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Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2021 14:39:35 +0100
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Request for karma to vote on RFCs
From: rowan.collins@gmail.com (Rowan Tommins)

On 20/07/2021 06:37, Tobias Nyholm wrote:
> I also saw suggestions that one has to be a good core developer to be able
> to influence PHP. I find it particularly strange if it would be a
> requirement.


When decisions are just a matter of bikeshedding, or deciding what 
"style" the language should have, there is a strong argument for general 
democracy, and a strong voice for those who use the language.

But some decisions have more fundamental impact on the implementation 
itself - highly technical features like JIT or Fibers, or conceptually 
simple features with complex implementations like Intersection Types. 
The concern is that the small number of people who understand those 
consequences will be out-voted by people "voting with their heart" 
because they like the idea of a feature.

Those core contributors are then expected to maintain the resulting 
code, with little help from those who wanted the feature. Hence the 
suggestion, not of an "elite", but of some sort of "meritocracy", where 
that knowledge carries some weight.


Perhaps we need a more revolutionary re-organisation into two separate 
voting groups:

* a very open community vote, to indicate a breadth of support for the 
direction a change takes the language
* a group of Core Contributors, much smaller than the current voting 
pool, who are equipped to judge the impact of the implementation

An RFC could require separate approval from both groups, regardless of 
number of voters, like a parliament with two chambers.


Obviously, this still leaves the question of how to gain a vote in 
either "chamber", but it avoids the difficulty of coming up with a 
definition that applies fairly to these very different groups of people.


Regards,

-- 
Rowan Tommins
[IMSoP]