Discussion on voting systems

Mark Kretschmann kretschmann at kde.org
Sun Jan 18 10:39:39 CET 2009


On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 10:50 PM, Bart Cerneels <bart.cerneels at kde.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Nikolaj Hald Nielsen
> <nhnfreespirit at gmail.com> wrote:
>> My main concern with the bonus vote scheme is that
>> months_of_active_contribution  is damn hard to calculate. Some people
>> have been with the project forever but has hardly contributed anything
>> recently, some have come and gone and so on.
>>
>> I personally think that a simple system with 1 vote per person should
>> work. The people with most seniority will always have the greatest say
>> in the direction of development, but being a long time developer does
>> not automatically make you the best person to manage funds and such.
>>
> I see no reason for a complicated voting system. And agree with
> Nikolaj that senior contributers have other ways of making their mark.

Some thoughts:

1)
I came up with the more complex voting system to bring a component of
meritocracy into the system. That was my intention. Whether my scheme
is suitable for this or not is another question.

2)
I do believe that democracy is an unsuitable model for FOSS
development. I currently see meritocracy as the most promising model.
Also I believe that there are merits to the "benevolent dictator"
model of e.g. Linux and Python. Whether we have such a person fit for
this position is another question.

3)
I do realize that the board is not intended to be all powerful, but
instead it is mostly created for deciding on financial matters. Still,
I believe that it has certain symbolic values that may not be
initially obvious. The title "President of the Amarok Board"
represents power to the outside, whether you want that or not. Please
take this into account.

4)
I believe that we are an extremely successful team with a very
successful product. Further on I believe that, if we continue in this
direction, the project could offer remarkable financial and other
opportunities to its contributors. I value you, as my team colleagues,
very highly, and my dream is that all of you hard working people can
one day be rewarded (in one way or another) for your dedication.

Amarok has already served as a career enabler for many contributors.
We have had people from the project starting to work for successful
companies like Last.fm, Magnatune, and others. Sadly, this has also
meant that we have lost some of these contributors from Amarok. My
dream for the future is that we will be able to offer sufficient
financial compensation for dedicated contributors to be able to make a
living off Amarok, if they wish to do so.


That's all for now, hugs and kisses,
Mark.

-- 
Mark Kretschmann
Amarok Developer
www.kde.org - amarok.kde.org


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