On Mon, May 27, 2019 at 1:35 AM Axel Wagner <axel.wagner...@googlemail.com> wrote: > > This is a bit of an aside, I agree with everything Ian said, but: > > On Thu, May 23, 2019 at 7:59 PM Ian Lance Taylor <i...@golang.org> wrote: >> >> If a language is to change over time, this specification or >> implementation must change. Somebody has to decide how changes will >> be made. All successful languages have a small set of people who make >> the final decisions. Many people will provide input to this decision, >> but no successful language--indeed, no successful free software >> project of any sort--is a democracy. Successful languages pay >> attention to what people want, but to change the language according to >> what most people want is, I believe, a recipe for chaos and >> incoherence. I believe that every successful language must have a >> coherent vision that is shared by a relatively small group of people. >> >> As I said, that is my opinion, but I think it's true. I would be >> interested to hear of a counter-example. > > > I also believe that every successful free software project has a small set of > final deciders, but I don't think it's correct to say that thus, no > successful free software project is a democracy. Representative democracy is > still democracy - and indeed, any modern democracy I'm aware of, is a > representative one. And Debian is undeniably successful and very easily > defended to be a representative democracy. There is a limitation on voting > rights (only Debian Developers can vote), but it's akin to the limitation of > passports and the set of Debian Developers is hardly "small". > > This just as a specific counter because you asked for counter examples :) > Personally (opinion!), I tend to think that it rather supports your larger > point of democratic software development being a recipe for chaos and > incoherence - but YMMV of course.
Thanks. That's an interesting counter-example. I do tend to think of distros somewhat separately from more focused free software projects, but I probably shouldn't. Ian -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "golang-nuts" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to golang-nuts+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/golang-nuts/CAOyqgcWPZ6NZHk8QdGpLaM4vg0dWu7Q0_S-LC5w6EjLh8KwaRQ%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
