Democracy

[JuhaManninen]

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.

Uhhh. I don't believe you really thought it properly.
The developers work on features they feel are important. They have the right to do so. You try to move the decision power again to someone else. What exactly should the people vote about. When I found the way to get required unit names to uses section in Delphi converter, should I ask permission from Blaazen and BigChimp because they have been active on forum?
Or Mattias creates the new graph component with an advanced heuristical algorithm for auto-layout and path optimization. Should he ask permission for it here at forum?
Please give an example of what should be voted on (of real development, not splash screen obviously).

The Aristocracy are the developers. If someone starts creating substance himself then he gradually becomes part of the Aristocracy. (I have not seen this word used for open source development but IMO it is ok).

[JuhaManninen]

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.

Yes, I admit my mistake. It was a difficult situation because the actual developers and admins were busy with other tasks and they are not web developers really, and neither am I. I know other people here but only for their pascal development skills.
I had to announce it somehow. I think I should have sticked with the original FreeBSD VM plan and take time for the project.

[Fred vS]

When I found the way to get required unit names to uses section in Delphi converter, should I ask permission from Blaazen and BigChimp because they have been active on forum?

Please, Juha, dont threat me as a total idiot or do not try to drown the fish, im a developer too.

Im taking about General decision, like a new web site, a other splash screen, a new logo, etc...

[BigChimp]

Fred, I don't think Juha is treating you like an idiot. He's trying to get his point across.
You never mentioned it only applied to a

General decision, like a new web site, a other splash screen, a new log, etc...

Edit: ah, I now see you mentioned "general suggestions". Fair enough.

So, resuming, you want to have developers propose new features/improvements to the "Aristocracy". These features are not code related but cosmetic or infrastructural.
Then the Aristocracy decides which proposal wins or... gets executed first!?!

Given this, I can understand why Juha doesn't think this is a good idea.

Regardless of this, I think this dicussion is circling back to its beginning.

[Martin_fr]

Im taking about General decision, like a new web site, a other splash screen, a new log, etc...

How are they more general?

The unit name example may have been bad. But take the decision from the FAQ, that (before the docking mgr were started) a solution that would just dock the messages to the source edit, would NOT be shipped.
There was no vote, and there should not have been.

Sure for that one I can give you an actual argument: If added and shipped, maintenance work would likely have arisen from it. And we were not willing to do that work.

But the logo is equally part of the project. It is what we have chosen to represent our work.

Read the GPL or LGPL. There is no where a statement that anyone gives up ownership of there work. Every line of code is still owned by the person who wrote it. (There are 100, maybe 1000 of them. But most hold only a share less than 0.1%).

All their is, is a none-revocable license about how it can be used.

- This is NOT a democracy.
- This is a project with SHAREHOLDERS

The core developers PAID for the share they own. The spent thousands of work hours (quality work).

If you bought a house, and I came along and said the rest of the people in the street you are living in voted you have to put a wall in place of some of the windows, because you are not allowed that many windows, would you be happy?

Those who hold the most shares decide.

It is open, because everyone (with access to the currency of quality work / coding) can get shares.

To be clear. It is absolutely ok for none owners to present ideas. But if they are not taken: Accept it!

[JuhaManninen]

Please, Juha, dont threat me as a total idiot or do not try to drown the fish, im a developer too.
Im taking about General decision, like a new web site, a other splash screen, a new logo, etc...

Ok, sorry, I may be stressed by this web page project. It didn't go as planned, or actually I didn't have a proper plan.
Your voting system could indeed work for some things.
I am NOT against cosmetic or infrastructural changes in principle, they just must be done in a more controlled way.
The splash screen issue took all attention from the actual web page and was purely a distraction IMO.

In fact I was planning other improvements for infrastructure, including the wiki and maybe other web tools.
Now I am afraid to suggest anything but let's wait a while...
There is a fresh FreeBSD 9.1 VM waiting.

[Fred vS]

So, resuming, you want to have developers propose new features/improvements to the "Aristocracy". These features are not code related but cosmetic or infrastructural.
Then the Aristocracy decides which proposal wins or... gets executed first!?!

Proficiaat, you get it, it it exactly what i try to write...

The other point is how to define that Lazarus-Aristocracy (Aristos = the best, Cracy = power ( Power to the Best )).

And one way to become a Aristocrat could be also with the number of thanks you receive, the activity on forum, your postion in statistcs,...

Of course, developers (developers of libraries/pluggin too, ex Brook, BGRABitmap, etc.. ?) are members of the Aristocracy and the actual team too.

[Fred vS]

If you bought a house, and I came along and said the rest of the people in the street you are living in voted you have to put a wall in place of some of the windows, because you are not allowed that many windows, would you be happy?

I would be not happy (but it is how it works in lot of cities, you must ask if you want to change your windows or the color of your house.)

That is excess and excess is always wrong.

But i would be happy, if you become my neighbour, and if you want to build a second floor, just in front of my garden that you ask for the advice of your neighbours.

[BigChimp]

So, resuming, you want to have developers propose new features/improvements to the "Aristocracy". These features are not code related but cosmetic or infrastructural.
Then the Aristocracy decides which proposal wins or... gets executed first!?!

Proficiaat, you get it, it it exactly what i try to write...

Bedankt

I was thinking about what you wrote. It could work very well, if those projects/features are then implemented by that aristocracy. Sort of what Juha tried to do, but as he said, with some more detail on what is expected/possible to change.

[Fred vS]

if those projects/features are then implemented by that aristocracy

Members of Lazarus Aristocracy gonna do those implementations because they are members of the Lazarus Aristocracy. 

Lets come back with the problem of the new web page.
Juha said the reason why he asked it to everyboby is because the main staff was too busy, not pro in web developpment.

Imagine that the Lazarus Aristocracy existed and SilvioProg (creator of Brook) was member of that Aristocracy and proposed his help, things would be (maybe) more easy...

[nsunny]

...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.

No. Please don't misunderstand me. That's why I said:

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.

If the request is not worthy at all, the request will not be communicated to the developers (but if devs are interested they can check wishlist by themselves at their own interest). When the devs will be communicated about an issue (by the representative) they can either (1) accept it or (2) reject it or (3) leave it accepted but required contribution. That will keep the developers at as the final deciders about the issue. I don't think they would become slaves. Why would I make the devs of my favorite IDE slaves? May be my words made you misunderstood.

I think the wishlist will allow to keep the "wishes" in one place for records. And devs can also keep track of the accepted wishes and contribute to them when they are up for it and update progress to the entry.

I undertand the attitude, every newbie has it. If he becomes a source code contributor then he will change for sure.

I would say that "Newbies are the first impressions." What newbies say they are the first impressions of the world, not only the community members who know Lazarus for years. Newbies know what is up with the overall image, because they see it as a neutral person who has heard the explanations about stuff. Newbies are a good way to measure how the elements are communicating to general users.

But sorry to disappoint you, I am not a newbie as far as my "newbie" definition goes. May be I am new to the community but I am not new to the software. I have been first exposed to the software in 2009. But I agree, I am so much focused in web development that I did get less time to spend with Lazarus.

You can work on a Wishlist, no problem.

It is possible. But I need help from the community. In designing, planning etc.

There is a wishlist in Ubuntu, and a brainstorm site as well. It is a mistake of mine, I meant a "brainstorm" site by saying "wishlist".

So everybody interested can take a look at: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/

Maybe nsunny learned some lessons, too. I believe we will get a good web page in the end.

Yes and yes, me too.

{EDIT}

please read the book I linked earlier. It is a free online PDF book.

Which one? May be I missed it.

[JuhaManninen]

@nsunny: yes, the discussion got overheated a bit.
The brainstorm site sounds good. There were other ideas for improving the decision process by others, too.

This is still a small project. How do the big projects do it? Well, they have problems as well. For example people who follow Debian say that its development is hindered by endless debates and conflicts.
Ubuntu managed to make the world's best Linux distro in just few years but later they had problems and conflicts, too.

The book I mentioned is written by a developer of Subversion project:
  http://producingoss.com/en/producingoss.pdf
I don't know if it is usefull for others but I found it interesting when I tried to figure out what is going on.

[nsunny]

The book I mentioned is written by a developer of Subversion project:
  http://producingoss.com/en/producingoss.pdf
I don't know if it is usefull for others but I found it interesting when I tried to figure out what is going on.

Yeah, we have so many things to learn from other open source projects.

Thanks for the book. I have read the preface,and it seems that it is worth reading. I will read it after my project paper is finished which is due in the next week.