Re: Resolution 2009-03-16.jrk.1: OpenWRT as associated project [revised]

On Tue, 17 Mar 2009, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-03-17 at 18:37 +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > If Debian's Project Leader told us one thing, but the Secretary
> > (or some other credible source) told us something else, we
> > wouldn't expect Debian to provide a third person to distinguish
> > (as if we were some kind of computational black box). We would
> > review the relevant documents (ie, the Debian Constitution), and
> > the relevant lists, and make our own minds up whether the decision
> > was properly taken.
>
> We would? I would expect that the Debian project would deal with its
> own internal problem and the governing body of Debian would respond
> back.

Determining whether the governing body of a project has responded back
requires reviewing the relevant documents and relevant lists, and
making a decision as to whether it has properly responded.

SPI certainly shouldn't be making a decision on behalf of a project.
However, if there is controversy regarding what decision has been
reached by a project that involves action by SPI, SPI needs to make
sure that the action it takes is in accordance with the wishes of the
project.

For example, if a liason is acting contrary to the wishes of a
project, and the project reports that this is the case to SPI and
removes the liason, but the liason reports that it is not the case and
that the liason has not actually been removed, SPI has to resolve the
situtation by figuring out what the wishes of the project actually
are. This requires examining the relevant documents and the decision
process.

I believe that the cases of this happening should be very
extraordinary, but they certainly can happen, and the agreement
between the project and SPI should account for them.

Don Armstrong

--
A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but
won't cross the street to vote in a national election.
-- Bill Vaughan

http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu