/.: -private versus the cabal model
First post! ;-)
Seriously, here's a good discussion topic: in a recent discussion on
Slashdot, someone (presumably a disgruntled member of the
new-maintainer queue) argued that the existence of -private is an
inherently bad thing. Here's my thought:
I've thought a bit more about this, and come to the conclusion that
-private lets developers participate more (not less) than having just
a public list.
Why? Well, imagine there's a group of people in Debian privy to more
info than the rest of us, say like the guys who work for Novare or VA
or the DPL. Without a -private list, they have to pick and choose who
gets the information (for the sake of this discussion, let's call the
chosen group The Cabal ;-). The Cabal inherently leaves lots of people
out of the process. Wouldn't it be better to let everyone whose
identity we've verified participate?
Thus, everyone is part of the Cabal. I much prefer this to the model
of other projects, which is basically that at "some point" you get to
join the "star chamber" where the real decisions get made (like *BSD's
"core" groups, or the [I'm speculating here] Alan Cox-Linus Torvalds
brain ethertap).
[As a corollary, There Is No Cabal ;-) And if there were, I'd be the
last person anybody would tell...]
Chris
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