social media is community infrastructure and requires ethical, accountable governance as much as roads and bridges do.
re: software governance
a benevolent dictatorship is neither ethical nor accountable, much less benevolent; BDFL is a joke of a term, used to disparage fragile or jealous governance. it is a tragedy that we are so alienated from governance to feel dictatorship is somehow wise.
re: software governance
rather than cling to autocracy, software maintainers must learn to collaborate and delegate, to create cooperative authorities greater than themselves. the ASF and the PSF show some of the ways this can be done, to rally and train labor for a project, to marshal and organize resources — to make of a work a community institution.
re: software governance
@garbados Well said! That the python community process is such a success Is no accident. In this podcast interview I cohosted we talk with some of the folks who designed by Thorn’s community process about how they learn from mistakes other communities have made along the way. Interesting stuff if you’re into that sort of thing as I am :-)
https://www.podcastinit.com/episode-37-the-pep-talk/
