Re: Democratic Leadership (was: When can we expect a version 1.0 of the GNU Operating System?)

[Andreas Enge]

On Tue, Dec 02, 2014 at 09:52:12AM -0500, Richard Stallman wrote:
>   > In the Free Software world on the other hand, it is generally quite
>   > feasible simply to move elsewhere if you don't like some project's
>   > decisions -- so there is no need for you to have an obligatory say in
>   > any particular project.
> Exactly.  That is why we don't need a democratic structure in
> the GNU Project.

I strongly disagree with this conclusion - certainly people can move away
from the GNU project if they dislike decisions taken without any democratic
consultation, and form a competing project elsewhere, and the free software
produced by GNU will still be freely available.

On the other hand, as a project, we might wish to reduce the likelihood of
people moving away. And democratic structures should lead to more global
satisfaction - it is easier to live with a decision that goes against my
own opinions if it is shared by many people inside the project, than if it
is just imposed from above.

So software freedom might not need democratic structures to survive, but
I believe that the GNU project does.

Andreas