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Codifying the meritocracy

Free software communities are often described as being meritocracies - those who do the most, best work rise to positions of relative power and influence. The truth tends to be a bit more complicated than that; though. Politics and social "coolness" play a role in any community; free software is not exempt from the forces which act on any group of people. Projects dominated by a single company can also have a tendency to prioritize corporate control over merit. Even so, in a project of any size and independence, at least a shadow of the meritocratic ideal can be seen. Solid contributions lead to respect and influence.

That does not keep people from wanting to tweak the system, however. A number of projects, for example, would like to find ways to broaden the definition of merit beyond simple contributions of code. Finding ways to motivate documentation writers, artists, and reviewers is a common topic of discussion, for example. There is also interest in making the meritocracy more fair; that, in turn, can lead to an attempt to codify the merit system into a formally-described system.

The Debian Developer gauntlet is one longstanding example of a formal system; nobody can reach developer status without having gone through the seven-step process of convincing the project of their skills, commitment to free software, and more. This process is not perfect; in particular, it can take a very long time for a prospective new package maintainer to be accredited by the project. But it does help ensure that Debian maintainers are committed and able to do the job.

Now the Fedora Project is considering a formal system of its own - but this project, it seems, is not satisfied with just approving maintainers. Instead, the proposal currently under discussion would create a full seven levels of developer "merit." These levels would be:

• FD0: the "probationary" level for new developers. This level grants the ability to modify one's own packages and to access the source code management system in a read-only mode.

• FD1: a proper package maintainer. This level adds the privileges of orphaning one's own packages and subscribing to the glamorous fedora-maintainers mailing list.

• FD2: Adds the ability to work with packages not specifically protected against outside access.

• FD3 and FD4: at this level, developers can invite others to fedora-maintainers and take ownership of orphaned packages. (The proposal does not give any additional privileges to FD4). Attainment of these levels might be necessary to be eligible to sit on the steering committee.

• FD5 is the "sponsor" level which can bring other developers into the system. Sponsors can control access to packages maintained by developers they sponsor, give unowned packages to anybody, etc.

• FD6 is the "elder sponsor" level.

Developers who just want to maintain a few packages but who are not otherwise interested in influencing the direction of the project are likely to operate at the FD1 or FD2 levels. The proposal suggests that many Red Hat engineers would find their homes at those levels.

There is a rough set of proposed rules on how promotion through the ranks would be handled. Some criteria would be established:

Sponsor-level developers would have the power to promote anybody, possibly with a requirement that a certain number of other high-level developers agree. There is an interesting suggestion that promotion to the top level could require votes from a relatively large number of lower-level developers - promotion from below, in other words. There is a brief mention of a demotion process as well, though it is short on details.

This whole system may seem rather bureaucratic, and perhaps it is. The proposal is clear on why the project might want to impose this on itself:

Fedora is a project which is trying to open itself up in a hurry. Its developers want to let outsiders come in and take responsibility for pieces of the distribution, but they are understandably reluctant to throw the doors open wide. So they need a process; the proposal discussed here is a starting point for the development of that process. By taking this approach, Fedora would appear to be breaking new ground in an attempt to formalize how the meritocracy works. It will be interesting to see how this experiment works out.

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Major systems vendors and Linux

It would seem that the folks at Dell recently asked their customers for ideas on how to sell them more systems. The most popular idea: sell laptops and desktop systems with Linux installed. Dell's response, so far, seems half-hearted. The company will "certify" SUSE Linux (and, perhaps, some other distributions) on some of their systems, but still will not offer pre-installed systems. That is a shame; one assumes that many of the people asking for Linux are not, necessarily, asking for the character-building experience of installing it themselves. Still, a "certification" that Linux should work on a given system has its value.

Companies like Dell will start selling Linux-installed systems when they see that there is money to be made by doing so. Or, if they fail to serve a real market, other companies will certainly jump in. Helping these companies see an opportunity in Linux-installed systems requires that those of us with an interest in such systems let the vendor know that we would buy them - and that we follow through when the products are made available.

Pre-installed systems have a number of advantages, starting with the fact that they are an existence proof that Linux will run properly on the hardware. Even if the user eventually upgrades the system or installs another distribution altogether, the software mix and configuration files which came with the original system can be invaluable. Not having to put together a working X configuration, for example, can save a lot of time and pain. This remains true even in 2007, when distributors have been working for a decade (or more) to eliminate as much installation pain as possible.

By eliminating the installation uncertainties, pre-installed systems lower the barrier to entry for those who would like to give Linux a try. When pre-installed, desktop-oriented systems are readily available, it stands to reason that the overall usage share of Linux in desktop environments will grow. In time, that growth will bring us greater mindshare - and more developers.

The biggest advantage of all, however, is likely to come from a different direction. It is well known that certain vendors are not particularly concerned about whether their offerings work with free software. No amount of pressure from individual customers is likely to have much effect in changing their point of view. Should a company like Dell get into the desktop Linux business, however, that company will have a great interest in working with Linux-compatible hardware. When large systems vendors start telling the hardware manufacturers that they need to make Linux-compatible devices, those manufacturers will tend to listen.

To this end, when we ask for systems with Linux installed, it is good to be specific: we want systems which work with 100% free software. A system with binary-only drivers is not the pre-installed "Linux system" that many or most of us have in mind. If a company like Dell starts shipping proprietary modules, chances are good that it will discover the associated hassles (supporting an undebuggable kernel, potential legal issues, etc.) in a hurry and change its ways. But it would be better if that discovery phase could be shorted out altogether. Making sure that the vendors know what we have in mind when we ask for "Linux systems" can only help make things happen that way.

The plan for World Domination is sometimes a little vague on the details. Widespread availability of Linux-installed systems is certainly an important milestone on that plan, one which many of us expected to see some years ago. The fact that Dell's customers are calling for pre-installed systems in greater numbers suggests that we may be getting closer to achieving that objective at last. Perhaps one of these years, sometime soon, really will be the year of desktop Linux.

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Another attempt at DMCA reform - sort of

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has sent out an action alert urging U.S. citizens to support the passage of the FAIR USE act [PDF]. This bill is congressman Rick Boucher's latest attempt to curb some of the worst excesses of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It may well be worth supporting, but this bill falls far short of what is really needed - especially from the free software community's point of view.

There are some steps in the right direction. One bit of text added to the DMCA by the FAIR USE act would be:

This is a legal codification of the "Betamax decision" which made it legal to sell videocassette recorders in the US. It makes obvious sense: just like knives and cars can be sold despite their obvious potential illegal uses, gadgets are legal even if somebody can do Something Bad with them. The text only applies to hardware, though; software gets no similar protection. And we have already seen how the "commercially significant" language can bite us; some courts have been happy to see free software as not being "commercially significant."

The bill puts limits on damages which can be imposed for "secondary infringement," which, again, should reduce worries for gadget makers who are afraid of being sued.

Finally, the bill would codify the exemptions to the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions which have been approved by the Librarian of Congress to date. There are six of them, allowing for limited circumvention for classroom use, to get at obsolete software, to enable reading ebooks aloud, to bypass the SonyBMG CD rootkit, and a couple of others. In addition, the bill would create exemptions for those creating compilations of audiovisual works, skipping commercials or "personally objectionable content," transmitting content over a home network (sometimes), getting at public domain works, or performing research, criticism, or news reporting. In each case, the exemption is for people "solely" engaging in the exempt activity, so the law will not legalize DeCSS on the basis that it can be used to skip the leading commercials on DVDs - something your editor finds highly "personally objectionable."

More to the point, however: this bill does not make any fundamental changes to the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. It would make the next Jon Johansen or Dmitry Sklyarov no safer in the U.S. Anybody writing free software which can be seen as a circumvention tool would be just as threatened by the DMCA after passage of this law as before. It is nice that, say, manufacturers of garage door openers would not be subject to silly lawsuits, and it is nice that some exemptions would be codified into law. Perhaps there is enough merit in those changes to make the FAIR USE act worth passing. But it is not a DMCA reform, it does not make it legal to distribute a free DVD player in the U.S., and it does not remove the legal threat against free software developers. That sort of reform, it seems, is not on the agenda this year.

Comments (7 posted)

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