Open source values: Consensus

Posted by Sander_Marechal on Nov 16, 2007 7:13 AM EDT
ZDNet Blogs; By Dana Blankenhorn and Paula Rooney
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Last week I wrote about transparency as an open source value. Today, in the second of this informal series, I want to discuss the value called consensus. Consensus is an essential open source value, and a value which distinguishes open source from the proprietary models which came before it. Every successful open source project I know operates through consensus. Orders aren’t given, instructions are worked out. Raised voices, fists hammered on tables, these lead to code forks, and to volunteers abandoning a project. Successful open source entrepreneurs do their work through consensus. They listen to the people under them, and they seek shared responsibility. The best will say “we” did what works but “I” take the blame for what goes wrong.

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