Hi Peter,
Are you open to considering relinquishing rasdaman's current "benevolent
dictator" governance model?
Many (most?) OSGeo projects that I'm aware of are managed similarly to
your description below.
There is usually a sage or two amongst the community, typically someone
who founded the project. The sage(s) have more experience with the
project, and their opinion holds greater weight amongst the community.
This informal relationship continues even with a formal Project Steering
Committee.
As you would understand, building a successful Open Source community
involves a significant amount of mutual respect, and mutual recognition
of team members. Community members typically show respect by giving
extra weight to the opinion of founders, and founders often show respect
and trust of their community by sharing project governance.
If you are a good open source leader, and it appears you must be, there
is little risk you will loose your current influence on the project. Its
also unlikely there will be an unresolvable difference between yourself
and the community. But if there is, and the project forks, whether you
are head of the official PSC or the new rouge PSC will have little
impact on the final result.
So please do consider adopting a shared PSC governance model.
If you do wish to go ahead with a "benevolent dictator" model, I agree
with Andrea's that we should put the question to OSGeo Charter members
to vote, as it would be a new direction for OSGeo.
Warm regards, Cameron
On 3/05/2016 5:46 pm, Peter Baumann wrote:
interesting discussion, with valuable thoughts!
True, micro management is not the case in rasdaman - on the contrary, we are
most happy about helping hands, and are constantly thinking about opportunities
for process improvements. Personally, I am so much overloaded that I enjoy
handing over tasks, and yes: with appropriate responsibility; in practice that
means that we openly discuss pros and cons with myself being "primus inter
pares" (first among equals). I have not received any complaint over the years
that anybody would not get heard appropriately. Regularly I just need to lean
back (metaphorically) and await the outcome of the discussion of the experienced
developers, and add my nodding to the group consensus.
We regularly try to involve the community in such design and implementation
discussions (and I am urging devers to do that), but feedback invariably was
minimal. Which I see as a sign of trust when looking at the download figures at
www.rasdaman.org.
It may be worth noting that we have installed mechanisms for openly commenting
and voting on patches; ever clicked on the Review URL in the Patch Manager?
Actually, it is more about deciding not by election, but by qualification.
Concepts and code of rasdaman are extraordinarily complex; large and experienced
companies like Oracle, Teradata, and ESRI have tried to copy rasdaman, and
failed. Therefore, it unfortunately takes patience for a newcomer to immerse to
a degree that allows making suggestions that are fully backed by the team. That
said, we do not attach maturity labels to coders ;-), rather the technical merit
of each individual contribution is weighted carefully.
Another constraint, of course, are project considerations- there is a contract
behind where ESA, the European Commission, or whoever-else expects fulfilment.
Bottom line, the atmosphere in rasdaman is highly cooperative and
consensus-based, I just reserve jumping in as a last resort. Someone has
questioned the term used in this discussion as not quite adequate; I like the
diplomacy aspect raised.
-Peter
On 05/03/2016 01:54 AM, Julien-Samuel Lacroix wrote:
I found this nice description of the benevolent dictator governance:
http://oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/benevolentdictatorgovernancemodel
It's a nice read, but I want to highlight this part:
In many ways, the role of the benevolent dictator is less about
dictatorship and more about diplomacy. The key is to ensure
that, as the project expands, the right people are given influence
over it and the community rallies behind the vision of the project
lead.
Another good one from (linked from the above):
http://producingoss.com/html-chunk/social-infrastructure.html#benevolent-dictator-qualifications
they let things work themselves out through discussion and
experimentation whenever possible. They participate in those
discussions themselves, but as regular developers, often deferring to
an area maintainer who has more expertise. Only when it is clear that
no consensus can be reached, and that most of the group wants someone
to guide the decision so that development can move on, does she put
her foot down and say "This is the way it's going to be."
From my (really) naive point of view, the "benevolent dictatorship" is a
do-ocracy were the committers get the right, or influence, to lead parts of
the projects and where the "dictator" is acountable of its decision to the
community. The key ingredients are the same as other governance :
- Be easy to contribute patches and features
- Be open on the direction of the project
- Be forkable
If someone wants to contribute a new feature, they ask the mailing-list and
the committer responsible for this part of the software, not the "dictator",
will approve or suggest changes. The approach is less formal than with a PSC,
but still works the same.
This is of course an ideal scenario, but can be as open as a PSC, I think, as
long as the project as a good "forkability".
Back to the incubation discussion, Rasdaman seems to have multiple committers
and 2 main organisation behind it. What I would like to ask is, what's the
"bus number". Is there a second (or third) in command that could ultimately
take care of the project after the dictator's "end-of-term"? From my point of
view, a PSC of 3, 2 being from the same company, is a small PSC and will
probably lack a bit of variety in opinions. Is there any other key
contributors that the "dictator" refers to when trying to get inputs and defer
technical decisions?
Julien
On 16-05-01 07:29 AM, Jody Garnett wrote:
This is kind of a larger topic than just the incubation committee, but
no I do not believe we should. It is a defining characteristic of our
foundation to not place many restrictions on our projects - but demand
that the projects be inclusive and open to collaboration.
I do not believe that the "benevolent dictator" fits this ideal.
I also do not think we need to stress the PSC approach as the one true
way, smaller projects that only wish to have committers vote on
decisions (rather than form a PSC) is perfectly acceptable - provided
there is a provision for new committers to be added into the mix.
We also have an outstanding request from our president to make the
foundation more inclusive. With this in mind we are a lot less demanding
on our community projects - which provides a way for projects that do
not meet some of our ideal criteria to be part of the foundation.
--
Jody
--
Jody Garnett
On 1 May 2016 at 00:44, Cameron Shorter <cameron.shor...@gmail.com
<mailto:cameron.shor...@gmail.com>> wrote:
OSGeo discuss, OSGeo incubation, OSGeo board,
I'm hoping the greater OSGeo community will consider and comment on
this question:
Should OSGeo accept a "benevolent dictator" [1] governance model for
incubating projects?
-0 from me, Cameron Shorter.
Background:
* As part of incubation, Peter Baumann, from Rasdaman has requested
a "benevolent dictatorship" governance model [2]. While "benevolent
dictatorships" often lead to successful projects, all prior OSGeo
incubated projects have selected "equal vote by PSC members".
Someone with better legal training than me might find "benevolent
dictatorships" to be unconstitutional according to OSGeo bylaws. [3]
[1] Eric Raymond's "Homesteading the Noosphere":
http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/homesteading/homesteading/ar01s16.html
[2] http://www.rasdaman.org/wiki/Governance
[3] http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/incorporation/bylaws.html
On 1/05/2016 3:56 pm, Peter Baumann wrote:
Cameron-
I understand where you are coming from, and your characterization
is definitely correct. While our process is and always has been
absolutely open to discussion so as to obtain the scientifically
and technically best solution this "benevolent dictatorship" has
brought rasdaman to where it stands now - it is designed by
innovation, not by committee. Just to get me right, our model is
certainly not the right one for every endeavour. Here it is the
most appropriate, and hence we will keep it.
As you observe, this model is not contradicting OS as such, and
many projects run it. So ultimately it lies in the hand of OSGeo
to decide whether they accept the existing plurality of approaches
(in this case manifest with rasdaman).
best,
Peter
On 04/30/2016 10:47 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote:
Bruce, Peter,
I've read through the incubation process documentation, and can
only see one thing which I think breaks our OSGeo principles.
The Governance model includes a statement:
"In all issues, the PSC strives to achieve unanimous consent
based on a free, independent exchange of facts and opinions.
Should such consent exceptionally not be reached then Peter
Baumann has a casting vote."
http://www.rasdaman.org/wiki/Governance
This is describing a "benevolent dictator" model, which has
proved to be an effective model for many open source projects.
See Eric Raymond's "Homesteading the Noosphere":
<http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/homesteading/homesteading/ar01s16.html>http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/homesteading/homesteading/ar01s16.html
However, it is not in line with existing OSGeo Incubated
projects, which have documented a "vote by PSC" as the defining
governance process. In practice, the PSC community debate
alternatives, and if needed, respectfully revert to reasoned
advice provided by the "benevolent dictator".
Peter, are you open to changing the governance model to a "vote
by PSC"?
I'd be comfortable with a "vote by PSC, with PSC chair being
given 1.5 votes to break any deadlocks. I'd also be ok with PSC
chair defaulting to Peter (as founder), until such time as Peter
resigns from the role."
Warm regards, Cameron
--
Cameron Shorter,
Software and Data Solutions Manager
LISAsoft
Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009
P+61 2 9009 5000 <tel:%2B61%202%209009%205000>, Wwww.lisasoft.com
<http://www.lisasoft.com>, F+61 2 9009 5099 <tel:%2B61%202%209009%205099>
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LISAsoft
Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009
P +61 2 9009 5000, W www.lisasoft.com, F +61 2 9009 5099
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