Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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), reso…
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…
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.