> Uli: Alain, I am Swiss and thus have a rather peculiar view of democracy,
> being in one of the few countries where direct democracy has been realized
> even down to a very basic decision. But I still believe that we need some
> sort of president. There are always situations which require immediate
> action and there needs to be a person who can make them instantly or we
> might become immovable.
Adrian: This is definitely true. When we discovered the server was
stolen, I effectively declared myself dictator of the group and went
about setting up a new list. In this case everything flowed
smoothly and others let me take over for a while, but if two people
had decided to take over we could have wound up with two different
mailing lists and a divided group. (Note, now that the group is
talking again, I've settled back into my usual role as one of the
crowd. :)
> Uli: We'd also have to decide which of the three
> presidents (Collab, Prog and UI) is the last instance. I'm for Collab as
> he'll have to be aware of everything anyway and UI and Prog are somewhat
> specialized ("Fachidioten", as it is said in my native tongue)
Adrian: Fair enough, though the three areas shouldn't overlap too
much. UI and programming would but they should be able to work
together. Collab seems to be fairly separate to the other two
though.
> >Alain : I beg to differ somewhat. The direct-democracy approach may be
> >more complicated and slower, at first, but would pay off many times
> >over later on down the road. Leaders who make "fast and efficient"
> >decisions without consulting their constituents, almost invariably get
> >it at least partially wrong. And, in any case, the leader's expediency
> >does not rally the troops to his goals as optimally as would their
> >participation in the goal-setting process.
>
> Uli: I also agree on this. We're first and foremost a collaboration.
Adrian: Yes, the leader should only exercise their power when
nessecary, most things should go by the way of direct democracy.
> >Alain : What does the vice do ?
>
> Uli: I meant a "vice president". Someone who takes care of everything when
> the president is out, like it happened when the server was stolen. My
> suggestion for a collaboration vice would be Adrian, as he instinctively
> got things back in business again.
Adrian: Thanks for this nomination, I gladly accept. I seem to
recall running around like a chicken with its head cut off for a few
days while getting the mailing list back up though. :)
> >Alain : How about a splash=screen instead ? I don't like the idea of
> >displaying such a notice on every page of the OpenCard interface. The
> >interface and the engin are two separate entities. Besides, the latter
> >will eventually be replaced by our own engin.
> Uli: Alain, remember this will be a prototype. With copies of MC that are
> sold it'll look just like every other MetaCard stack. Only the MCs that UFP
> members get and on which they'll develop it will have, say, a black bar
> with a white Geneva 10 note that it's the UFP version. We also could leave
> out the standalone maker. We'll be able to create the windows, make them
> work, and when we're done we can port it to OpenCard.
Adrian: Remember that Scott has indicated this would be a fair
amount of extra work for them, and he sees it as unnessecary at
the moment.
> >Alain : Here's a controversial proposition for solving the MC-engin
> >licencing issue. Install a web robot in the MC-engin that acts like a
> >homing-pigeon e.g. the robot would notify MetaCard of licence
> >violations thru the WWW.
>
> Uli: I hate that. Techniques like this (IE5's auto-install "feature" is one
> of these, it could at least ask before doing that!!!) are only a millimeter
> above viruses and worms on my list.
Adrian: This is far too much work for MetaCard to go through with
just for us anyway.
