RFC: FESCo Future

[Callum Lerwick]

On Thu, 2006-04-27 at 11:06 +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> > There is a fundamental difference between an open source project and a
> > nation. "Cyberspace" is effectively infinite. Physical space... isn't.
> > One of the very cornerstones of open source is the ability to fork.
> > However, forking a nation is next to impossible,
> You're not German nor Korean? "Go over there" had been a common
> sentence, people being dissatisfied with West Germany's system were
> confronted with from right wingers, not too long ago.

Well around here everyone talks about moving to Canada. But then the
cost of getting Canadian citizenship is high, because Canada doesn't
want us...

This would be jumping ship to a different project/distribution/nation,
which is completely different from a fork.

> > The strongest open source projects tend to have a Benevolent Dictator
> > for Life.
> Any dictatorship can only work if a dictator has sufficient powers to
> pressurize "his people" or if he finds a sufficient number of
> opportunists to follow.

The nature of a "dictatorship" in an open source project is
fundamentally different. Thanks to the relatively low cost of forking or
jumping ship, a benevolent dictator only has as much power as the the
community gives them, for only as long as the community supports them.
The power structure is essentially reversed.

So now I'm starting to understand the view that in practice, its
essentially a democracy, wherein everyone votes with their feet...
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