Politics in software development projects (was: Unattainable Goals that are Silll Worse Pursuing)

On Tue, 2008-04-22 at 04:39 +0300, Shlomi Fish wrote:
> [ Note: This essay has a more universal message than computers, but it also
> applies to it, as I shall demonstrate. I'd like to post it on my blog, but
> I'm going to use you guys as my guinea pigs. Comments are welcome. ]
>
> One thought that occured to me lately was the fact that there are some goals 
> in
> life that can never be fully attained, but are nevertheless worth pursuing and
> getting nearer and nearer to them. Like an asymptotic function in mathematics
> if you may.

Other examples:
1. Getting as wealthy as possible.
2. Overcoming a never-ending series of challenges (scientific
discoveries, extreme sports, Guiness-level world records, etc.) one by
one.

> One example that I'm especially sensitive about is politics in a software
> project (possibly an open-source one ). Obviously, there can never be zero
> politics, but the project leaders and members should always try to reduce its
> amount, because not keeping it at bay is a recipe for disaster. I constantly
> hear about important features that are not implemented or even bugs that are
> left unfixed in open-source projects due to political reasons.

My take about politics in FOSS projects (or in other spheres of human
acitvity) is to agree with whomever said (I don't remember the source)
that in any project involving multiple stakeholders, there are always
different interests, which sometimes contradict each other.  For the
project to proceed, some process is needed to allocate limited resources
to satisfy the various interests.  This process is the political
process.

The difference between well-managed projects and projects mired in dirty
politics is in the management of the inevitable politics.
It would be interesting to discuss how to make politics our servant
rather than our master.

                                              --- Omer


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