--- /dev/null
+
+2. It is not practical for the TC to vote to accept/reject individual
+ amendments to the GR proposal. The TC would wish to delegate its
+ power to accept amendments, to avoid needing the collection of
+ sponsors for uncontroversial changes. However the Secretary has
+ advised that this is not constitutionally acceptable.
+
+ Therefore, to achieve roughly the same effect, the TC makes the
+ following promise. If any TC member gives notice that the TC
+ accepts an amendment, then at least one of the following will
+ happen:
+
+ (a) the TC will use its own power under A.1(1) to arrange that
+ the amendment appears on the GR ballot as an option;
+
+ (b) the TC will use its power under A.1(1) to propose and
+ its power under A.1(2) to accept the amendment, so that
+ the amendment is incorporated in the version voted on; or
+
+ (c) A member of the TC will publicly notify the amendment's
+ proposer that the amendment will not be accepted after all.
+ In this case TC will wait at least 7 more days before calling
+ for a vote, to give time for the amendment's proposer to
+ collect sponsors.
+
+===== TC RESOLUTION ENDS =====
--- /dev/null
+===== TC RESOLUTION STARTS =====
+
+1. The Debian Technical Committee hereby exercises its power in
+ 4.2(1) of the Debian Constitution to propose the following
+ General Resolution:
+
+ ----- GENERAL RESOLUTION STARTS -----
+
+ Constitutional Amendment: Permit TC to hold informal private conversations
+
+ On a number of occasions recently, enquirers have emailed TC
+ members' personal addreses to informally seek members' views. This
+ has worked well; however it is not clear that Constitution permits
+ it. This situation should be regularised.
+
+ On occasion the TC has been asked to decide on maintainership of
+ packages. It is very difficult to hold the necessary discussions,
+ which inevitably involve discussion of personalitiees, in public.
+
+ At the moment the TC is unable to take on a mediation role, since
+ mediation necessarily involves each party to a dispute conversing
+ privately with the mediator. The TC should be able to mediate if
+ the TC, and parties to a dispute, wish it to do so.
+
+ Actual decisionmaking must still place in public of course.
+
+ Therefore, amend the Debian Constitution 6.3 as follows (wdiff -i):
+
+ 3. Public [-discussion and-] decision-making.
+
+ [-Discussion,-]
+ Draft resolutions and amendments, and votes by members of the
+ committee, are made public on the Technical Committee public
+ discussion list. There is no separate secretary for the
+ Committee.
+
+ ----- GENERAL RESOLUTION ENDS -----
--- /dev/null
+===== TC RESOLUTION STARTS =====
+
+1. The Debian Technical Committee hereby exercises its power in
+ 4.2(1) of the Debian Constitution to propose the following
+ General Resolution:
+
+ ----- GENERAL RESOLUTION STARTS -----
+
+ Constitutional Amendment: Fix duplicate section numbering.
+
+ The current Debian Constitution has two sections numbered A.1.
+ This does not currently give rise to any ambiguity but it is
+ undesirable.
+
+ Fix this with the following semantically neutral amendment:
+
+ - Increment the section numbers of sections A.2 to A.6;
+ - Renumber the second section A.1 to A.2;
+ - Amend the references into A from elsewhere in the constitution
+ accordingly. Specifically change the references to A.6 in
+ 5.2(7) and 6.1(7) to refer to that section under its new
+ number A.7.
+
+ ----- GENERAL RESOLUTION ENDS -----
--- /dev/null
+=== TC RESOLUTION STARTS ===
+
+1. The Debian Technical Committee hereby exercises its power in 4.2(1)
+ of the Debian Constitution to propose a General Resolution,
+ and according to A.1(1) the TC also proposes an amendment.
+
+ The proposed texts of the two resulting options for the General
+ Resolution are as follows:
+
+ ----- GENERAL RESOLUTION STARTS, COMMON INTRODUCTORY TEXT -----
+
+ Advice to the TC on overruling maintainers
+
+ In the past the Technical Committee have been slow and reluctant
+ to overrule a maintainer unless all the members are absolutely
+ convinced that the maintainer's decision was wrong.
+
+ The TC has sought the views of the Developers. Accordingly, the
+ Developers advise, in their (non-binding) opinion, that:
+
+ ----- GENERAL RESOLUTION OPTION A -----
+
+ The Technical Committee's approach so far has been correct.
+
+ ----- GENERAL RESOLUTION OPTION B -----
+
+ Technical Committee members should be willing to vote to overrule if
+ they feel that the maintainer's decision was wrong; the
+ supermajority requirement is sufficient to guard against overruling
+ in questionable cases.
+
+ ----- GENERAL RESOLUTION ENDS -----
+
--- /dev/null
+=== TC RESOLUTION STARTS ===
+
+1. The Debian Technical Committee hereby exercises its power in
+ 4.2(1) of the Debian Constitution to propose the following
+ General Resolution:
+
+ ----- GENERAL RESOLUTION STARTS -----
+
+ Constitutional Amendment- TC Supermajority Fix
+
+ Prior to the Clone Proof SSD GR in June 2003, the Technical
+ Committee could overrule a Developer with a supermajority of 3:1.
+
+ Unfortunately, the definition of supermajorities in the SSD GR has a
+ fencepost error. In the new text a supermajority requirement is met
+ only if the ratio of votes in favour to votes against is strictly
+ greater than the supermajority ratio.
+
+ In the context of the Technical Committee voting to overrule a
+ developer that means that it takes 4 votes to overcome a single
+ dissenter. And with a maximum committee size of 8, previously two
+ dissenters could be overruled by all 6 remaining members; now that
+ is no longer possible.
+
+ This change was unintentional, was contrary to the original intent
+ of the Constitution, and is unhelpful.
+
+ Therefore, in the Debian Constitution amend A.6(3) as follows:
+
+ 3. Any (non-default) option which does not defeat the default
+ option by its required majority ratio is dropped from
+ consideration.
+ 1. Given two options A and B, V(A,B) is the number of voters
+ who prefer option A over option B.
+ - 2. An option A defeats the default option D by a majority
+ - ratio N, if V(A,D) is strictly greater than N * V(D,A).
+ - 3. If a supermajority of S:1 is required for A, its majority
+ - ratio is S; otherwise, its majority ratio is 1.
+ + 2. An option A defeats the default option D by its
+ + required majority ratio if:
+ + (a) V(A,D) is strictly greater than V(D,A); and
+ + (b) if a supermajority of N:M is required for A,
+ + M * V(A,D) is greater than or equal to N * V(D,A).
+
+ The effect is to fix the fencepost bug. A 1:1 vote will need
+ strictly more in favour than against, but an N:1 vote will need only
+ exactly N:1. This will also have a (neglible) effect on any General
+ Resolutions requiring supermajorities.
+
+ For the avoidance of any doubt, this change does not affect any
+ votes (whether General Resolutions or votes in the Technical
+ Committee) in progress at the time the change is made.
+
+ ----- GENERAL RESOLUTION ENDS -----