Re: [gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-dev] Special meeting [WAS: Council meeting summary for 8 May 2008]

[Richard Freeman]

Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto wrote:
> The problem here is not if anyone wants an election or not. Personally,
> I don't want to vote for the council now.

Then don't!  Isn't the whole point of a democracy to allow the will of 
those who are represented to triumph?  If that will is to not hold an 
election, wouldn't it be undemocratic to ignore it?

 > The problem is that we have a
> policy (which clearly needs some clearing as not everyone agrees on it)
> and that pretending it doesn't exist or to change it and apply it
> retroactively is a bad precedent.
>

I think the worst precedent to set would be one of following policies at 
any cost.  I'd say that one of the key differences between people and 
machines is that the latter merely follow a pre-designed set of rules, 
while the former are free to do whatever is best in a given situation. 
Why should we ignore common sense in favor of "if p then q ; p==true ; 
therefore q"?

Policies are important.  It is important that they be well thought out. 
  It is also important that when a policy is dumb that people not 
blindly follow it.  I hope that when infrastructure is maintaining 
systems in accordance with some standard procedure that when they see an 
error in the procedure that will cause major disruption they don't just 
say "well, the council or whoever approved this procedure - they must 
want me to hose the cvs server."

If the council does decide to hold new elections, could they at least 
make a point to nuke this bullet item in GLEP 39?  I think the whole 
slacker policy is a bit harsh in general - maybe it could be adjusted 
somewhat.  At the very least, there should be some policy regarding 
notice for meetings - if somebody is on vacation for two weeks it would 
be a bummer for them to be marked a slacker because they didn't hear 
about a meeting...
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