BDFL
We’ve come to the worst of the worst of the worst of FOSS governance systems: Dictatorship… Or maybe even monarchy. This is a very bad way of organizing a FOSS project and is also dangerous. Handing power to a BDFL (Benevolent Dictator For Life) could prove to be a bad idea because – believe it or not – one person isn’t enough. A single person cannot lead everything, and a reasonable person should know that.
Divine right to rule
A person should not have full control of something because of founding it. A regular, reasonable, non-psychopathic person should very much be in agreement of this statement. Therefore, this divine right to rule that a founder of a large project believes they inhibit is downright idiotic! Someone with bad intentions? The BDFL maybe doesn’t notice it, bad intentions are realized and the project goes into crisis.
Popularity
The “BDFL” governance system is awfully popular. Just for you to get the picture, here’s a list of most known BDFLs of larger FOSS-projects:
The holy list
- Sylvain Benner
- Vitalik Buterin
- Dries Buytaert
- François Chollet
- Evan Czaplicki
- Laurent Destailleur
- David Heinemeier Hansson
- Rich Hickey
- Adrian Holovaty
- Jacob Kaplan-Moss
- Andrew Kelley
- Xavier Leroy
- Haoyuan Li
- Miles Lubin
- Yukihiro Matsumoto
- Wes McKinney
- Gavin Mendel-Gleason
- Bram Moolenaar (RIP)
- Matt Mullenweg
- Martin Odersky
- Taylor Otwell
- Theo de Raadt
- Arnold Robbins
- Eugen Rochko
- Ton Roosendaal
- Sébastien Ros
- Mark Shuttleworth
- Jeremy Soller
- Don Syme
- Linus Torvalds
- José Valim
- Pauli Virtanen
- Patrick Volkerding
- Nathan Voxland
- Jimmy Wales
- Jeremy Walker
- Shaun Walker
- Larry Wall
- Evan You
- Soumith Chintala
- Martin Traverso
- Dain Sundstrom
- David Phillips
- Kohsuke Kawaguchi
- Gabor de Mooij
- Bram Cohen
- Walter Bright
- Ritchie Vink
- William Falcon
- Lars Hvam
- Sebastián Ramírez
- Bill Hall
- Damien Elmes
So yes, this is an AWFULLY POPULAR governance system for FOSS, which is insane, since it’s (arguably) the worst FOSS governance system ever! Dictatorship goes against the fundamentals of Marxocracy.
In smaller projects
“You little… I’m the BDFL of my small project with 3 stars on Github and I feel very… Weak and sad” I hear you say. Well, BDFLs are fine in smaller projects! Largely due to – and I’m saying this in the nicest way possible – the fact that your project is insignificant. No one depends on your project, but people depend on the bigger ones. In a big project, you need good governance because, well: People depend on your project. People being allowed to express their ideas – a core principle of Marxocracy – is not allowed under dictatorships.
The only worse alternative
“What!?”, I hear you ask. “Isn’t dictatorship the worst of the worst of the worst?”… Yes yet no. There’s a worse alternative, but I’m not sure if it qualifies as a FOSS governance system, and if it did: It wouldn’t be enough for a whole chapter. And that governance system is… Fake FOSS! Fake FOSS is basically software that pretends to be FOSS, yet is not. For an example of this: Winamp! Winamp went open source a few months ago and it’s… Not open source. It should be pretty easy to understand how Winamp isn’t FOSS by just… Reading the 6th section of the license.
#6. Restrictions
- No Distribution of Modified Versions: You may not distribute modified versions of the software, whether in source or binary form.
- No Forking: You may not create, maintain, or distribute a forked version of the software.
- Official Distribution: Only the maintainers of the official repository are allowed to distribute the software and its modifications.
Wait a second… DID THAT FOSS-PROJECT JUST SAY “NO FORKING OR DISTRIBUTION”!? That is actually insane! And this… Makes it non open-source. Forking and distributions are not only core principles of Marxocracy, but of FOSS in general! That is… Insane.