>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: If I am right and you believe the opposite of what I believe,
why should I compromise with you? Or if you are right and I believe the
opposite of you, why should you compromise?
Alain: You are correct that compromise is impossible when the parties
involved have diametrically opposed views, particularly if what is at
issue is value-ladden. Forking is the only reasonable alternative at
this point but, in so doing, each separate fork will end up doing the
similar work (redundant) instead of collaborating. So, to avoid this
loss of potential due to redundancy, it is advisable to somehow come to
a workable consensus instead of forking.
Anthony: Of course, there are things where there is no "right" and no
"wrong." Those can be compromised on. There are some things that are
not important, and can be compromised on (the color of an icon, for
example).
Alain: All the tactical stuff - the programming, the interface, and so
on - can be compromised on easily enough. We will eventually come to a
workable consensus on the licencing issue as well. As for the Politics,
we happily do not have to agree on these issues.
Anthony: But when two groups of people, with radically different,
mutually exclusive ideas or approaches, with neither being able to
convince the other, exist, no compromise should be attempted: It'll
wind up as making both sides unhappy. I'd argue it is time for a fork.
Alain: You are right. I am forking left.
>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: Fork. Consider some of the scenarios I presented. Could a
consensus ever be reached? Remember, hundreds backing each side...
could everyone ever agree? As another example, take our clash between
altruism vs. egoism: Will we ever reach a consensus, other than that we
do not agree?
Alain: Nope!
>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.
Anthony: In other words, consensus, by your definition, is the ultimate
compromise?
Alain: It is arriving at a the most workable solution possible given
everyone�s needs, desires, etc. An individual that is an island onto
himself need never compromise on anything, but compromises are
frequently necessary when many parties are involved. People make these
compromises, willingly, because they know that they will gain more by
participating (collaborating) than going it alone (forking).
Anthony: I want no part.
Alain: So I gather that you are arguing for voting, and forking when
there is dissent.
Anthony: Can you have a consensus with dissent?
Alain: Yes, of course.
>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 !!!
Anthony: Yes.
Alain: Alright! So I get to make all of the decisions as to how we will
work together, how our shared information and resources will be
organized and presented, what licence gets adopted, etc... because all
of these are Collaboration issues.
>Alain: Who makes the decisions for the aspects that
>affect the whole group?
Anthony: Someone who should be given the ownership of that aspect.
Alain: Ownership of the aspects that affect the whole group???
>Alain: Who makes the decisions for elements of OC that
>will be accomplished by many people at once?
Anthony: Someone.
Alain: You are dodging the question, Anthony.
>Alain: How much does one have to contribute to a
>particular product of OC to be able to make decisions
>concerning it?
Anthony: The person who starts the product -- and no doubt does most of
the work getting it delivered, at least in the first version.
Alain: What about products that many start together? What about all of
the latter versions and contributors? Do they have or acquire some form
of decision-making rights? How? When? How would you deal with someone
that starts MANY products without ever following through? Despite the
fact that this person contributed, say, the first half-day�s work to a
product, this person would then and forever after make all decisions
concerning the product???
>Alain: Does everyone create their own individual
>product(s)?
Anthony: Yes. But since they are under a licence allowing it, they can
easily be integrated into OpenCard -- which would be controlled by one
person.
Alain: So OpenCard will be more like an empty shell, with hooks that
will allow autonomously developed modules to operate seamlessly with
the OC shell and with other modules. None of the parts in the shell,
nor in the autonomous modules, are developed by more than one
individual, and consequently one unambiguous author for each part. Who
knows!
Anthony: I would not mind if we voted on who that person is...and if we
had procedures to replace them, etc.
Alain: Campaigning, voting, arenas to argue for/against decisions,
procedures to replace the elected official(s), etc ... There is just no
getting around it. We direly need structure before drowning ourselves
in source code with ambiguous licencing conditions.
>Alain: Does a particular patch or module or whatever
>get included into the Standard OC Distribution?
>(for example)
Anthony: That person who is in charge of OpenCard.
Alain: The elected person that we wrote about above, right?
>Alain: What you are suggesting, in fact, is that we
>have no structure whatsoever. Anybody can do anything.
>And if someone doesnt 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: No. There would be one person who says "This is the standard
version". It is like that in most OpenSource projects. Linus, for
example, says "this is Linux." I would not mind electing that person,
and having procedures to remove that person -- provided forking is
allowed.
Alain: Fair enough.
>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.
Anthony: I'm arguing for a structure in which litigation would
hopefully be unnecessary.
Alain: We agree on the goal of reducing or eliminating litigation,
that�s clear enough. Do we also agree that we should structure our
collaboration carefully in order to achieve this mutual goal of ours?
Anthony: I'm going to have to write up a complete proposal
Alain: Good initiative, Anthony.
Anthony: ...trying to do a piecemail work in multiple emails is silly.
Alain: What is silly about multiple emails? Your complete proposal
will be analyzed, debated, etc ... in a similar piecemeal fashion. A
web-based review process would be nice though. I am working on it.
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