←back to thread

“I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

(mail.python.org)
2024 points randlet | 1 comments | 12 Jul 18 15:22 UTC | HN request time: 0.238s | source
Show context
VikingCoder ◴[12 Jul 18 16:40 UTC] No.17516310[source]▶
I've begged GitHub to institute forms of government for repos.

For X action to happen, Y percent of the pool of people in the Z list need to approve it.

Membership of the Z list is granted when W percent of the T pool approve it.

Modifying the rules of government of this repo can only happen when L percent of the R pool approve it.

And on and on...

I could imagine a city or state government actually having its laws encoded in Github, and Github itself enforces the governmental system of checks and balances. Congress. Senate. President. Veto. Overriding a Veto. Laws of succession. Elections. On and on.

replies(5): >>17516391 #>>17516404 #>>17516453 #>>17516506 #>>17516988 #
mulmen ◴[12 Jul 18 17:00 UTC] No.17516506[source]▶
Why is representative democracy the best system for managing a repo? Will there also be an option for pure democracy?

Can I fork your socialist utopia and form an authoritarian dictatorship?

I don’t see why this system would ever be beneficial to a real world government. We already have checks and balances, if GitHub did it all who decides how GitHub works? What’s the benefit?

replies(2): >>17517521 #>>17517556 #
1. VikingCoder ◴[12 Jul 18 18:57 UTC] No.17517556[source]▶
It's one popular way, that's all. There are plenty of others that could make sense.

A game could grant you the ability to edit its source code, after you complete the game. That's just a for-instance.

> Will there also be an option for pure democracy?

Sure, why not?

> Can I fork your socialist utopia and form an authoritarian dictatorship?

Mechanically, sure. There may be licensing problems, but that's true today.

> I don’t see why this system would ever be beneficial to a real world government.

If the real world government stores its web pages in GitHub, then the real world government can use this governance to handle changes to that web page.

Rather than letting a lone IT admin have root.

> What’s the benefit?

If you're comfortable with needing to fork a repo when the BDFL goes rogue and starts making changes you hate, then there's no benefit at all.