[forum] A Call For Open Governance Of X Development

[David Dawes]

On Sat, Mar 22, 2003 at 07:16:43PM -0500, Mark Vojkovich wrote:
>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.

It was very apropos though, given recent events in the world.

David
-- 
David Dawes
Release Engineer/President                      The XFree86 Project
www.XFree86.org/~dawes