GNOME 3 released; Ubuntu GNOME remix announced

[Ignazio Palmisano]

2011/4/7 Avi <lists at avi.co>:
> Michael Haney wrote:
>
>> Mark Shuttleworth is letting his ego do the driving.  His comments of
>> "this is not a democracy" flies in the face of what an open source
>> project is supposed to be.
>
> No it doesn't. I can't think of a single truly Open Source project.
> Meritocracies and benevolent dictatorships are the norm.
>

I don't get either point. Open Source, in any of the licenses I am
familiar with, does not provide anyone with a vote. It's not a
democracy because there is nothing like a government; it's open, so
there is no need to reach an agreement - one disagrees, one forks
(with due respect to the legal constraints of the applicable license).

Truly Open Source means only that the code is released with one of a
set of licenses; it has nothing to do with how the author (person or
company) decides to manage the community. It is PLAUSIBLE that one
wants the largest possible audience, therefore one listens to those
who use the software when looking for requirements, but there is no
reason to be forced by the will of the masses. Everybody is free to
ask, more or less politely, and everyone is free to ignore the
requests, more or less politely. Doesn't change the openness of the
source code a bit (pun intended).

Personally, I prefer this to a great big democracy where every J.
Random User has the same steering power over my project as me; after
all, I'm investing more, economically and maybe emotionally, in my
project than the average user, so I should also have more authority
over it.
my tuppence,
I.

> --
> Avi
>
> --
> sounder mailing list
> sounder at lists.ubuntu.com
> Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/sounder
>