Chad Smith wrote: > Actually, I kinda think it *is* the way it should be. In fact, the > reason republics tend to work so well is because of the built-in > revolution function. I mean, in the US, there is a change of power > every 4 - 8 years.
You see, the system you just described is one where people can expect to cause change through the official channels. So it's stable. > Change is inevitable, and the best way to promote stability is to > account for constant change. Yes. Flexibility. > It might not be the best marketing idea, but "forking" OpenOffice.org > every year - were once a year we plan a revolution - new name, new > logo, new mission statement, new leadership, etc. Or at least we vote > on whether or not to keep those things, change them completely, or > amend them. So maybe next year, OpenOffice.org 2.5 becomes > LibreOffice 1.0 and the next year FreeOffice 4.0 and the next year > DanielRulzSupremeOffice 1.2.3. And you just touched on something important. Suppose I'm currently the Prime Minister of OOo. Some people are asking for a vote to rename the product "StupidOffice". I think this is insane. At this point, I will be very tempted to halt such a vote, to prevent people from making the 'wrong' choice. But the moment I do that, I've slipped towards a more totalitarian government, which will later be more prone to conflict. So there has to be some system where people who want change can have a reasonable expectation to cause change. I like the way Linus put it: One of the things I've been pretty happy with is how I generally _have_ been able to fairly gracefully relinquish control. It really is harder than you'd think, and I think it ends up being one of the core problems that some open source projects have: people (and companies) wanting to keep tight reins on a system, because they have their own "vision" of where they want things to go, or how things have to be done. And that stifles the project. It doesn't allow others to feel like they control their own destiny. It's from this article: http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/02/10/1539242&tid=132&tid=111 I strongly recommend it. Chad, you'd like it. Cheers, -- Daniel Carrera | I don't want it perfect, Join OOoAuthors today! | I want it Tuesday. http://oooauthors.org |
