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Subject: Re: Commerical applications (was: Development and validation
In-Reply-To: <199701220509.WAA23906@rocky.mt.sri.com> from Nate Williams at "Jan 21, 97 10:09:45 pm"
To: nate@mt.sri.com (Nate Williams)
Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 01:18:20 +1100 (EST)
Cc: terry@lambert.org, chuckr@glue.umd.edu, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
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> Terry Lambert writes:
> > > > A weighted democracy would be one open-ended growth solution, as
> > > > long as parametric changes could be made within the system.  I have
> > > > suggested this before.  A trivial napkin drawing version:
> > > 

I have doubts about such a system. How are the weights chosen?

	- Number of lines of code committed (using the count
	  the semi-colens method?)
	- Number of lines of code committed multiplied by an
	  elected coding quality weight?
	- Lines of code code in other free software projects/n +
	  lines committed*m?
	- What is the weight for documentation? For make files?
	  For user code? for vm code?
	- Should all weights be votable - dynamically adjusted according
	  to votes * current weights?
	- Which is more stable? w1+w2+w3+w4=1 or w1*w2*w3*w4*w5=1?
	- How a new weights created?
	- How does one prevent factional deal making?
	- Will weights be applied retrospectively?
	- Should weights decline over time in the same manner as
	  an infinitely trainable adaptive neural network?

What about retrospectivity? On the one hand you entrench a
pre-democratic feudal power structure and end up like Mandela's
South Africa; a constitutionally reformed non-racially discriminatory
capitalist society in which the blacks have all the votes, but
the whites have all the capital. On the other (FreeBSD) hand the
whites did all the work.

Certainly a very interesting social engineering experiment; there
is room here for long excursions into probability theory, game
theory, cryptographic voting protocols (extending to protocols
not traditionally seen as voting protocols such as Rabin's m/n
secret sharing scheme), all excellent paper fodder.

It would definitely attract a lot of welcome attention to FreeBSD.
When viewed strictly as an experiment this idea has a lot
of merit. If it actually pans out, then well and good, if not,
then it could be used as some kind of Sawick poll.

Cheers,
Julian.