Re: New MI maintainer

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 09:20:56 -0800
> From: Thomas Dineen <tdineen@ix.netcom.com>
> CC: "Frank Ch. Eigler" <fche@redhat.com>,  gdb@sourceware.org
> 
> Gentle People:
> 
>    Yes but with the conditions listed below:
> 
>    "robustly constructed and justified"
> 
>    any contributor can easily be blown off for
> any political reason!

While theoretically possible, I'm quite sure such conspiracies can
never happen in practice in this case, since the people involved come
from several different continents, cultural backgrounds, and political
views.  In fact, just reaching an agreement is sometimes a formidable
job for us.

>    From my observations the attitudes expressed
> in this thread are NOT positive for the Open Source
> Movement. I would suggest that your movement would
> benefit from more openness and democracy.

Sorry, but that's pure demagoguery.  "Open Source" and "Free Software"
mean that the sources are available.  They don't mean that every
aspect of human life is open to the public.  Even the most open
democracies always have closed deliberations about certain issues.
You cannot lead a group in any significant human endeavor without a
certain distance between the leadership and the rest, and without
closed deliberations about some sensitive issues.