Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Seth Woolley <swoolley AT panasas.com>]

If I may add how I think of the issue:

The general developers position was intended for those who have asked 
not to have to vote on things to maintain their developer status.  They 
just want to develop.  Generally most people who want to vote will 
become a "Lead Developer".  The bar isn't very high to become a Lead 
Developer.  It is also an area where people can contribute but not have 
the full right to vote -- so they earn it.  The model is "developer 
meritocracy" (intended to balance the two concepts), not democracy.

It's worthwhile to note that an organization of voluntary individuals 
should buttress itself against hostile takeovers.  Not all takeovers are 
malicious, but by doing this the leadership that exists now can maintain 
a set of principles despite unpopularity effectively.  Organizations 
that are founded on a set of principles instead of merely being 
"democratic" should restrict the franchise (input/power that changes the 
system, such as voting).  In the actual political sphere, where you 
aren't voluntarily born (in a Rawlsian sense), the franchise should be 
as wide as possible, as in governments.

When we become large enough that we have to worry about being a force of 
oppressive power where people won't have a choice but to use our 
operating system and a Rawlsian philosophy takes over, then yes, a 
representative system is weak.  I dislike the representative system for 
matters of politics as well, but for small, non-governmental 
organizations that desire to stay around for longer than a short, 
single-issue grassroots movement, you have to create some sense of a 
status quo for things to maintain some semblance of constancy.

Seth

Robin Cook wrote <<EOF
Don't particularly care for the representative system that the USA uses
either.

And just because someone is not popular or whatnot to get voted a lead
developer even though they may do a lot of work on Sourcemage their vote
should count.

You don't define super majority and is not defined on the apache web
page.

Also this is not a representative system as lead developers have an
unlimited term and as long as they are liked by the majority of the
other lead developers there is no way to remove them.

If the general developers votes are not going to count then all lead
developers should be able to be removed by a majority vote of the
general developers as well so that there is recourse for going against
the majority of the general developers.

CuZnDragon
Robin Cook

On Mon, 2006-04-17 at 17:36 -0500, Jeremy Blosser (emrys) wrote:
> On Apr 17, Robin Cook [rcook AT wyrms.net] wrote:
> > I have no problem with most of it except having no binding vote in the
> > issues voting if not a lead developer.
>
> This is the way it is today (no one gets a binding vote in non-lead
> elections except for the leads) and is typical of most 
representative-type
> political systems.  ie, depending on where you live you typically elect
> your representative and then they go off and vote on your behalf.  If 
they
> do a good job you keep electing them, if not you throw them out.
EOF
--
Seth Alan Woolley
Software Engineer
Accelerating Time to Results(TM) with Clustered Storage

www.panasas.com
swoolley AT panasas.com
510-608-4382