[Incubator] Fwd: Rasdaman as a 'Benevolent Dictatorship'

[Daniel Morissette]

Peter, and all,


On 13-07-31 8:24 AM, Peter Baumann wrote:
>
> - Keeping a last say on some - few - critical issues and decisions is
> something that indeed will remain a "benevolent dictatorship". I have
> tried more collaborative approaches in the past, and other projects as
> well. Our attempt failed miserably, and it took me huge effort to
> recover the project from dissolving altogether. Where do other projects
> stand here?
>      * Linux kernel: Linus Torvalds decides about code that goes in.
>      * Debian: has tried democracy once, with the effect that the whole
> project got stuck for a whole year for lack of decision abilities.
>      * PostgreSQL: has a quite rigorous approach as well. (We have a
> core PG team member on board now.)
> ...more specific OS project examples on request.
>


If what you are worried about is being stuck in a deadlock for some 
tough decisions, perhaps you'll be happy to hear that several (all?) 
project steering committees in OSGeo have a voting mechanism that can 
prevent this kind of situation, involving a veto and "override vote" 
mechanism. The final say, however, comes to the "absolute majority" of 
the steering committee members and not to a single indivudual. This is 
the cost of operating in an truly open manner, but comes with huge 
benefits (higher bus factor and increased committment/participation from 
the community to name only two).

I'd invite you to review MapServer's PSC voting rules, which is a model 
used by several other PSCs:

http://mapserver.org/development/rfc/ms-rfc-23.html#detailed-process

Here is the relevant info:

Detailed Process
----------------

* Proposals are written up and submitted on the mapserver-dev mailing list
   for discussion and voting, by any interested party, not just
   committee members.
* Proposals need to be available for review for at least two business
   days before a final decision can be made.
* Respondents may vote "+1" to indicate support for the proposal and a
   willingness to support implementation.
* Respondents may vote "-1" to veto a proposal, but must provide clear
   reasoning and alternate approaches to resolving the problem within
   the two days.
* A vote of -0 indicates mild disagreement, but has no effect.  A 0
   indicates no opinion.  A +0 indicate mild support, but has no
   effect.
* Anyone may comment on proposals on the list, but only members of the
   Project Steering Committee's votes will be counted.
* A proposal will be accepted if it receives +2 (including the
   author) and no vetoes (-1).
* If a proposal is vetoed, and it cannot be revised to satisfy all
   parties, then it can be resubmitted for an override vote in which a
   majority of all eligible voters indicating +1 is sufficient to pass it.
   Note that this is a majority of all committee members, not just those 
who
   actively vote.
* Upon completion of discussion and voting the author should announce
   whether they are proceeding (proposal accepted) or are withdrawing
   their proposal (vetoed).
* The Chair gets a vote.
* The Chair is responsible for keeping track of who is a member of the
   Project Steering Committee (perhaps as part of a PSC file in CVS).
* Addition and removal of members from the committee, as well as selection
   of a Chair should be handled as a proposal to the committee.
* The Chair adjudicates in cases of disputes about voting.


Observations
----------------

* The Chair is the ultimate adjudicator if things break down.
* The absolute majority rule can be used to override an obstructionist
   veto, but it is intended that in normal circumstances vetoers need to be
   convinced to withdraw their veto.  We are trying to reach consensus.
* It is anticipated that separate "committees" will exist to manage
   conferences, documentation and web sites.  That said, it is expected
   that the PSC will be the entity largely responsible for creating any
   such committees.


HTH

-- 
Daniel Morissette
http://www.mapgears.com/
Provider of Professional MapServer Support since 2000