Re: MAINTAINERS file

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Karl Fogel <address@hidden>
> Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:34:54 -0500
> Cc: address@hidden
> 
> Nick Roberts <address@hidden> writes:
> > Chaos is never favourable, although anarchy may sometimes be.  Someone has
> > to always arbitrate over any disagreement.
> 
> This is not true.  For example, in the Subversion project there is no
> arbitrator.  We try for consensus, and if there is unresolveable
> disagreement, the global committers vote.

So in your case, the vote by the global committers is that ``someone''
whom Nick calls ``arbitrator''.  Thus, ``this is not true'' above is,
well, not true.

> A vote has happened only twice in the history of the project:
> 
>    - To decide on the name of the command line binary ("sub" vs "svn")
> 
>    - To decide whether we would put a space before the opening
>      parenthesis when writing C function calls and definitions. 
> 
> I think this is evidence that consensus, with democracy as a fallback,
> can work pretty well! :-)

One evidence, maybe.

> A power structure is not needed, when you have revision control (so
> changes can be undone) and forkability (so dissenters are never
> trapped).

So you think that commit/revert wars and forks are a better
alternative than clear, agreed-upon rules?

> You might ask: what then is [Yidong's] and Stefan's role?
> 
> Answer: default moral authority to prevent bandwidth-consuming votes
> for every little dispute.

By this, you actually suggested specific guidelines for managing the
project.  But these guidelines must be discussed and agreed to, in
order for them to become Emacs project's guidelines rather than Karl
Fogel's guidelines.  Otherwise, why would you think that you and I see
Yidong's and Stefan's leadership eye to eye?

> There's no reason for us to put potentially costly dispute-resolution
> structures in place in anticipation of problems that may never arise.

How do you know it is ``potentially costly'' without hearing specific
proposals, let alone trying them?