[Assist] 1882 & Freedom

[bill-auger]

On 07/11/2018 10:50 PM, Brett Gilio wrote:
> Given RMSs response on the matter, what is the next step for rendering a
> decision on the package?

most practically speaking, if RMS had asked for that program to be
removed then it would be removed - that recent response is to be read as
"the FSF would not hold it against a FSDG distro if it distributes that
program" - that does not imply that it can not be removed

in reality, there probably will be no "next step" nor "decision
rendered" in and formal sense - a couple of years ago, before i was with
parabola, there was some voting mechanism used; but as i remember, it
was only for wide-reaching, essential concerns for which it would be
inappropriate for one person to decide, such as policy or infrastructure
changes - there has not been any such voting since then; but i suspect
that if we did put this program to vote, that most would agree that it
should be removed

what is most likely to actually happen is that someone who is paying
attention to this issue currently (such as myself) may just add it to
the black-list (or not) and close the bug report (or not) - there are a
number of items pending for that procedure currently - if i do not do
this today, then the bug report may simply remain open until some day
when someone has some free time and searches for open freedom issues to
resolve - then that person will decide what to do about it

sorry if that sounds too informal or inconsistent, that is the
"adhocratic" nature of parabola's management - for example, i could
black-list that package today, then someone else could re-instate it
tomorrow - i would not expect any real objections among the team
regarding such small decisions unless they break the system or blatantly
violate policy

as for policy, jxself suggested yesterday that maybe there could be more
precise and fine-grained policies (ala debian?) that could prescribe for
the general case represented by this package; but there is nothing of
that sort now and it is not clear if anyone wants a large body of
specific policies when a small set of general principles would suffice -
if you read the "Parabola Social Contract", which is the entirety of
parabola's policies, you will notice that it is remarkably brief - as i
understand, every word of that was discussed at length and voted upon in
detail; so its brevity is no indication of any omissions - i think that
its brevity is quite intentional as to be of the same philosophy as the
"KISS principle" of technical simplicity

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