From: DeRobertis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: OODL - Politics - Re Adrian
Reply-to:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Alain: Consensus is my choice as well. Some people dont
>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!
Anthony: Alain, there are two ways to get consensus:
1.Argument 2.Force
Alain: There are many ways to arrive at a consensus, particularly if
everyone participating in the consensus-building process are reasonable
and are thus prepared to make some compromises in order to achieve the
goals of the group.
Anthony: And the argument way is _quite_ difficult. Consider arguing
with 30 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.
Alain: I disagree. It happens all of the time. I have participated in
several medium-size groups that achieve this �miracle�. Besides,
difficult or not, what other alternative do we have?
Anthony: That leaves the other way, which none of us (I hope!) want.
Alain: Consensus has nothing to do with the use of force. Force is used
when some party has more power than another, and wishes to exercise its
power instead of negotiating with the weaker party. Consensus, on the
other hand, is about negotiation among equals such that everyone �say�
is taken into account in the final decision. Consensus is not
equivalent to Unanimity, as many falsely believe.
>Alain: This is indeed the crux of the problem.
>Who has the authority to make decisions?
Anthony: The person doing the work, I'd argue.
Alain: So you make all of the decisions concerning your interpreter,
Uli makes all of the decisions concerning OC file system, I make all of
the decisions concerning the collaboration infrastructure, etc !!! Who
makes the decisions for the aspects that affect the whole group? Who
makes the decisions for elements of OC that will be accomplished by
many people at once? How much does one have to contribute to a
particular product of OC to be able to make decisions concerning it?
Does everyone create their own individual product(s)?
>What do we vote on?
Anthony: Not much, I'd hope.
Alain: Does a particular patch or module or whatever get included into
the Standard OC Distribution? (for example)
>Alain: How do we verify and enforce the decisions
>arrived at? What do we do when enforcement breaks down?
Anthony: Best would be to avoid such situations.
Alain: What you are suggesting, in fact, is that we have no structure
whatsoever. Anybody can do anything. And if someone doesn�t like it,
then they can fork off. Pretty soon we will have not only many versions
of OC, but also many versions of OC elements. And no means of deciding
what goes into the Standard OC Distribution.
Anthony: But the ultimate end enforcement of any contract is a court.
Alain: Litigation sucks. The only people that profit from it are the
lawyers and such. And it only occurs when all other means have failed
and the parties involved are unwilling to negotiate. Most or all of
this can be avoided if we structure our collaboration carefully.
>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?
Anthony: Not the best of them, depending on who's definition of anarchy
you go on.
Alain: You are entitled to your opinion, Anthony.
>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!
Anthony: I agree. Though I can see how someone might of gotten that
impression from some of my posts.
Alain: And from this reponse too, probably!
Anthony: I plan to fix that with a post on forking.
Alain: Forking does not resolve the issue of what goes into the OC
standard Distribution.
>Adrian: How to make this decision will need to be in
>the original rules.
>Alain: Agreed.
Anthony: It sounds like we're getting back to my Constitution proposal.
Alain: Yes we are going to re-open the exchanges concerning the OC
Constitution because, despite the fact that it doesn�t add any bytes to
our source code base, it is indispensable for the success of OC. We
need policies, structure, procedures, etc.
>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.
Anthony: Which is why the working out other conditions is so important
in the Artistic. It states to everyone contributing that that may
happen.
Alain: Agreed.
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