to get done "right", but nobody
stepped up and did it, so it didn't get done; instead, it got done by the
OSI folks, the way that is not "right".

So, people will always be able to say that it didn't get done "right",
and that will appear as if they are more interested in policy than the
already achieved goals. But, that's inherent to matters that are referred to
as "academic disagreement", I believe. :)

--
2. That which causes joy or happiness.