From: der Mouse (mouse@Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA)
Date: Sat May 11 2002 - 20:12:55 EDT
> Firstly, I must point out to you that the overwhelming majority of
> free software projects are not democracies; rather they are
> meritocracies.
Agreed. But
> Meritocracies are good things,
Well, they _can be_ good things. In a situation (such as real-world
politics) where the "merit" part of "meritocracy" is ill-defined to the
extent that there isn't even any core definition that approximately
everyone can accept, trying to do a meritocracy either ends up
hopelessly confused or amounts, in practice, to a dictatorship by
whoever gets to define "merit".
> especially in the free software community where we
...don't have much trouble deciding on "merit". :-)
> I was mad at David. I flamed him. I felt better. It's hard to
> argue against that.
Well, just because _you_ felt better doesn't mean that it was good for
anyone or anything, even including you. (Not everything that makes you
feel better is good for you.) Indeed, I have trouble thinking of any
instance where a flame has had a good effect that could not have been
better achieved without flaming.
> If you go around being nice to people, you find out that you're
> generally getting more help than you think you deserve.
This is *so* true. Or at least I've found it has been in my life. The
Threefold Law is not just a pretty saying - nor is its applicability
restricted to magick.
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