On Thu, Dec 31, 2015 at 3:18 PM, Roman Shaposhnik <ro...@shaposhnik.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 31, 2015 at 4:49 AM, Myrle Krantz <mkra...@mifos.org> wrote: > > Hi Fins, > > > > We've been having discussions about what processes we want, but we > haven't > > agreed yet on how to institute processes or how to change them once we've > > instituted them. I've put my thoughts on the matter into a short > document > > here: > > > > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/Changing+Processes > > > > I'd love to read your opinions on the matter too. > > In general, my strong advise to any young community is to avoid formal > votes > as a plague. At its core ASF runs on natural, not forced consensus. Any > time > there's a natural consensus -- you really don't need a vote. Any time > there's a formal vote as a forcing function to a consensus -- you > inevitably end up > creating winners and losers. You really don't need that. At least not > while the > community is still young (and even when it grows up -- you don't > *really* need it). > I absolutely concur with the above. VERY MUCH. Roman is right: there is no need to define winners/losers. Consensus means "those who agree" and "those who disagree, but will abide with the will of the community." Don't separate the groups. Just understand they will exist, and move onwards. A simple discussion is enough, and any real disagreement will surface at that time. In the 15 years that Apache Subversion has existed, the community has taken a formal vote only TWICE. One was for a code formatting choice where clear consensus wasn't present, and the other... I don't even know. We've gone a DECADE without a vote. ... yet Apache Subversion is one of the most popular pieces of software on the planet and has had over a hundred releases. Clearly, a community doesn't require voting to be successful. Cheers, -g
