Release Name and Democracy? (Dusty Bradshaw)

[Jeff Spaleta]

On Sat, 8 May 2004 16:38:32 -0400, d_bradsh at bellsouth.net
<d_bradsh at bellsouth.net> wrote:
> 
>      Lately I've been reflectig on what the release name of FC2 is going to be. > Im excited to see FC2 nearing release. I think that the release name vetting 
> process should follow more closely along the Fedora philosophy.

[ rambling deleted ]

Nowhere and i mean nowhere does anything documenting the more open
fedora project process mention voting as a means by which any
decisions are going to get made.
http://fedora.redhat.com/about/leadership.html
even goes of its way to say that voting is not how things are going to
get done.

Now of course, there is nothing to stop you for making calls from
community for name suggestions, or even running a poll among those
names. But nothing in the new Fedora philosophy outlined so far
suggests that a general popularity contest is going to be a deciding
factor in any decision. This is not debian.

I have no problem with making something frivilous and cute like the
release name, into a community outreach project via a silly
competition or something to get people to suggest names. But I do have
a problem binding the final decision to a popularity vote, for it sets
a bad precendent in terms of expectations on how the community will
get a say on other decision making. I will say it again, this is not
debian, and nowhere in the project outline does it say voting of the
userbase is a decision making process.

-jef"don't assume that open means democratic"spaleta