Why should software development be a democratic process? It's not really democratic if one lacks a real voice in the conversation and formal votes are not held. The likelihood of a lone hacker being listened to by XDG or a similar group is similar to the odds of a small web firm being listened to by WHATWG.
The concept of authority as democracy doesn't really make sense to me. Does that mean you adopt any and all conventions once they hit 50.1%? I think we as humans can do better than just follow or limit ourselves to standards that may be popular, but are not necessarily the best tool for the job. I struggle to find many popular and mainstream software practices to be quality, or fitting for me despite the one-size-fits-all that such popular things try to aim for.
What is your role in this 'democracy', if you are actively lobbying for a minority (the XDG) to seize control over the way desktop software is written in the community, by way of writing the piece and it getting shared? That strikes me as manipulating a narrative to get people to "vote for" XDG. It's not a legitimate vote if you and others are actively evangelizing. It's called social pressure and canvassing.
Such social and organizational efforts are completely oblivious to the fact that they are operating in a bazaar, and their methods are designed better for Cathedrals. Cathedrals are used to tightly integrated stacks and top-down decision-making, so standards are hardly different than marching orders to the monks.
The bazaar is the wild west. The only authority in a bazaar is whoever owns the land. In a digital space, there is no land. So how does any authority -- controlling environment variables, of all things -- intend to exert itself in force?
If it's truly a democracy, then the voice of those who resist XDG is equally valuable and valid.
The concept of authority as democracy doesn't really make sense to me. Does that mean you adopt any and all conventions once they hit 50.1%? I think we as humans can do better than just follow or limit ourselves to standards that may be popular, but are not necessarily the best tool for the job. I struggle to find many popular and mainstream software practices to be quality, or fitting for me despite the one-size-fits-all that such popular things try to aim for.
What is your role in this 'democracy', if you are actively lobbying for a minority (the XDG) to seize control over the way desktop software is written in the community, by way of writing the piece and it getting shared? That strikes me as manipulating a narrative to get people to "vote for" XDG. It's not a legitimate vote if you and others are actively evangelizing. It's called social pressure and canvassing.
Such social and organizational efforts are completely oblivious to the fact that they are operating in a bazaar, and their methods are designed better for Cathedrals. Cathedrals are used to tightly integrated stacks and top-down decision-making, so standards are hardly different than marching orders to the monks.
The bazaar is the wild west. The only authority in a bazaar is whoever owns the land. In a digital space, there is no land. So how does any authority -- controlling environment variables, of all things -- intend to exert itself in force?
If it's truly a democracy, then the voice of those who resist XDG is equally valuable and valid.