Meritocracy and Do-ocracy

Is Godot a meritocracy or do-ocracy? According to lead developer’s article called “As an Open Source project, Godot is more than a game engine”, Godot’s development is truly meritocratic¹:

But this is not all, Godot development is a true meritocracy [emphasis added]. Code is only merged when deemed worthy by the other developers. Every change is discussed for pros and cons.

This process is led by our large user community, who usually sets our priorities via issues (or just random rants on our community sites :P). This same community helps with the testing and works directly with developers implementing each feature to ensure it works as best as possible. Our process is truly community-driven [emphasis added] from beginning to end.

But if you ask the lead developer directly, he will say that there’s absolutely no meritocracy in Godot. Again, I’d like to emphasize that this comes from the same person who said Godot is a true meritocracy²:

For those who think Godot is a “Meritocracy”, I hate that word because it is too ambiguous. Godot is developed by always seeking agreement before move forward, there is no real hierarchy, status or governance system used during development. Roles are only organizational.

The project manager explicitly describes Godot’s development as do-ocracy. Rémi always attempts to “clarify” what Juan really “meant” to say in order to save his face that way³:

One can say that do-ocracy is also a meritocracy: those who do things have merit for doing them. But it’s not a meritocracy in the sense that those with most merit (technical proficiency, etc.) are the ones in charge. There are many factors beyond merit that can make you a do-er.

I hope that you see contradictions here. Of course, you may say that Juan didn’t realize the meaning behind those words back in the days, but this just shows apparent lack of focus and competence as a project leader. Before deciding to write an article, it makes sense to research different types of governance models that exist in open-source communities, right?

However, even when Godot leaders talk about their governance model, people who ask questions are still confused and raise concerns about all of this. For example, if there’s no hierarchy in Godot, why do Juan and Rémi are mostly the only ones that are allowed to have the ultimate power to merge changes and block consensus for all proposals, despite having “thousands of contributors” that are “growing exponentially”, as Juan keeps regurgitating? To quote a respectable member of Godot community⁴:

It is very strange that, supposedly, there isn’t a hierarchy, but the reality is: there are people with power to ban others from the community, while some don’t. There are people with power to take and implement decisions, while others don’t. What kind of “non-hierarchy” is that. I’m not saying it should run without someone taking responsibility. I’m saying: what Juan said don’t reflect what actually happens.

Mind you, this is just an example, and a little bit of research can confirm that these contradictions do exist and are typical in Godot community.

References