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Governance and succession are intimately tied. I feel that part of the problem with WordPress and Rails is that that there is no model for replacing poor gover

by edent 11mo ago

Governance and succession are intimately tied. I feel that part of the problem with WordPress and Rails is that that there is no model for replacing poor governance.

lapcat 11mo ago
> I feel that part of the problem with WordPress and Rails is that that there is no model for replacing poor governance. But Eugen Rochko was not replaced. He voluntarily stepped down from power because he was personally dissatisfied in the leadership role. Nobody was calling for his ouster. He could have continued as leader of Mastodon for many more years with nobody batting an eyelash. So again, Mastodon is a red herring.
msh 11mo ago
There is a model, it’s called forking the code.
- tremon 11mo ago
  Forking the code fractures the community. The discussion at hand focuses on the community, not the code.
  - cortesoft 11mo ago
    If you feel like you need to fork the code, the community is already fractured. If the community agrees with you that the original author is doing things wrong, and your new approach is better, they will move with you to the fork. If the rest of the community doesn't agree with you, they will stay. If some stay and some go, it means only some of them agreed with you. That's the thing about open source - you don't actually have to form a consensus. You can split off whenever you want.
    - munificent 11mo ago
      > you don't actually have to form a consensus. You can split off whenever you want. This is true and is a key property of open source. But it's also true that network effects and economies of scale are key for how open source projects provide value to their users. Those effects mean that the value an open source project provides to its community is often super-linear relative to the number of users. A concrete example: If someone writes a blog post about how to use some feature, every other user of the feature can benefit from it. But also every user can potentially write this kind of documentation. So the value people provide through documentation is very roughly quadratic in the number of people reading and writing docs. Because value like that scales super-linearly with the number of people in the ecosystem, breaking a community in two can result in less total value even if the total number of users of both communities put together is the same. If you fork and the forks diverge, now a given bit of documentation may only be relevant to one side of the fork. A given person writing some docs may documenting things that are only true for one fork.
  - tracker1 11mo ago
    So does trying to unseat leadership.. forking is just more honest and takes more effort.
    - tremon 11mo ago
      Debian regularly unseats its leadership without fracturing. Perhaps the focus of the article deserves more than just a glib dismissal?
      - tracker1 11mo ago
        Ian Murdock was not forced out of Debian; he resigned in 1996 to focus on school, work, and family. He passed the leadership of the project to Bruce Perens at that time. Now, since then, the structure has obviously changed... bit it definitely didn't start as a coup d'etat... Debian now has a leadership structures where voting members are defined as well as how leadership positions are voted for. That's far different than a handful of people trying to unseat or take the project away without that infrastructure. BDFL is perfectly fine as long as original ownership/management has interest in maintaining said position.
  - dmitrygr 11mo ago
    Until such a time when my compiler learns to take "the community" as input and still produce working binaries as output, things will remain all about the code. C'est la vie.
ktallett 11mo ago
But if it is someone's project, why should they have to leave if governance doesn't go the way they wish? The point of open source is sharing your work so others can use it and edit it. They have done their part and they maintain it as they choose whether that suits who uses it or not. I create open source projects myself, because they are applications I need or want. They are open source licensed so feel free to use them as such but my original code will develop and evolve as I choose.
- immibis 11mo ago
  I think this is all under the assumption that your goal is to make the project as successful as possible. If that's true, then if people think you should step down, you should. BUT can that happen? If you're trying to maximise project success, how can you also be so bad that people want you to step down? If you're not contributing but good-hearted, then you should select someone to run it day to day, but retain ultimate power in case that person turns out worse than you.
- neilv 11mo ago
  > But if it is someone's project, why should they have to leave if governance doesn't go the way they wish? Many projects start as someone's project, but become bigger than the one person. If they keep it as one person's project, that's clear. If there are other contributors, that's less clear. If the project has a formal organization with governance, it's not the person's project. They might be grandparented in, like a vestige of a past monarchy, but the governance will evolve, to elections. The royalty will be kept for the tourism dollars.
  - nomdep 11mo ago
    > If the project has a formal organization with governance, it's not the person's project A great reason for NOT having a formal organization with governance
  - ktallett 11mo ago
    It depends how the other contributors are gained. If they choose to help voluntarily, then they have no claim on the development of the project. They can help to mould it as they choose but that is it. If it doesn't go the way they want they have no right to oust the creator.
hobofan 11mo ago
> there is no model for replacing poor governance Do you have any model to propose? Because most democratic models you would see for country governance (to which you drew parallels) rely on some key characteristics that don't apply to open source governance, making them not really transferable.
- edent 11mo ago
  Most organisation (in my country at least) have a written set of objectives and a legal structure which diffuses power. Any co-op, limited company, charitable association, etc can provide a good model - depending on the nature of the project. As I say, it is probably overkill for most OSS projects. But once you get to a certain size, I think it is obvious that you need a way to ensure the project's longevity. The death or disgrace of a CEO rarely destroys a company. There's a board their to temper their behaviour, a structure to ensure succession, and (most importantly) a set of expectations upon which their community can rely. I'm not saying that's the only way to do it. I'm not even suggesting it is the perfect way to do it. But I think it is better than hoping the BDFL doesn't implode.
  - paulryanrogers 11mo ago
    Sadly plenty of boards are filled with CEO sycophants, so even that model is not immune.
  - hartator 11mo ago
    Non-profit entity has usually more drama. And, you can still be “dictator” of a non-profit.
- layer8 11mo ago
  Debian is an important open-source project that has had codified democratic governance for over quarter of a century now: https://www.debian.org/devel/constitution https://www.debian.org/devel/constitution
  - JoshTriplett 11mo ago
tracker1 11mo ago
Sure there is... Forking and convincing a significant portion of users and contributors to move with you. This happened with iojs... Which is where Node as an org today came from. It happened with xfree86 to xorg... It also fails plenty... I'm the the, you are not entitled to someone else's work. Make your own, or if the license permits, create your own fork... And if you lack the technical ability, sucks to be you.
dmitrygr 11mo ago
> Rails is that that there is no model for replacing poor governance poor, according to whom?

by edent 11mo ago

Governance and succession are intimately tied. I feel that part of the problem with WordPress and Rails is that that there is no model for replacing poor governance.

lapcat 11mo ago

> I feel that part of the problem with WordPress and Rails is that that there is no model for replacing poor governance. But Eugen Rochko was not replaced. He voluntarily stepped down from power because he was personally dissatisfied in the leadership role. Nobody was calling for his ouster. He could have continued as leader of Mastodon for many more years with nobody batting an eyelash. So again, Mastodon is a red herring.

msh 11mo ago

There is a model, it’s called forking the code.

tremon 11mo ago
Forking the code fractures the community. The discussion at hand focuses on the community, not the code.
- cortesoft 11mo ago
  If you feel like you need to fork the code, the community is already fractured. If the community agrees with you that the original author is doing things wrong, and your new approach is better, they will move with you to the fork. If the rest of the community doesn't agree with you, they will stay. If some stay and some go, it means only some of them agreed with you. That's the thing about open source - you don't actually have to form a consensus. You can split off whenever you want.
  - munificent 11mo ago
    > you don't actually have to form a consensus. You can split off whenever you want. This is true and is a key property of open source. But it's also true that network effects and economies of scale are key for how open source projects provide value to their users. Those effects mean that the value an open source project provides to its community is often super-linear relative to the number of users. A concrete example: If someone writes a blog post about how to use some feature, every other user of the feature can benefit from it. But also every user can potentially write this kind of documentation. So the value people provide through documentation is very roughly quadratic in the number of people reading and writing docs. Because value like that scales super-linearly with the number of people in the ecosystem, breaking a community in two can result in less total value even if the total number of users of both communities put together is the same. If you fork and the forks diverge, now a given bit of documentation may only be relevant to one side of the fork. A given person writing some docs may documenting things that are only true for one fork.
- tracker1 11mo ago
  So does trying to unseat leadership.. forking is just more honest and takes more effort.
  - tremon 11mo ago
    Debian regularly unseats its leadership without fracturing. Perhaps the focus of the article deserves more than just a glib dismissal?
    - tracker1 11mo ago
      Ian Murdock was not forced out of Debian; he resigned in 1996 to focus on school, work, and family. He passed the leadership of the project to Bruce Perens at that time. Now, since then, the structure has obviously changed... bit it definitely didn't start as a coup d'etat... Debian now has a leadership structures where voting members are defined as well as how leadership positions are voted for. That's far different than a handful of people trying to unseat or take the project away without that infrastructure. BDFL is perfectly fine as long as original ownership/management has interest in maintaining said position.
- dmitrygr 11mo ago
  Until such a time when my compiler learns to take "the community" as input and still produce working binaries as output, things will remain all about the code. C'est la vie.

ktallett 11mo ago

But if it is someone's project, why should they have to leave if governance doesn't go the way they wish? The point of open source is sharing your work so others can use it and edit it. They have done their part and they maintain it as they choose whether that suits who uses it or not. I create open source projects myself, because they are applications I need or want. They are open source licensed so feel free to use them as such but my original code will develop and evolve as I choose.

immibis 11mo ago
I think this is all under the assumption that your goal is to make the project as successful as possible. If that's true, then if people think you should step down, you should. BUT can that happen? If you're trying to maximise project success, how can you also be so bad that people want you to step down? If you're not contributing but good-hearted, then you should select someone to run it day to day, but retain ultimate power in case that person turns out worse than you.
neilv 11mo ago
> But if it is someone's project, why should they have to leave if governance doesn't go the way they wish? Many projects start as someone's project, but become bigger than the one person. If they keep it as one person's project, that's clear. If there are other contributors, that's less clear. If the project has a formal organization with governance, it's not the person's project. They might be grandparented in, like a vestige of a past monarchy, but the governance will evolve, to elections. The royalty will be kept for the tourism dollars.
- nomdep 11mo ago
  > If the project has a formal organization with governance, it's not the person's project A great reason for NOT having a formal organization with governance
- ktallett 11mo ago
  It depends how the other contributors are gained. If they choose to help voluntarily, then they have no claim on the development of the project. They can help to mould it as they choose but that is it. If it doesn't go the way they want they have no right to oust the creator.

hobofan 11mo ago

> there is no model for replacing poor governance Do you have any model to propose? Because most democratic models you would see for country governance (to which you drew parallels) rely on some key characteristics that don't apply to open source governance, making them not really transferable.

edent 11mo ago
Most organisation (in my country at least) have a written set of objectives and a legal structure which diffuses power. Any co-op, limited company, charitable association, etc can provide a good model - depending on the nature of the project. As I say, it is probably overkill for most OSS projects. But once you get to a certain size, I think it is obvious that you need a way to ensure the project's longevity. The death or disgrace of a CEO rarely destroys a company. There's a board their to temper their behaviour, a structure to ensure succession, and (most importantly) a set of expectations upon which their community can rely. I'm not saying that's the only way to do it. I'm not even suggesting it is the perfect way to do it. But I think it is better than hoping the BDFL doesn't implode.
- paulryanrogers 11mo ago
  Sadly plenty of boards are filled with CEO sycophants, so even that model is not immune.
- hartator 11mo ago
  Non-profit entity has usually more drama. And, you can still be “dictator” of a non-profit.
layer8 11mo ago
Debian is an important open-source project that has had codified democratic governance for over quarter of a century now: https://www.debian.org/devel/constitution https://www.debian.org/devel/constitution
- JoshTriplett 11mo ago

tracker1 11mo ago

Sure there is... Forking and convincing a significant portion of users and contributors to move with you. This happened with iojs... Which is where Node as an org today came from. It happened with xfree86 to xorg... It also fails plenty... I'm the the, you are not entitled to someone else's work. Make your own, or if the license permits, create your own fork... And if you lack the technical ability, sucks to be you.

dmitrygr 11mo ago

> Rails is that that there is no model for replacing poor governance poor, according to whom?