[forum] A Call For Open Governance Of X Development

[Egbert Eich]

Keith,

I would like to comment on a few things. I could comment on more 
but then the message would get too long and fewer people would 
suffer thru it until the end.

I have moved the order of the quoted text a around a little bit
as I want to comment on it in a different order.


You have the intention to change governance of XFree86 so that you 
want to introduce a new membership model in which "anyone with the 
interest and ability to join and vote". 
Specifically you state:

 > It is therefore essential for the community to be involved in the
 > governance of X development. Two key elements in a community-governed
 > project are:
 > 
 >    1. A low barrier to become a voting member.
 >    2. Regular elections of the government by all of the members.

You also gave an account on who you expect the members to be:

 >     * Developers working on the X server and libraries.
 >     * Developers working on ancillary X extensions and services such as
 >       the DRI and GATOS projects.
 >     * Developers working on Qt, Gtk+, Fltk, Tk, Motif and other toolkits.
 >     * Application developers using either Xlib or an X toolkit.
 >     * System integrators and distributors packaging X technology in
 >       various forms.
 >     * Consulting companies selling services based on X.
 >     * Hardware vendors producing hardware to work with X.
 >     * X End users.

Which is really a broad base. This is an interesting idea and it
sounds very natural.
Most OpenSource software development projects don't work that way.
You say:

 > Community governed projects such as Gnome, KDE and Debian have
 > well-established membership policies. All allow anyone with the interest
 > and ability to join and vote.

Debian is different in nature, and for KDE this is simply not
true. Membership in KDE e.V. (an organisation registered in 
Germany according to German law) is to my knowledge by-invitation-only.
Its purpose is purely administrational, organizing events, paying 
bills, managing the bank account. Their board (in German 'Vorstand') 
exercises no control over the development of KDE.

The Gnome Foundation is the only organization that comes to mind that
has a turely elected board. 

Most OpenSource projects are led by individuals who have been 
formally or informally been accepted as leaders for their long
standing commitment, their experience and experise. If a formal
governing body exists (in many cases because it is require by
law) these boards perform purely administrational or political
tasks. 
The gcc steering committee is an example here: It administrates 
the CVS and Web servers and - as this is a matter for the FSF 
- watches over license issues. It consists of the original people 
who initiated egcs, new members are invited in.
Where is the flaw in your proposal?
How would a serious developer feel who has worked his butt off
if anyone with little to no involvment in his project would be
able to elect who is to preside over it - on a one-man one vote
basis - with the same voting rights as him?
How would this person feel if soemone happened to be elected 
to take over the leadership who has not written a single line 
of code for the project, but for example happens to be working 
for a "System integrator and distributors packaging X technology 
in various forms"?
Do you expect any serious developer would continue to work on
this project?

Now what we do need are interfaces to those project that group
around XFree86. 
This is an issue that needs to be worked out but it is a two
way issue. 

 >     * Lack of cooperation with other projects
 > 
 >       The KDE and Gnome projects were forced to form the freedesktop.org
 >       project to extend and enhance X Window System standards because
 >       XFree86 refused even to participate in the process.

Now just for my curiosity:

On which occasion has XFree86 refused to participate in this 
process?
Maybe some of the UI people here can help me out? 
As we also want to hear critizism this should be openly discussed
here.


Egbert.