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  • From: "Jeremy Blosser (emrys)" <jblosser-smgl AT firinn.org>
  • To: SM Discuss <sm-discuss AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [SM-Discuss] voting process
  • Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2006 16:19:03 -0600

On Feb 09, Sergey A. Lipnevich [sergey AT sourcemage.org] wrote:
> Jeremy Blosser (emrys) wrote:
> > The point was raised on IRC that if this goes to a vote (as in, assuming
> > Eric is nominated again and someone else is as well), Eric shouldn't be
> > the
> > one to receive and count the votes. This prompted some other discussion
> > about the voting process in general and concerns that have been raised at
> > various times. The problem some have with the current method is that
> > there
> > is no verifiability for the results. We mail our votes to a person, who
> > tells us what the totals are. While we may all trust that person, this is
> > not a trustworthy process. The previous approach of mailing the votes to
> > the open ML also has problems, since people may be intimidated or
> > pressured
> > into not voting what they really think.
> >
> That's not a constructive feedback for what you're proposing, but I'd
> like to say this. I believe the open voting in majority of FOSS projects
> has shown very good results. Apache's model for example is so popular
> that even voting symbols (e.g., +1, +0, -0, -1) have been adopted widely
> (e.g., Debian voting requires that all votes are published after it's
> over, http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution, p. 4.2). I'll have to
> get back to you with a proof of the "wide adoption" of open voting if
> necessary, but I believe it's a known fact as we're all subscribed to
> many developers mailing lists for the software we're interested in and
> can see what's going on there.
>
> So, I think going to all this trouble with one-off codes is unnecessary.

While I personally don't have a problem with open voting, there are people
in the project who are opposed to it, and they have valid reasons. I don't
think popularity or adoption of a given type of voting process is a good
indication of what we should or shouldn't do; even if it were, "most"
regular political processes use closed votes to avoid the same kinds of
issues that have been raised. I would guess that most FOSS projects go the
other way because of the focus on openness and the tendency of most
developers to believe themselves objective and above intimidation or
pressure.

The bottom line to me is: we should not use a voting process that will
cause some people to not want to vote, unless there is a completely
overriding reason. Open votes could easily prevent some people from
voting, or at least prevent them from voting as they wish. Closed votes
aren't everyone's preference, but I don't think there are people that would
not vote or change their vote because the vote is closed. There are
technical challenges raised by closed votes, but these can be solved fairly
easily without alienating people.

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