[FFmpeg-devel] Democratic election of the server admins

[Måns Rullgård]

Diego Biurrun <diego at biurrun.de> writes:

> On Sat, Jul 03, 2010 at 03:54:02PM -0700, Jason Garrett-Glaser wrote:
>> On Sat, Jul 3, 2010 at 3:48 PM, Michael Niedermayer <michaelni at gmx.at> wrote:
>> > Hello thouse who rule, thouse who are all the developers of ffmpeg.
>> >
>> > I belive that ffmpeg as fundamentally democratic project
>> 
>> It's rather hard to be a "fundamentally democratic project" with you
>> as the BDFL.
>> 
>> Not that there's anything wrong with that.  Democracy is overrated.
>
> Seconded.  We are all minions of our evil overlord, guru disciples if
> you prefer.  Me included.

There is another difference here.  Running the server is a job
requiring relevant skills and experience which cannot be acquired
through voting.  In a democratic country, the people who actually
carry out the work (civil servants in British terminology) are in
general employed without time limits just like anyone working for a
company.  They take orders from whomever has the political power at
the time.  Elections are for choosing the people who set the policies,
not those which carry them out.

The situation here is pretty much analogous.  As long as the admins
perform their duties to satisfaction, I see no reason to forcibly
remove them after a set time period.  If someone has an issue with how
the admin team carries out their tasks, please let it be known.  Then
we can work to resolve it.  As long as nobody says anything, we must
assume everybody is content.  Suspicions about what might happen in
some imagined situation are not grounds for corrective action.

-- 
M?ns Rullg?rd
mans at mansr.com