On Fri, Aug 17, 2007 at 11:17:27AM +0200, Erich Rast wrote:
> But the
> desire of the editors to get some feedback can hardly justify the
> democratic legitimacy of the voting procedure itself. It seems clear
> to me that in any democratic voting procedure, the exact same
> requirements must be in charge for all voters, regardless of what
> they vote.
Where have you (and many others) gotten the impression that this is
supposed to be a "democratic" process it he first place? From day one,
when the R6RS process was initiated, the charter has said:
After the end of the review period, the Editors should submit new
drafts within three months. The Steering Committee should then
choose either to finalize the drafts or to restart the review
process.
The Steering Committee. Not "The People" or even "The Scheme
Community". This has been the underlying premise of the R6RS process,
and getting involved in it implicitly means trusting the judgement of
the Steering Committee: if you don't trust them, you have no reason to
expect anything worthwhile coming out of the process.
The Steering Committee has _chosen_ (relatively late in the game) to
hear public opinions about the draft before making their
decision. They even committed to honor the results of the vote, which
really surprised me. But they were under no obligation to do so. They
are only under the obligation to do whatever they deem is best for
creating a new Scheme standard. Like Alan Bawden said, not too long
ago, "We could flip a coin if we wanted to."
http://lists.r6rs.org/pipermail/ratification-discuss/2007-April/000008.html
Even if the creation of a standard should be a "democratic" process
(and I'm not at all convinced about that), then complaining about it
after the results are out is the wrong time. The Steering Committee
_did_ call for comments about the ratification procedure, and any
objections should have been voiced then.
Lauri
Received on Fri Aug 17 2007 - 06:20:07 UTC