Re: polarization (Was :Eleven good candidates)

[George <jirka 5z com>]

On Wed, Nov 01, 2000 at 10:58:09PM -0200, Lauris Kaplinski wrote:
> > But actually, the weirdest thing I get out of this message is the
> > impression that I am some sort of establishment figure and that the
> > posting of my list will unfairly bias the minds of many voters.
> 
> You are, believe me.

Let me chime in on the debate here.

1) The board is not an arbitrairly governing body.  I mean the board cannot
and will not be able to force project maintainers to do arbitrary things.
Thus the real power over any single project will always lie with the actual
maintainers anyway.

2) There is no governing clique trying to usurp power from the people.  For
example me and jacob will still be maintainers of gnome-core no matter who
wins the elections.  And most likely we will continue to do things the way we
want to do them in gnome-core no matter who wins the elections.  It will be
handling things like the current steercom does.

3) The "benevolent dictators" that actually control gnome will always be the
people doing the work.  The board is a different kind of "government" that we
are electing.  We are not replacing the benevolent dictators over projects
with some democratic process.  I doubt most maintainers would agree to be
controlled by public vote.

4) Even in democratic countries the ruling party is also allowed to campaign.
Though, given points #1 - #3, that shouldn't be an issue in the first place.

George

-- 
George <jirka 5z com>
   Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, 
   but most times he will pick himself up and carry on.
                       -- Winston Churchill