Re: Re: A Call For Open Governance Of X Development (Egbert Eich)

On Sat, 22 Mar 2003, Keith Whitwell wrote:

> Hmm, I think there's a big difference between a commercial company and an open 
> source project in terms of the skillset required to set the direction for the 
> group.
> 
> I'd see the ideal membership of an elected advisory board as being the type of 
> experienced developers who are involved in the current BOD and core team.  In 
> fact, if there ever were an elected board, I don't have any doubt that David 
> Dawes would continue to find himself the leader, and rest of the BOD & core 
> teams as valued members.

   I think this depends on who you let vote.  If this vote took 
place on Slashdot you would likely have: ESR, Stallman, Keith Packard,
Jim Gettys and CowboyNeal running the project.  I wouldn't want 
to work for any of these people.

   One of the problems with voting that is too open is that this
becomes a popularity contest.  I believe that most of the community
doesn't have the knowledge necessary to pick the leadership that
is best for the project - they merely know who they LIKE, and they
haven't had enough experience to know who they can actually TRUST.
Also, they're not the people who have to work under this management.
It's people like myself who have to work under this management.

   We've already seen an example of someone who thinks the current
management is incompetent because his laptop doesn't work 
correctly.  Who wants that guy voting?

   Overall, I think your suggestions are good ones, but careful
consideration needs to be given to how we allow people to get
in positions of policy making.  In the current organization, 
voting hasn't really been necessary - senior contributors have
generally come to an easy concensus on what the right thing
to do is, so I'm still trying to figure out what an advisory
board would do.


			Mark.