On Saturday, November 9, 2002, at 03:44 AM, Jeff Turner wrote:
On Sat, Nov 09, 2002 at 09:29:56AM +0100, Ceki G�lc� wrote:
I keep wondering why you keep bringing up Duncan's Whoa Bessie... mail. I mean this one:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=ant-dev&m=97712718421034&w=2
Is it just for historical purposes? Is it because Duncan expresses interesting ideas with eloquence? Sure, Duncan may have been wrong in the Ant context but that should not discredit his ideas altogether.
The liberal ideas expressed by Stefano, Sam and to some extent Costin are very inspiring and definitely please a wider audience than Duncan's ideas defending the actions of a selfish pig as he puts hit. (No, I don't think that Duncan is a selfish pig and you shouldn't either.)
However, liberal ideologies are just that, ideologies. While Duncan's theory of benevolent dictators might not find favor in the eyes of this public, we should not discard it as being contrary to the Apache way.
If you mean formally, then absolutely we should, in big flashing lights :) The Benevolent Dictatorship model, where some committers' vetoes don't count as much as others, is clearly at odds with the Apache model.
We should instead recognize it as being a legitimate way of development.
Sure.
It may even be the dominant way of development at Apache under disguise.
I agree. However, Apache benevolent dictators are first among equals, with no _formal_ claim to dictatorship. The thread you reference is an affirmation of this small but crucial difference.
Actually ASF is more of a federal meritocracy. For a benevolent dictatorship, the FSF (or perhaps the post-Jimmy Carter US or ancient Rome) is a better example. Andrew and I already had a long discussion on this on [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Chuck
