Re: "Private Foundation-List" Petition for referendum

[Jonathan Corbet <corbet lwn net>]

On Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:04:50 -0700
Stormy Peters <stormy peters gmail com> wrote:

> Are there people on this list that are not GNOME Foundation members? If so,
> can you speak up? It would be good for everyone to know why you subscribe to
> foundation-list and the value you see in it.

Technically I'm not on the list - I read it through gmane.  But I do
read it because I want to know what is up with the GNOME project.  I
want to see what's coming, and, crucially, I want to see how the
project's processes work.

I watch a lot of projects.  In my opinion, the projects which conduct
their discussions in the open tend to be the most robust and the most
successful.  Those which hold their discussions behind closed doors,
perhaps occasionally issuing a press release to tell the world what
they are up to, have far less engaged user and developer communities.

As long as GNOME is a project that matters, there will always be bozos
who will post uneducated articles about what you are doing.  If your
discussions are in the open, people who really care can see what was
*really* said and help to keep those bozos (people like me) honest.  If
you hide behind closed doors, the bozos get the last word.  Articles
about GNOME will be less frequent, less accurate, and less likely to be
corrected.  Is that really what you want?

jon