Revised RFC 1 - Need Comments

[Stephen Woodbridge]

Howard Butler wrote:
> At 12:27 PM 10/12/2006, Daniel Morissette wrote:
>> I'm not too keen on the 2 year term either. My main concern is that 
>> continuity is important for the direction of a project to remain 
>> consistent. If over a couple of election cycles most of the PSC ends 
>> up being replaced then you lose all track of the historical background 
>> and nobody will know the reasons why things were done one way or 
>> another and you end up with the new PSC members making decisions that 
>> may be contrary to the original design goals.
> 
> I don't think anyone expects that scenario to play out.  It isn't in the 
> community's best interest to have that happen.  Also, not being on the 
> PSC doesn't mean you can't still be a developer, or answer questions on 
> the maillist, write documentation, or file well-detailed bugs in 
> bugzilla... it is merely your punishment for doing those things so much :)
> 
> My idea with the term is that it gives the community an opportunity to 
> *ensure* continuity by packing the PSC with members that reflect its 
> goals, development ideas, and design philosophy.  In my opinion, this 
> works both ways -- people are here because the project already reflects 
> those things.
> 
> 
>> Is it any good for MapServer if Steve is not re-elected on the PSC 
>> when his term is up, or for GDAL if Frank is not re-elected on the 
>> GDAL PSC if that PSC was setup to work this way?
>>
>> Why would Frank or Steve not be re-elected you ask? With an open 
>> community vote, what would prevent a large group (or even an 
>> unfriendly proprietary corporation) from filing a bunch of 
>> non-anonimous votes and taking over the PSC over a couple of election 
>> cycles?
> 
> I think the community would react rather poorly to a hostile takeover.  
> It's open source software, and the fork alternative is always out 
> there.  It's messy, but this scenario has played out a number of times 
> in a number of (smaller, generally) projects.  The project always has 
> that risk, no matter which governance model is chosen, and that's the 
> number one driving factor in keeping open source projects honest.
> 
> 
>> I guess I'm with Frank and have a preference for the 
>> self-perpetuating-cabal.
> 
> I have a preference for the MapServer community perpetuating the cabal.
> 
> Howard

Howard, Well said. This expresses what I was feeling also. If some 
members views don't align with the community then maybe that is a good 
indicator that they should go separate ways. I would have faith in the 
community to keep those that meet their needs in a position to continue 
doing that.

-SteveW