Forum .LRN Q&A: Response to Request for Comment: dotLRN Technology Governance

Ben wrote:

At the end of the day, innovation and greatness don't come from committees (ever seen a statue built to honor a committee?). Think of OpenACS: although there is a committee of gatekeepers, there is a single de-facto leader. At times I played that role, but these past few months it's most certainly been Don. In fact, the other gatekeepers (including myself) have effectively served as a Technical Advisory Board to Don. And although the needs and funds of users (GreenPeace, Sloan, Berklee) have certainly driven development of new functionality - without the intervention of any committee, by the way-, technical decisions and progress on OpenACS core have always been led by experienced technologists. User features are driven through needs/funds; technical architecture is driven through meritocracy and technical qualifications. Given that we're discussing a product (dotLRN) that has come out of this very OpenACS process and is considered, to date, fairly promising, it makes sense to set up a minimalist governing body to mimic this initial success. It also makes sense to build in a process for change in governance over time to enable evolution of these processes.

To my mind, this reflects a fundamental misunderstanding regarding the differences between OpenACS and dotLRN. I'm not talking about the technical issues; as I'll get to in a minute, all this talk about forking under MIT's plan is a red herring. I'm talking about who is required at the table to make dotLRN work and what it will take to get them to the table.

Let me be clear: There is no question in my mind that dotLRN will fail under OF's plan. Why? Two reasons:

First, the major institutions that are ultimately the intended buyers and users of dotLRN will never go for it. Think about it: Why are they attracted to Open Source in the first place? For the same reasons that people fire their stock brokers and open up accounts with eTrade. For the same reason that they now scan the Internet for medical information to double-check the advice that their doctors give them. In short, they want more control. They are sick of vendors selling them expensive piles of garbage for hundreds of thousands of dollars and then making them feel like it's their fault that the damned thing doesn't work. I know these people. They are my clients. They are my colleagues.

Will they feel comfortable with a governance plan that is essentially an informal technocracy run by one or two hackers? No way. They want a voice. They want a seat at the table. OF's plan gives them no such seat. The whole thing is run by hackers. You can say that it will be otherwise. You can say that you'll be consultative. But they won't buy it. And I don't blame them. I know for a fact that there are potential major investors in dotLRN who have already let it be known privately that a governance scheme of this sort is a potential dealbreaker for them. I can also tell you that my clients--both academic and private sector--would not buy this, and I'm not sure that I'd even want to try to sell it to them.

What could they do if they were unhappy under this plan? OK, they could bitch on the discussion boards. And what if that didn't do it? What then? Developers could fork, but they're not developers. There is one word even worse than "fork" that also begins with an "f" and ends with a "k." That word accurately describes the situation they'd be in.

In contrast, the MIT plan has accountability. If I, as an investing stakeholder, am not happy with the gatekeeper's performance, I have recourse. I can go to the TAB, which, by the way, is comprised of a broad committee of developers who are also recognized and respected in the community. If that doesn't work, they can escalate to the Executive Board, which would be a mix of technical folks and non-technical stakeholders. Hell, they could run for the Executive Board. So could you. Although there is no explicit migration strategy yet, the MIT plan does say that the Executive Board will become self-governing.

So that's one reason why I think OF's plan would cause dotLRN to fail. The other reason is that, even if you get stakeholders to the table to invest, you will fail to develop good educational apps. You could no longer design outstanding educational applications than I could design a database-backed web app. You have no way of even telling what's good idea and what's a not-so-good idea in education any more than a teacher has a clue about great programming.

It's easy to make disparaging remarks about committees. What is hard is bringing together people with diverse backgrounds and strengths to work toward a common goal--not a dirty, bureaucratic committee, but a governing body that is of, by, and for the whole community. We have two very hard unsolved problems on our hands. First, we're trying to create an Open Source project that scratches an itch other than the developers'. I don't have to tell you that the record on this sort of thing is spotty at best. On top of that, we have to design an outstanding educational application. You know what? I've worked with a fair number of educational applications and I have yet to work with even one that I would call outstanding. In fact, I can't think of many that I would even call adequate. This is a hard, hard problem.

The only way that you will solve that problem is by getting educators to the table for an equal, honest dialog in which you learn from each other what is possible. Now, you can say that they are welcome here. You can mean it, too. You can even set up a nice forum for them and be real nice should they show up.

They won't come. Again, these are my friends and colleagues we're talking about. I have invited, even cajoled many of them, on multiple occasions, to come and dialog. So far, none of them have. Why? Because this is not their world. It's yours. Programmers are from Mars, educators are from Venus. If you want them to really come to the table, you need to do more than invite them. You need to sell them. They need ownership. They need to feel like it's their God-given right to demand quality educational software, and dammit, they're going to be heard.

Where is their seat at the table under the OF plan? Where is their ownership? Where is the basis for their right to speak out? If you are excited (as I am) by the dialogs we're starting to have on recent threads like (https://openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=45096) and (https://openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=45257) then you need to reach out. These are the conversations that will make dotLRN great. Don't get me wrong, the developers have done a fine job creating a basis to build on. dotLRN is competitive with the best alternatives currently out there. Which is to say that it doesn't suck so bad. You need teachers here as equal partners, and you don't have them yet. You have me, and a couple of folks from the trailblazer universities. I'm not normal for people in my biz, and they are also usually technical.

Under the MIT plan, teachers have an equal voice with developers. There is a User Advisory Board to balance the Technical Advisory Board. A teacher can look at that governance plan and see that a seat at the table has been reserved for them. They are not just respected guests in a foreign land; they have been given a home. This is the only way you can get them, if you can get them at all.

And how is the MIT plan different from the OF plan in terms of the day-to-day functioning of the community? The truth is that it's not really different at all. You still have a gatekeeper who is a respected member of the OpenACS community. The code is still GPL'ed. Hackers can still contribute or not as they see fit. OpenACS can still do what they want as a community as they see fit. Heck, you can even still retain copyright on your code if you feel strongly about it. Nothing is different in the day-to-day business of Open Source development.

What is different is that the developer community under the MIT plan forms an explicit and equal partnership with non-developer stakeholders--the people who will ultimately help you design great apps and who will ultimately pay for those apps. If a formal governance structure is stifling to Open Source, then how come it's working for Apache? No, this structure is not just a series of stifling "committees," as Ben refers to them. It is nothing less than a social contract. It is what makes a community with diverse interests work. It is our Constitution. It does not increase the likelihood of a fork; the OpenACS community still has a gatekeeper chosen from their ranks, still has people on the TAB, and still has representation on the Executive Committee. dotLRN will fail without this community as surely as it will fail without educators and investing institutions, and everybody knows it.

But the bottom line is that the community needs to share power. They need to make a formal commitment, in the form of a governance agreement--a pledge to the people who you want to bring to the table. If the community is not willing to make that commitment, then I very much doubt you will be able to build vertical applications for this or any other market that anyone will buy.