[Members] Voting criteria

[Ulrich Staudinger]

>>
>>
>> I find that unlikely, linux isnt as far as I know under the control 
>> on a democratic foundation and there are hundreds if not thousands of 
>> people contributing to that, what really motivates people to 
>> contribute is interest in that bit of software or the product area it 
>> is in as well as familarity with the programming language its written 
>> in. Developing something that noone else is interested in or doing it 
>> in some obscure language is not a very good way to get people to 
>> contribute, if you want people to contribute either you need to get 
>> them interested in your software somehow, implement something you 
>> know lots of people are already interested in, and you must ensure 
>> you do it in a language that is popular and well known for 
>> implementing what you are trying to.
>
>
> Am agreeing 100%.
>
I have to admit that i do not doubt the democratic approach - it's by 
far the best approach to bring different opinions together. As with 
linux not too many people are contributing to the core kernel, many 
simply use the platform as an OS.

I think a properly done but not exagerated democratic decision making 
process can help a lot. I remember this discussion/voting trial project 
we were using about two years ago ... (Paul Curtis ?) - for me it was 
too much to always follow all *textual* discussions and to always 
comment on all issues. The approach with consequent voting/polling was 
very promising nonetheless. But it was simply too much.

I think time frames for votings are required - i.e. you present a topic 
to be voted on to the community, the community has two days to decide on 
a topic and then it's done. A special website/member area could be built 
for this very easily - i have to admit a mailing list may be suitable 
for discussion but for consequent and continuous voting processes some 
archive and stuff should be generated.



Ulrich