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Years ago, it was customary that some of us stated publicly the way we think in time of Debian General Resolutions (GRs). And even if we didn’t, vote lists were open (except when voting for people, i.e. when electing a DPL), so if interested we could understand what our different peers thought.

This is the first vote, though, where a Debian vote is protected under voting secrecy. I think it is sad we chose that path, as I liken a GR vote more with a voting process within a general assembly of a cooperative than with a countrywide voting one; I feel that understanding who is behind each posture helps us better understand the project as a whole.

But anyway, I’m digressing… Even though I remained quiet during much of the discussion period (I was preparing and attending a conference), I am very much interested in this vote — I am the maintainer for the Raspberry Pi firmware, and am a seconder for two of them. Many people know me for being quite inflexible in my interpretation of what should be considered Free Software, and I’m proud of it. But still, I believer it to be fundamental for Debian to be able to run on the hardware most users have.

So… My vote was as follows:

[6] Choice 1: Only one installer, including non-free firmware
[2] Choice 2: Recommend installer containing non-free firmware
[3] Choice 3: Allow presenting non-free installers alongside the free one
[7] Choice 4: Installer with non-free software is not part of Debian
[4] Choice 5: Change SC for non-free firmware in installer, one installer
[1] Choice 6: Change SC for non-free firmware in installer, keep both installers
[5] Choice 7: None Of The Above

For people reading this not into Debian’s voting processes: Debian uses the cloneproof Schwatz sequential dropping Condorcet method, which means we don’t only choose our favorite option (which could lead to suboptimal strategic voting outcomes), but we rank all the options according to our preferences.

To read this vote, we should first locate position of “None of the above”, which for my ballot is #5. Let me reorder the ballot according to my preferences:

[1] Choice 6: Change SC for non-free firmware in installer, keep both installers
[2] Choice 2: Recommend installer containing non-free firmware
[3] Choice 3: Allow presenting non-free installers alongside the free one
[4] Choice 5: Change SC for non-free firmware in installer, one installer
[5] Choice 7: None Of The Above
[6] Choice 1: Only one installer, including non-free firmware
[7] Choice 4: Installer with non-free software is not part of Debian

This is, I don’t agree either with Steve McIntyre’s original proposal, Choice 1 (even though I seconded it, this means, I think it’s very important to have this vote, and as a first proposal, it’s better than the status quo — maybe it’s contradictory that I prefer it to the status quo, but ranked it below NotA. Well, more on that when I present Choice 5).

My least favorite option is Choice 4, presented by Simon Josefsson, which represents the status quo: I don’t want Debian not to have at all an installer that cannot be run on most modern hardware with reasonably good user experience (i.e. network support — or the ability to boot at all!)

Slightly above my acceptability threshold, I ranked Choice 5, presented by Russ Allbery. Debian’s voting and its constitution rub each other in interesting ways, so the Project Secretary has to run the votes as they are presented… but he has interpreted Choice 1 to be incompatible with the Social Contract (as there would no longer be a DFSG-free installer available), and if it wins, it could lead him to having to declare the vote invalid. I don’t want that to happen, and that’s why I ranked Choice 1 below None of the above.

[update/note] Several people have asked me to back that the Secretary said so. I can refer to four mails: 2022.08.29, 2022.08.30, 2022.09.02, 2022.09.04.

Other than that, Choice 6 (proposed by Holger Levsen), Choice 2 (proposed by me) and Choice 3 (proposed by Bart Martens) are very much similar; the main difference is that Choice 6 includes a modification to the Social Contract expressing that:

The Debian official media may include firmware that is otherwise not
part of the Debian system to enable use of Debian with hardware that
requires such firmware.

I believe choices 2 and 3 to be mostly the same, being Choice 2 more verbose in explaining the reasoning than Choice 3.

Oh! And there are always some more bits to the discussion… For example, given they hold modifications to the Social Contract, both Choice 5 and Choice 6 need a 3:1 supermajority to be valid.

So, lets wait until the beginning of October to get the results, and to implement the changes they will (or not?) allow. If you are a Debian Project Member, please vote!

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