Democracy

[jwdietrich]

The question "Did you think Lazarus project is a democracy?" implies another one that is even more interesting:

"Do you think that Lazarus project should be a democracy?"

If the answer to the first is NO, the second doesn't matter   

If you were right Husni Mubarak would still reign Egypt and we would still have Stalinism in eastern Europe.

[felipemdc]

If you were right Husni Mubarak would still reign Egypt and we would still have Stalinism in eastern Europe.

I was already expecting this kind of mixing to appear, so it should be made clear that preferences for managing projects are completely unrelated to preferences for managing countries.

[jwdietrich]

If you were right Husni Mubarak would still reign Egypt and we would still have Stalinism in eastern Europe.

I was already expecting this kind of mixing to appear, so it should be made clear that preferences for managing projects are completely unrelated to preferences for managing countries.

You are right. You will have noticed that I didn't say anything about the Lazarus project in this posting.

[felipemdc]

I think I missread the post from Marco, inverted the direction of the sentences (thought it was if you say NO to the second then...) ... now it makes sense...

[nsunny]

Every project has its own views, values. The values derive from the project initiators. In the case of the Lazarus Project, it happens to be that they believe in work rather than democracy.

It is a good thing, in a way. But now Lazarus will be used by millions, and will increase. In this scenario, I think someone should become like a communicator to the project maintainers, in case of public relations. He can just listen to what the community says, and he will analyze those proposals, and if found worthy, he will communicate about the issue with the project maintainers. They can either reject and show reasons to the proposal or accept it.

This way, the developers don't have to waste their time listening to people. Instead they can continue their work that they do so well.

Another thing can be a Wishlist (similar to what Ubuntu has). Users can brainstorm the best solution by themselves.

[JJVillamor]

Every project has its own views, values. The values derive from the project initiators. In the case of the Lazarus Project, it happens to be that they believe in work rather than democracy.

It is a good thing, in a way. But now Lazarus will be used by millions, and will increase. In this scenario, I think someone should become like a communicator to the project maintainers, in case of public relations. He can just listen to what the community says, and he will analyze those proposals, and if found worthy, he will communicate about the issue with the project maintainers. They can either reject and show reasons to the proposal or accept it.

This way, the developers don't have to waste their time listening to people. Instead they can continue their work that they do so well.

Another thing can be a Wishlist (similar to what Ubuntu has). Users can brainstorm the best solution by themselves.

That is a very good way to go about it.

[JuhaManninen]

Every project has its own views, values. The values derive from the project initiators. In the case of the Lazarus Project, it happens to be that they believe in work rather than democracy.

Your last sentence proves that you still don't understand the issue at all.
No successful open source project is a democracy. None. Zero. The ones that believed in democracy have died.
Or, maybe you want to redefine the word "democracy". "Democracy where you buy voting power" is good, yes.
Typo mentioned "meritocracy". I had to check what it means and yes, this project is close to a meritocracy.

If you mean democracy as the normal "anybody can vote", please think of the consequences. The developers would have to obey people who don't want to create any substance, but only want decision power. Developers would become second class citizens, almost slaves.
They would leave the project, at least I would. The new wanna-be leaders have no skill or interest to create substance. The project would die.

Most open source projects die at early age. Big projects die, too, sometimes due to poor management.
Sometimes they are forked by people with better management skills, sometimes not.
@nsunny, please read the book I linked earlier. It is a free online PDF book. There is also lots of other info available, for example a Google talk about
"How Open Source Projects Survive Poisonous People" :
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q52kFL8zVoM&feature=gv
by developers of a succesful project. It is still succesful because it is well managed.

I am trying to say that it is not a trivial task to keep such hi-tech project alive. Some people seem to take this issue as a joke, or maybe they just don't understand the amount of high quality work done by some people during 12 years.

It is a good thing, in a way. But now Lazarus will be used by millions, and will increase. In this scenario, I think someone should become like a communicator to the project maintainers, in case of public relations. He can just listen to what the community says, and he will analyze those proposals, and if found worthy, he will communicate about the issue with the project maintainers. They can either reject and show reasons to the proposal or accept it.
This way, the developers don't have to waste their time listening to people. Instead they can continue their work that they do so well.
Another thing can be a Wishlist (similar to what Ubuntu has). Users can brainstorm the best solution by themselves.

If you find a person for the communication role, fine. However it is an extra level of bureaucracy eating resources if the same person could also do something congrete.
You can work on a Wishlist, no problem.

My own management for this web page project was very poor.
Maybe nobody noticed but I actually tried to improve the "community" influence by having a web page developed as a community project with sources in SVN.
Practically I gave free hands to the first newbie who jumped in. No offence nsunny but you are a newbie here.
I took it for granted that such person would respect the project's legacy. No, nothing is for granted. You wanted to start a whole revolution.
I undertand the attitude, every newbie has it. If he becomes a source code contributor then he will change for sure. He must learn LOTS of code, get his patches rejected because they are not technically sound, etc. He inevitably becomes humble in front of the work done by others.

This new web page was different. There is no established way to become a "Lazarus web developer". It is a new project. I should have forced the new developer to prove himself somehow.
At least I should have explained the "contract" clearly. What must be respected, where you can improvise, and so on.

A lesson learned for me. It was interesting to see the community reaction in such situation. A complete chaos. The debate moved to irrelevat things away wrom the web page.
Maybe nsunny learned some lessons, too. I believe we will get a good web page in the end.

[Fred vS]

@ Juha : nice to feel you cooler. 

For me Lazarus is more a Aristocracy ( the best decide ).

So i think that great helpers in Forum  (like Blaazen and others) merit to have something to say about development.

In the site of Pilot Logic ( Code Thyphon ) :
http://www.pilotlogic.com/sitejoom/index.php/forum/recent

Each user have a Thank you received: and Karma:.

Maybe a good idea for Lazarus forum.

I propose ( it is a proposition nothing more ), that users with a certain amount of thanks could have the possibility to vote for some particular things.

It could be also users who get high position in statistic...

[BigChimp]

@Fred: by all means set up some voting system. Who is going to force the devs to implement the suggestions though?
While I respect your optimism and solution-oriented approach, your post seems more or less of a rehash of the discussion above.


@all: I hope all the hard work the designers did won't be lost and we will have a beautiful new homepage soon.

[Fred vS]

Who is going to force the devs to implement the suggestions though?

.
That was not the proposition. I propose that, when the staf of devs have some general suggestions they propose it to the Aristocracy and those members of Aristocracy could vote for it.

[BigChimp]

Ah ok, sorry. The element of communication (of the proposals/roadmap) would be a very good improvement, I'd say. The voting part... who knows, it might work.

[Fred vS]

The voting part... who knows, it might work.

What is the voting part for you ?

For me it is the fact that users can give thanks to other users (because they where happy for answers or whatever...).

[BigChimp]

The voting part... who knows, it might work.

What is the voting part for you ?

this:

I propose that, when the staf of devs have some general suggestions they propose it to the Aristocracy and those members of Aristocracy could vote for it.

This:

For me it is the fact that users can give thanks to other users (because they where happy for answers or whatever...).

... seems like a very good idea!

[JuhaManninen]

I propose ( it is a proposition nothing more ), that users with a certain amount of thanks could have the possibility to vote for some particular things.

I believe the "Thank you received:" and "Karma:" are already supported by the forum SW. It is only a config issue. I have nothing against it.
But indeed voting is useless if there is nobody to implement the desired feature. The best way to "vote" is still to provide a good quality patch. This is what I meant earlier: your decision power increases by contributions. There is nothing fancy with it. Just work.

A striking and rare exception to the above rule was the splash screen(*) debate. I still say that a person who wants to change the splash screen as his first and only contribution has an attitude problem. See my earlier posts for reasoning, I will not repeat them here.

On the other hand, a brand management and public relations management become important when the project grows.
How to organize it? Should I announce an open position and then accept the first newbie who wants the job? Definitely not!
PR require good social and other skills for many directions.
Best would be to follow the proven system of source code development. If somebody proves himself by doing work in PR area then his decision power increases and the "job" falls into his hands.
This is not acute now though, the web page is.

Juha

(*) Don't offer your new pictures here please.

[Fred vS]

How to organize it? Should I announce an open position and then accept the first newbie who wants the job? Definitely not!

Sorry Juha, but you play with the fire when you proposed  Open position for web page admin for everyone.

This show us that indeed a open project is not a total democracy.

Maybe if you had proposed that to members of the Aristocracy, you will have find somebody who knows better Lazarus.