Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking

was drafted after a failed first election and in an effort to prevent the type of authoritarian leadership that some developers identified with Perens. 8 The Debian Constitution outlines in great detail the group’s organizational structure, which includes nonelected and elected roles and responsibilities. Contained within this document is a representation of Debian’s overall system of governance—its combination of majoritarian democracy, meritocracy, and ad hoc consensus.
    Debian’s democratic commitments are apparent in its voting protocols. Using a version of the Condorcet method (which guards against simple majority rule by means of a complicated ranking system), the project now votes every year for the Debian project leader, and any developer can propose a General Resolution relating to technical, policy, or procedural matters for a projectwide vote. These two provisions demonstrate the populist commitment to give all developers a voice, and acknowledge that regardless of their level or quality of contribution, all developers, once accepted into the project, deserve some decision-making influence. That said, the Debian project leader has assumed a decidedly nontechnical role, not vested with power to make technical decisions for the project at large, and proposing General Resolutions to resolve technical disputes is fastidiously discouraged. Strictly technical problems are not seen as appropriate objects for democratic voting.
    For instance, in 2004 when one developer proposed a technically based General Resolution (calling for the support of a new architecture), this suggestion was ripped to shreds on the mailing lists and effectively halted by many contributors, including some of the most respected and visible Debiandevelopers. One response conveyed the distrust of political inclusion within the technical arena that many developers hold and will consistently give voice to: “I won’t even consider this proposal until you or someone else explains to me why we should use the voting system to decide an issue like this. [ … ] If recent experience has shown us anything, it’s that votes HURT Debian. Please don’t take us further down this path.” Voting, in other words, blocks open and ongoing debate, the proper and most popular means by which technology should be revisioned and improved.
    If the Debian project leader is not a technical position, then what is that person empowered to do? Most developers agree that the project leader acts as a public spokesperson at conferences and other events. Within the Debian community, the project leader acts to coordinate and facilitate discussion, perhaps most vitally opening blocked pathways of communication and aiding in conflict resolution. Their most significant power lies in the ability to assign or legitimate nonelected official roles in the form of delegates and teams—typically technical guardians, who garner respect because of their superior talents and dedication to the project. These teams and delegates perform much of the Debian-wide work, such as administering mailing lists, accepting new members, running votes, and maintaining and integrating new software into the master archive. There is general faith that the Debian project leader either legitimates teams already in existence because of the work they do or assigns roles to people already doing the work.
    If it is incumbent on developers to make decisions, there are nonetheless types of developers empowered with special authority to make certain kinds of decisions, usually by virtue of holding nonelected posts as individual delegates, or within teams or committees. 9 While the Debian project leader can assign a Debian developer as a delegate, and in theory is empowered to revoke any existing position, this action has never been taken within the last five years and possibly ever. This is significant. While in theory the project leader or a General Resolution can revoke the position of a technical guardian, in practice this would never happen. Guardianships are vetted positions, and there is strong pressure to let these people remain in their positions so long as they are doing work and desire to remain there. 10
    These positions are largely technical in nature. Current teams include the release manager and team, listmasters, Webmasters, Debian admin team, NMP team, security team, and policy team. These teams coordinate in order to work on larger-scale infrastructural or organizational structures as