On Thursday, May 24, 2018 at 6:17:53 AM UTC-7, Patrick Finch wrote: > Hello Governance folks, > > As part of the our work on diversity and inclusion within Mozilla > communities, Emma Irwin and I have a proposal to rearticulate the main > principle of Mozilla’s governance statement. This proposal does not seek > to change how Mozilla is governed, only how we talk about how Mozilla is > governed, which may be reasonably be regarded as contentious. > > > Issue > > The first line of Mozilla’s governance[0] states, “Mozilla is an open > source project governed as a meritocracy.” > > The use of the term “meritocracy” to describe communities that suffer > from a lack of diverse representation is increasingly seen as > problematic: it proceeds from an assumption of equality of opportunity. > There is now quite substantial evidence [1] as well as opinion [2] that > we should challenge this usage. > > At the same time, I believe that the rest of the articulation of how the > project functions (“authority is distributed to both volunteer and > employed community members as they show their abilities through > contributions to the project.”) remains a reasonable description of how > we aspire to work. It asserts that people’s contributions are what > counts, not their employment affiliation or the personal relationships > they may have. I believe we are able to acknowledge that this approach > remains imperfect. Mozilla does support other measures (through > outreach and recruiting, policies and process improvements and tooling) > that can help address the biases inherent in a system where people gain > authority based on their past delivery. > > To sum up: > -Declaring Mozilla to be a de facto “meritocracy” fails to acknowledge > evident bias in representation in the project. > -The word “meritocracy” itself has become a bone of contention which is > unhelpful to us. > -Meritocractic principles remain highly desirable and should be explicit. > -We should also acknowledge the importance of measures we take to debias > how authority is distributed. > > > > Proposal > > I seek to avoid making this an unnecessarily complex (or indeed > contentious) change, and after discussing with a number of interested > people, I would like to suggest this as the new summary of our > governance principle. > > "Mozilla is an open source project. Our community is structured as a > virtual organization. Authority is primarily distributed to both > volunteer and employed community members as they show their ability > through contributions to the project. The project also seeks to debias > this system of distributing authority through active interventions that > engage and encourage participation from diverse communities." > > I believe that this is a change that minimises disruption and reflects > how the leadership of the project seek to govern it. > > > > > It’s customary to gain consensus among the main stakeholders for any > change before it is proposed on Governance. In this case, however, I > feel that the number of stakeholders is potentially vast. I believe > that there should be a period of review in the governance forum (a > week?), and would welcome guidance from moderators on what they believe > would be appropriate. > > Many thanks, > > Patrick > > 0. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/ > 1. > https://www.zdnet.com/article/think-open-source-is-a-meritocracy-it-is-but-only-if-no-one-knows-youre-a-woman/ > > > 2. > https://mfbt.ca/some-garbage-i-used-to-believe-about-equality-e7c771784f26?gi=c64efee22070
Sometimes good words and good aspirations get tarnished with history, and need to be set aside. I personally aspire to many aspects of our work being a meritocracy. And the original meaning I took for meritocracy in open source meant empowering individuals, rather than managers, or manager's managers or tenure-based authority. I still long to develop these things. However, it's now clear that so-called meritocracies have included effective forms of discrimination. This might be hidden bias, where some aspect of identity causes a person's contributions to be routinely devalued. It might be over discrimination or harassment. It might be threats that minimize the contributions even offered. Whatever the cause, open source "meritocracies" suffer from these problems -- open source projects tend to have less diversity than other software organizations. Fairly or not, the word "meritocracy" has come to signal systems where there is little effective restraint on perpetuating discrimination. It may even become a code-word for organizations that resist the need to build diverse and inclusive organizations. I personally long for a word that conveys a person's ability to demonstrate competence and expertise and commitment separate from job title, or college degree, or management hierarchy, and to be evaluated fairly by one's peers. I long for a word that makes it clear that each individual who shares our mission is welcome, and valued, and will get a fair deal at mozilla -- that they will be recognized and celebrated for their contributions without regard to other factors. Sadly, "meritocracy" is not that word. Maybe it once was, or could have been. But not today. The challenge is not to retain a word that has become tainted. The challenge is to build teams and culture and systems that are truly inclusive. This is where we focus. So in my role as Owner of the Governance module, I'm confirming that mozilla will retire the word "meritocracy" from our self-descriptions. I'll also take the opportunity to confirm that mozilla is fundamentally committed to making participation and leadership available to all. Mitchell _______________________________________________ governance mailing list governance@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
