Open Source: you're doing it wrong - the Pyjamas hijack

[Tim Wintle]

On Tue, 2012-05-15 at 12:39 +0200, Pascal Chambon wrote:
> believe me all this fuss is pitiful compared to the real harm that was
> done numerous time to willing newcomers, on pyjs' old ML, when they
> weren't aware about the heavy dogmas lying around.
> 
> A demo sample  (I quote it each time the suvject arises, sorry for
> duplicates)
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
> | Please get this absolutely clear in your head: that
> | 
> | you do not "understand" my reasoning is completely and utterly
> | 
> | irrelevant.  i understand *your* reasoning; i'm the one making the
> | 
> | decisions, that's my role to understand the pros and cons.  i make a
> | 
> | decision: that's the end of it.
> | 
> | You present reasoning to me: i weight it up, against the other
> | 
> | reasoning, and i make a decision.  you don't have to understand that
> | 
> | decision, you do not have to like that decision, you do not have to
> | 
> | accept that decision.
> | 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

The above seems perfectly reasonable to me.

You're working with Python anyway - a language organised by a team that
gives full control to the BDFL...

Imagine instead that you were talking about a bug in a proprietary piece
of software (Oracle / Internet Explorer / etc) - do you think they'd let
*you* make the decision, or keep the option under discussion until *you*
fully understood the reasoning of the company that owned the code? No -
they'd listen to your argument, weigh up the two sides, and make a
decision on their own.

The idea of having two sides able to make their cases and one person
rule on them is incredibly common - it's how courts across the world
work, and it's how management of any team (software related or not)
goes.

Tim