[forum] A Call For Open Governance Of X Development

[Mark Vojkovich]

On Sat, 22 Mar 2003, Keith Whitwell wrote:

> Mark Vojkovich wrote:
> > On Sat, 22 Mar 2003, Sven Luther wrote:
> > 
> > 
> >>On Sat, Mar 22, 2003 at 11:53:57AM +1100, Daniel Stone wrote:
> >>
> >>>A 75-year old who has volunteered on the polling booths and with various
> >>>civic projects has the same right to vote as anyone who's just turned
> >>>18: them's the breaks.
> >>
> >>So, let's elect the BOD trough a slashdot poll :)))
> >>
> > 
> > 
> >    That's great, we'd have CowboyNeal on the board.
> > 
> >    I think Daniel's example would be better if Americans were
> > demanding the right to chose the Prime Minister of France.
> > While the Americans have a "vested interest" in who the
> > French prime minister is, they shouldn't have a say in it.
> > I think this is the difference, as David Wexelblat put it,
> > between a democracy and a republic.  Not every body gets
> > to vote.  This isn't a free-for-all.  The prime minister 
> > of France isn't elected for the good of the world community.
> > He is elected by eligible French citizens for the good of France.
> 
> Actually I think prime ministers are like the 'house majority leader' in the 
> US -- they're not directly elected by the populace, but are eg. a congressman 
> selected by whichever party holds the majority in the house.
> 
> So, nobody voted for Tony Blair, except of course the people living in his 
> electorate, wherever that is.  But the election was run making it clear that 
> if Labor won power overall in the commons, that Tony would be PM.
> 
> And who is the French PM anyway?  It's some elevated beurocrat who doesn't 
> make the news outside of France.  You're thinking of Chirac, who is the 
> President, and was directly elected after a close call (with someone who GWB 
> might have liked better) in the first round of voting.
> 
> Thinking about it, the current XFree bod is a lot like the English House of 
> Lords which until very recently was largely stocked with hereditary (who are 
> in for life and will pass the privilege on to their eldest son) and life peers 
> (who are in it for life, but won't pass it on).
> 
> Republics can be democracies (France), not all democracies are republics 
> (England, Australia).  But none of these countries allow foreign citizens to 
> vote in their elections, which is maybe what you're suggesting above.
> 
> The question then (assuming you want elections) is how to define XFree86's 
> 'citizens' - who gets to vote.  One answer is: 'Anyone who has code in the 
> repository'.
> 

    Perhaps knowning little about French politics, my example
was not a good one.  I only picked it because of Sven's domain.

   The main point of my counter example was to illustrate that
having a vested intested doesn't necessarily entitle you to anything.
There have been a few people suggesting otherwise. 


			Mark.