> Yes, and frankly this is a perfect opportunity to state that rule by > unanimous or even near-unanimous consent is simply not a viable nor > sustainable. People disagree. One cannot make everyone happy, nor should > they try to in all instances. Currently, I feel the GNUstep project is > trying to do so in all instances, with disastrous results. > > At some point, it is sometimes necessary to simply *accept* the fact > that certain people will be unhappy with certain decisions, which they > may view to be controversial (but which many other, perhaps even the > majority in many cases, may not). > > Right now, this project isn't going anywhere, and while I do not contest > the technical abilities of the leader, I do contest the > lets-make-everybody-happy-and-if-we-cant-do-that-then-forget-about-it > attitude which seems to be the norm instead of the exception. The > project needs a stronger leader. Someone willing to make some tough > decisions. The project's long-term health will be better as a result.
I don't agree. Some of your sentences are ... hinting to some sort of fascist leadership of the project, with which I strongly disagree. We need the leaders / core developers / people on top to listen *more* to the GNUstep community (users, developers, etc), not less! ;-) Also, "tough decisions" that are unpopular are generally difficult to implement. They are almost impossible to implement in a free software project where there is no way to force people to do anything against their will. :-) Decisions must be popular and supported and backed up by the various stake-holders (developers, users, etc) ... else no matter how good they are, they will not be effective! :-) So leaders should rather be able to listen to the community and be able to organize and lead the vision and the strategy that the community elaborates ... everyone should feel part of that decision process, and so be empowered and feel that they support the decisions that they have contributes to shape. Obviously there is a lot more to it, but the main point I wanted to make is ... for a leader, taking "tough decisions" is very easy, but very ... pointless! ;-) We want the exact contrary of "tough decisions" from top that make people unhappy. We want a collective vision that we collectively shape and own and that we all support and contribute to implement. :-) I'm sure a great flame-fest will follow, please excuse me if I'll drop out of this thread at this point. ;-) Thanks PS: It's an interesting pattern of social behaviour that the "fascist" proposals (strong carismatic leader that ignores the ideas of everyone else and decides the fate of everything according to his own caprice) most of the times come from the people that have more difficulty in interacting with the rest of the group. Maybe they are unhappy about democracy and open discussions because they can't cope with it. They start dreaming of a different situation where their inability at listening to other opinions and interacting with other people suddenly becomes a unique virtue that makes them different and better than anyone else ... ... my assumption is obviously that anyone proposing a fascist leader is thinking of being the leader himself (or strongly linked to the leader), else he'd be a total idiot (which is, obviously, always a possibility). _______________________________________________ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev