On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 8:58 AM, Matthias Kirschner
<mk@fsfe.org> wrote:
* MJ Ray <mjr@phonecoop.coop> [2012-01-14 18:56:00 +0000]:
> > The autonomy is at the level of who's affected. Decisions about DFD are
> > generally taken by people involved with DFD. Decisions about FSFE's
> > booth at FOSDEM are taken by the people participating in the booth. [...]
>
> I don't think that's quite true. Decisions about one's own work for
> the team seemed to be usually taken by the team, even when they do not
> affect anyone else much. While that is often what employers do, it's
> not always how voluntary groups work.
Do you have an example for that? Because I did not have the impression.
Assumptions about what it is that volunteers are willing can be the death of a volunteer organisation. I observe this in local politics and in global volunteer software projects. Linus had it right when he called it "herding cats". I've spoken with local authority administrators about their assumptions of what I call "minimum terms of participation" which must be met before a volunteer will do anything and the removal of which will cause the volunteers to vanish like the morning mist.