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So far the only "institution" in DotGNU is the DotGNU Steering Committee, which has been appointed by RMS. So right now DotGNU cannot be a democracy in the usual sense, simply because the necessary democratic institutions and procedures have not been established.
It would not be easy to turn a Free Software project like DotGNU into a true democracy. It would have to be a constitutional democracy because there are standards and ethical principles which cannot be allowed to be simply changed by a majority vote. Also the core of the DotGNU vision (which makes it a solution to the vendor lock-in problem for webservices) may be refined, but not discarded. There would need to be structures in place which prevent people who do not agree with these key things from "hijacking" DotGNU. We would need to have a constitution which defines some democratic institutions and their responsibilities, as well as procedures for selecting the members and the leaders of these institutions. Setting this all up in a way that actually works will require a lot of effort, as well as trial-and-error. Doing this here in DotGNU would be a huge distraction, which we cannot afford.
So what DotGNU needs is a simpler structure that will still give us most or all of the benefits of a constitutional democracy. We have established such a structure, as follows:
1. DotGNU is a volunteer-driven project where everyone is given the
freedom to work on whatever they consider to be important, and
what has to do with creating a successful webservices platform
which is founded on the GNU philosophy.
2. The DotGNU Steering Committee (which has been appointed by
Richard Stallman, the founder and leader of the GNU project)
will, when necessary, serve as "high court" to resolve any
conflicts between contributors, and it will work to make
sure that the project remains faithful to its mission.
3. Most actual decisions are made in the development projects.
Each project has a leader who establishes a decision-making
process. This does not need to be a democratic process,
because projects which make bad decisions can be forked.
(This possibility of forking makes mismanagement much
less likely to happen, and hence there will probably not
be a need for many forks.)
4. Mailing lists have been established for facilitating a free
flow of discussions on various matters related to DotGNU.
Use of the lists in ways which harm the DotGNU project will
not be tolerated. Here are some examples of behavior which
will not be tolerated:
- making FUD-like claims without substantiating them upon request
- "name calling" and bullying
- advertising or recommending proprietary software in any way
- making postings which seem to be illegal according to the
laws of the country where the mailing list server is located
(currently the USA).
People who do such or similar things may be moderated,
kicked off the list, or banned. The offending postings may
be removed from the list's archives.
You are invited to add your comments concerning this at the appropriate page of the DotGNU Wiki
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are permitted in any medium or format, provided this notice is preserved.
This page is maintained by Norbert Bollow <nb@SoftwareEconomics.biz> with support from the DotGNU Developers mailing list.