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Date:      Tue, 04 Feb 2003 19:27:58 -0700
From:      Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>
To:        Magnus Bäckström <b@etek.chalmers.se>
Cc:        Larry Sica <lomion@mac.com>, "" <freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: dillon@'s commit bit: I object
Message-ID:  <4.3.2.7.2.20030204190652.04041d70@localhost>
In-Reply-To: <20030205001941.X1138-100000@rockerduck.eep1>
References:  <4.3.2.7.2.20030204120535.02835100@localhost> <4.3.2.7.2.20030204110551.00c54680@localhost> <4.3.2.7.2.20030204120535.02835100@localhost>

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At 04:19 PM 2/4/2003, Magnus Bäckström wrote:

>Sketch a structure you believe would work in practice.

Here's one structure that's stood the test of time
in similarly amorphous communities.

The community surrounding an operating system consists of 
people who come and go and have varying degrees of involvement
and interest. It's also hard to enumerate the members of the
community at any given time. We can't identify (for example) 
the new sysadmin who has just taken a job involving the 
administration of a farm containing thousands of machines running
the operating system, nor can we tell that the previous sysadmin
LOST that job.

So, how do you do a relatively democratic vote within such an
amorphous community? One way is to use the approach taken
by science fiction conventions (such as the WorldCon -- the
World Science Fiction Convention). Anyone can, relatively
cheaply, purchase an attending or voting membership in the
convention, and then is able to vote for the Hugo Awards
(a collection of science fiction literary awards) and for the
locations of future conventions. The registration money is
used to fund gatherings of the group and cover administrative
costs. I'm oversimplifying how it works here, but suffice it
to say that it's a very clever, democratic system that's well
suited to science fiction fans, who are about as hard to herd 
as programmers. It allows people to come and go while the 
organization endures.

Regular votes of the membership should be taken to elect a 
governing board which is above, and distinct from, the 
development team in the organizational structure. The Board 
would have under it not only the development organization but 
also teams that do end user advocacy, documentation, release 
engineering, security, fundraising, Web services, and relations 
with corporations (e.g. securing tech docs that enable driver 
support).

The memberships of these teams could, and should, overlap.
The governing board should be able not only to resolve 
disputes within and between the teams but take questions 
to the current membership list for referenda if necessary.

Adding this additional tier to the organization would actually
simplify life for the developers, who would not be burdened
by responsibilities that were handled by a different team
unless they chose to join that team also. The rules of the
organization would require the teams and the Board to operate 
openly except when absolutely necessary (for example, when 
legal action was being discussed).

This more "mature" structure would enable better division of
labor and responsibility, dispute resolution by parties not
inflamed by the dispute, and advocacy unhindered by the
preferences of the developers (some of whom want to live in
a cozier space than they'd have to inhabit if they were both
governing a "hot" project and trying to code).

--Brett


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