At 5:16 PM -0400 on 7/24/99, Alain Farmer wrote:
>Alain: Consensus is my choice as well. Some people don�t believe in it,
>but the difficulties of voting as the arbitrator of our decisions may
>very well persuade those "non-believers" to climb aboard the Consensus
>boat, and use voting sparingly and only for consultative purposes. Or
>so I will argue!
Alain, there are two ways to get consensus:
1. Argument
2. Force
And the argument way is _quite_ difficult. Consider arguing with thrity
people, all from different backgrounds, all with different opinions, about
if a special distribution arrangement should be made. Would there ever be a
consensus? I think not. That leaves the other way, which none of us (I
hope!) want.
>Adrian: We have come across our first real disagreement, where it's not
>just a case of, I disagree but I don't really mind. It's now, I
>disagree, do it my way. We have no mechanism to deal with this and we
>need one if we are to succeed.
I think we do. I think it's called "forking". More later (in another message).
>
>Alain: This is indeed the crux of the problem. Who has the authority to
>make decisions?
The person doing the work, I'd argue.
>What do we vote on?
Not much, I'd hope.
>When? Who decides?
Who decides? The person or persons with the authority to make decisions, above.
>How do we verify
>and enforce the decisions arrived at? What do we do when enforcement
>breaks down?
Best would be to aboid such situations. But the ultimate end enforcement of
any contract is a court.
>
>Adrian: It has quickly become apparent that anarchy is not a viable
>option for our political structure, it's not working too well now.
>
>Alain: If by anarchy you mean disorder, then I agree that it would be
>foolhardy to proceed without some form of order. An order based on
>anarchist principles is another matter. Did you know that anarchy was a
>political movement?
Not the best of them, depending on who's definition of anarchy you go on.
>
>Adrian: Our group is beginning to show signs of breaking apart and
>we've hardly started, there have been some rather strong words posted
>here lately (though thankfully none personal, just purposeful).
>
>Alain: No, were not breaking apart. We are heatedly debating critical
>issues that are value-ladden. All posts have been purposeful. No
>personal attacks. All is well, I say!
I agree. Though I can see how someone might of gotten that impression from
some of my posts. I plan to fix that with a post on forking.
>
>Adrian: For any group to work it needs to set down rules that describe
>what is expected of its members and what consequences not living up to
>those expectations incurs. This applies to our group too. These rules
>will cover not only expected behaviour and such things, but licensing
>issues as well.
>
>Alain: Absolutely! I am pleased that the importance of these issues is
>being recognized. Despite the fact that it doesn�t add a single byte to
>our Source Code, the Collaboration aspects of our group are just as
>important as the programming.
>
>Adrian: ... ie The official version of OpenCard is distributed under
>this licence, like it or lump it. If you don't like it, don't
>contribute.
>
>Alain: Exactly!
And, I'd add, by this person.
>Adrian: How to make this decision will need to be in the original
>rules.
>
>Alain: Agreed.
It sounds like we're getting back to my Constitution proposal.
>
>Adrian: I would suggest that the licence OpenCard is issued under is
>unchangeable. This is because we'd need the consent of every author to
>change the licence ...
>
>Alain: Changes made later would indeed be controversial. Those who
>contributed to OC before the change did so because they agreed with the
>licencing terms as they were set out then. If you make a change, then a
>contributor could argue that, if he had known ahead of time that these
>new conditions would apply, then he would not have contributed what he
>did.
Which is why the working out other conditions is so important in the
Artistic. It states to everyone contributing that that may happen.
