At 12:51 PM 3/14/2005, Dirk-Willem van Gulik wrote:
On Mon, 14 Mar 2005, Ceki Gülcü wrote:
> What is so special about the number 3? What's wrong with 5 committers? With > 4? With 2? With 1? .. > Does "sustainable" necessarily mean 3 or more committers? Is a project with > a single committer yet consistent committer less viable than a project with > 30 disillusioned and inactive committters?
Well - with just one commiter
-> for sure no oversight.
Why not? A single developer can be overseen by a higher supervisory body, as long as that developer agrees to submit to the decisions of the supervisory body. The number of supervised developers should not matter. You are probably referring to a situation where the developers supervise themselves. Social studies have shown that decisions made collectively do not always yield better results. For one, groups have a stronger tendency to persist in their commitment to manifestly bad decisions, compared to the capacity of a single individual to reverse his/her own bad decision. The capacity to reverse decisions (good or bad!) improves dramatically when the person or group reversing a prior decision is different than the person or entity that took the initial decision. Humans have an often devastating tendency to escalate on their initial (seemingly inconsequential) decisions. For example, most investors have a hard time selling loosing stocks and keeping winners -- the exact opposite of the optimal strategy -- because of their committment to their initial decision to buy.
This may sound contrary democracy (rule of the people by the people.) However, one core component of democracy is the separation of powers and independence between the 3 branches of government. So instead of "supervision of developers by the developers," another approach consists of supervision of developers by an elected body of supervisors, for example the PMC.
You could cite Jakarta as a counter example. However, we should not forget that the scope of LS is much more restricted than that of Jakarta. Moreover, LS has 3 sub-projects compared to the dozen or more in Jakarta.
-> for sure an issue if he or she gets hit by a bus, a baby, whatever.
and it is very questionable if what that group produces is an ASF community product.
What is a community product? If a community product is defined as a product produced by the collaboration of multiple committers, then you are right. However, if a community product is defined as the product developed by *one* or more developers with *input* from multiple constituents, be they simple users asking for help, developers submitting patches or making suggestions, then a project with one committer can produce a community product.
This brings me to formulate the subject question "What is a healthy community?" as "What is a community?"
Two is more than one - but it is at only three that group dynamics first start to kick in. And it is that group dynamic which is vital in building and maintaining a community.
Can you give examples of group dynamics kicking in within a group of 3 but not in a group of 2? The difference is not so obvious to me.
Assuming that everyone votes, a group of 3 will always be able to decide by majority vote, but that is true for all odd numbered groups. Is the difference in group dynamics between groups of 2 and 3 solely due to the fact that 2 is pair and 3 is odd?
Many successful partnerships have 2 partners, not 3 or more.
If we consider a community as a partnership between committers and take nature as a possible model to emulate, then 2 would win hands down. Indeed, the vast majority of living plants and animals on our planet are the result of the partnership between 2 parents, not 3.
Sure 5 or 15 is even better - but if you have to draw a line - 3 is as low as you can go.
> a single committer yet consistent committer less viable than a project with > 30 disillusioned and inactive committters?
Both should, and will, ultimately be garbage collected.
If garbage collection is cheap, then why not take chances with projects consisting of just one committer supervised by a distinct body?
Dw
-- Ceki Gülcü
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