Re: IRC channels in gnome development

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Sun, 2011-02-06 at 21:52 +0100, Dave Neary wrote:
> "A community project means exactly what Paul says - it is not a
> democracy. Your argument is one of the main fallacies circulated about
> free software - just because the project is free software does not mean
> that everyone's opinion carries equal weight.
> 
> You have an array of forums for expressing your opinion, as do I, but in
> the end of the day, the most important opinion is the one which is
> expressed in code.

I am the last person to argue against a meritocracy. I'm certain
that it's the only model under which Gnome can possibly exist.
But this discussion stopped being about code 20 emails ago.

Maintainers will inevitably have to say "no" sometimes. There are
different ways of doing that. On the one extreme, you can just tell
people they're stupid. On the other, you can carefully explain your
reasoning each and every time. And there's a whole lot of gray in
between.

A project like Gnome lives and dies by its community. We have to
find the right gray level to keep people enthusiastic about what
we're doing. Judging from recent history, I don't think we've
found that.

--
Shaun