on the contrary. open source (or free software) doesn't mean that every dispute has to be out in the open. there must be room to handle disputes privately, and the actions by some of the people involved here seem to show that they do not want to handle this in public. (whether that is justified or not is a different question, but again, without details we are unable to make that judgement)
i find that dragging disputes into the public is often used for one side to draw support in their favor. i don't think that this is happening here, as the statements made are to vague. but in general i am not a fan of making such things public as it prevents people who are involved from opening up and sharing their concerns in the internal discussion for fear of having them made public too.
we need to give people in dispute the space to resolve their issues without forcing them to face the court of public opinion.
> doesn't mean that every dispute has to be out in the open
Of course not, nor did I imply such an extreme.
> we need to give people in dispute the space to resolve their issues without forcing them to face the court of public opinion.
This only functions with balanced moderating forces within an internal dispute - where there is a clear power imbalance (e.g. a technical lead who holds exclusive keys to things), resolution of a dispute in private will typically lean heavily in favour of those holding defacto power, leaving "the court of public opinion" a sole remaining last resort.
There is no space left. The people "in dispute" have left the project, and no one in the F-Droid space is really speaking up against Hans doing whatever he feels like despite the final (short-lived?) existence of councils and boards.
i respectfully disagree. the power issue can not be solved by the court of public opinion either. at best it can shame the people who refuse to be reasonable, but when that happens the damage is already done, and a reasonable solution is no longer possible.
just look at this case. from our perspective here, there are only two options: hans continues as before, or hans is entirely removed from the project. i don't see any way to come to a solution where both sides continue to be able to work together.
such a solution is only possible before the naming and shaming in public begins.
an amicable solution requires that the parties involved can speak without fear of retribution. dragging this into the public makes that pretty much impossible.
if the parties can not solve the problem on their own, they can find mediators (from their community or from outside) to help. if that is not enough the inner community, the active contributors can get involved, and only if that fails too, it may be right to make the issue public. but, at that point the choices usually have already been made (as we can see here again, with some of the people involved resigning) and our public opinion and discussion here can do nothing that would improve the situation.
> if the parties can not solve the problem on their own, they can find mediators
Mediation is typically only possible where either both parties are willing (clearly not the case here) or where the mediator has some leverage with any unwilling parties (seemingly not to be found here either, at least sofar).
> the power issue can not be solved by the court of public opinion
Honestly you may well be right but this is precisely why I cited it as an unfortunate last resort. It's pretty clear here that even the very formation of the council was in itself an attempt at internal mediation after years of problems.
As unlikely as it is that going public will lead to a solution whereby the council members rejoin the existing project and have a long and fruitful collaborative relationship with Hans into the future, it does at least open the door for a larger number of potentially beneficial options.
Even the "nuclear" option (fork and rival), while wasteful in terms of human effort, has some potential to lead to a project that much better serves the open source community. Having such discussions in an open forum can help people better weigh up the pros & cons of joining vs forking indispensable community projects such as this.
i find that dragging disputes into the public is often used for one side to draw support in their favor. i don't think that this is happening here, as the statements made are to vague. but in general i am not a fan of making such things public as it prevents people who are involved from opening up and sharing their concerns in the internal discussion for fear of having them made public too.
we need to give people in dispute the space to resolve their issues without forcing them to face the court of public opinion.