Lessons Learned

[Stephen John Smoogen]

On 3/20/07, Ralf Corsepius <rc040203 at freenet.de> wrote:
> On Tue, 2007-03-20 at 12:23 -0600, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
> > On 3/20/07, Ralf Corsepius <rc040203 at freenet.de> wrote:
> > > On Tue, 2007-03-20 at 12:04 -0400, Greg Dekoenigsberg wrote:
> > > > On Tue, 20 Mar 2007, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Instead, Fedora has a leadership system, which is widely being ignored
> > > > > by the public, unless it interferes with individual contributor
> > > > > interests.
> > > >
> > > > Isn't that basically how governments work?
> > > Temporarily yes.
.> > >
> > > History tells, in longer terms such governments inevitably will die. In
> > > democratic systems, they sooner or later will be replaced, in absolutist
> > > systems these governments will sooner or later be chased or die
> > > lonesome.
> > >
> >
> > Is this the "pure anarchy is the only true freedom!" argument?
>
> No, this the a "government without supporters will not work" argument.
>
> A consequence from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract
> and its reflection on modern democracy
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Contract_%28Rousseau%29
>

Ok that is a different argument.. the social contract here is:

Red Hat Inc is the corporate sponsor and will have to make decisions
that people will not agree with because of unknown factors.

You as a private "free" citizen agree that you realize this but this
does not stop you from: complaining about those decisions, asking for
those decisions to be explained etc etc. You are also free to take the
code that Red Hat provided and collect enough other angry citizens to
start your own city-state that you can rectify the bad decision.

Red Hat realizes that if it makes too many bad decisions it will fail.
If they fail, they die as a corporation. This is the balancing act
they have to follow.

Do I think that this is an enlightened government that I would want to
physically live under... no. Do I think I can live with it currently..
yes. Are there better arrangements.. most likely, but I do not see it
right now.



-- 
Stephen J Smoogen. -- CSIRT/Linux System Administrator
... Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.