Given the recent brouhaha in Debian, and General Resolution regarding Lenny’s Release policy as it relates to Firmware and Debian’s Social Contract, which has led to the resignation of Manoj Srivastava from the position of Secretary for the Debian Project, I’m reminded of the following passage from Gordon Dickson’s Tactics of Mistakes (part of Dickson’s Childe Cycle, in which he tells the story of the rise of the Dorsai): “No,” said Cletus.

After looking at some of the recent debacles in the Debian project, from the revisions in the social contract being interpreted that everything in the Debian distribution has to meet the DFSG guidelines, to the flameage about a non-functioning treasurer for Software in the Public Interest (the legal home of Debian), to the continuing delay in getting Sarge released, I started to wonder if Debian is completely dysfunctional and cannot be saved.