[Olpc-za] A Journey into Constructivism

[Antoine van Gelder]

Antoine van Gelder wrote:
> Suggest to check the unverbalized assumption:
>
>   "We cannot debate while we are implementing"

Let me expand at the risk of drawing Ron's ire for being overly verbose:

In traditional models nothing gets done until the debate has finished 
and consensus has been arrived at through a combination of 
reason/politics/pure-brute-force.

This can take decades. So I understand your frustration Jeff!!!

Ultimately, I believe this to be an artifact of a very particular kind 
of centralized decision making where the information to plan action was 
locked up in physical documents that only authorized folk had access to 
and the power to initiate action is reserved by the leader or committee.

However, for better or worse, none of this applies within the culture 
surrounding GNU/Linux or the OLPC XO.

No one, from the ivory towers of Massachusetts down to the slums of Port 
Alfred, should feel that they need to get the official 
CrustyStampOfApproval(tm) if they see something that is worth doing and 
that needs doing.

It may be that sometimes objectives will overlap and you'll find 
collaborators within the community, it may also be that other times you 
find yourself a bit ahead of the curve and will need to steam forward 
some on your own before folk get interested in joining in.

And hopefully, through all of this, we'll keep talking and debating the 
foundations of what we're doing as the world has a way of constantly 
changing, requiring us to see it anew through the eyes of the children 
we all used to be.

 - a