[Python-Dev] Democracy (original) (raw)

Jack Diederich jack@performancedrivers.com
Wed, 23 Apr 2003 17:53:11 -0400

On Wed, Apr 23, 2003 at 02:31:53PM -0400, Guido van Rossum wrote:

I read this interview in ACM's Ubiquity which reminded me of the Python developer community. Seems we are doing some things right. Maybe we can learn from it in cases where we aren't.

He seems to be talking more about Governments (and treating companies as governments b/c the people can't or don't want to leave) and knowledge workers broadly.

A better comparison would be Habitat for Humanity (and voluntary associations in general). Habitat has some fixed overhead for the organization. They get free labor from anyone that wants to contribute it and agrees with the scope of work. The amount of product they can churn out (houses) is greatly increased by private donations that can hire full-time labor and marginal supplies. Most of the voluntary labor is from the local community who want to see the area improved. Would be home owners have to contribute large amounts of time in exchange for an inexpensive house built mostly by others.

It wouldn't go away if there was no funding, it would just be a local fixup club (which do exist). If there is a large group of people that think they should be building differently, they will form their own association (fork) which will take some or all of the patrons and volunteers with it.

It maintains its character because the bulk of the labor and all the contributions are voluntary. If they paid everyone and sold the houses at a profit they would be a regular company.

The building houses vs building code analogy is not perfect. Houses have fixed costs per deployment a portion of which is paid by the new owner. Software costs are extremely low per copy, so that wouldn't work. People get real but widely varying benefits from a copy of python (personal site v commercial product).

In closing, if there is something to be learned by looking at others, specific purpose voluntary associations seem to be the better place to look than governments.

-jack