Phil Steitz wrote:
Nicola Ken Barozzi wrote:
Phil Steitz wrote:
Craig R. McClanahan wrote:
<snip/>
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I don't think that effective decision-making in a large organization *requires* bureacracy.
You're right. It requires responsibility.
It's possible that an entity is responsible of something without having bureacracy in place. In Apache it's mainly meritocratic communities that decide through the Apache decision-making process (not necessarily voting). Here it seems that it's not clear who is ultimately responsible for this, or if there is lack of oversight, but I might be wrong.
I don't quite understand. Isn't the ASF Board ultimately responsible?
Ultimately yes. But there's delegation.
I would view that responsibility, however, as procedural/legal in the day-to-day decision-making process (i.e., making sure that charters, legal oblitions, etc. are adhered to).
Yes, delegated responsibility has to make it come in line with the day-to-day decision-making process.
Maybe I am way off base here, but I see the whole community as responsible. The Board and PMCs (relatively stable "authorities") have to exist for legal reasons and to make program-level decisions (including how charters are defined and how community decision-making works); but the responsibility for day to day decisions (such as how to distribute the newsletter) belongs with the community -- especially those who are stepping up to do the work.>
I know that it may be naive to assume that the "community" can effectively decide everything
One thing is to decide, and one is to be held responsible for it. They are not the same thing.
In an organization, there are different levels of responsablity, because of delegation.
and that the discussion/voting process will always lead to consensus.
Voting does not need to have consensus to be effective.
I have seen a few situations where this has failed; but I don't see pushing decisions off to "responsible parties" or "ultimate authoriteies" as any better than letting individuals *take* responsibility and defend their ideas and actions among the community.
It is, and the two things are not in contrast.
Good delegation mmeans that decisions have to be taken by the lowest entity that can take them. In this case the community.
But when this fails, someone has to pull the reigns and make a decision arise. In this case the PMC chair has to make sure that the action items are voted by the community and a decision is taken by them.
--
Nicola Ken Barozzi [EMAIL PROTECTED]
- verba volant, scripta manent -
(discussions get forgotten, just code remains)
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