Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software Highlight

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), which develops the standards behind our internet protocols, uses what it calls “rough consensus” to reconcile the tension between authoritative and democratic governance, given a hard-to-define constituency: “Our credo is that we don’t let a single individual dictate decisions (a king or president), nor should decisions be made by a vote.”132 In a consensus-seeking model, the goal is not to “win” votes or come to a unanimous agreement, but rather to ensure that there’s a forum for people to raise and discuss their concerns, and that nobody feels strongly enough to block the group from moving forward. Consensus-seeking emphasizes discussion over enumeration: “Rough consensus is achieved when all issues are addressed, but not necessarily accommodated.”