OSS compromise, not compromised

When you’ve got multiple powerful parties involved in a decision, compromise is unavoidable. The point is not that compromise is a necessary evil. Rather, compromise can be valuable in itself, because it demonstrates that you’ve made use of diverse opinions, which is a way of limiting risk.”
Chip and Dan Heath
in their book, Decisive.

This risk perspective on compromise (ie diversity of thought), is a fascinating one in the context of OSS.

Let’s just look at Vendor Selection as one example scenario. In the lead-up to buying a new OSS, there are always lots of different requirements that are thrown into the hat. These requirements are likely to come from more than one business unit, and from a diverse set of actors / contributors. This process, the OSS Thrashing process, tends to lead to some very robust discussions. Even in the highly unlikely event of every requirement being met by a single OSS solution, there are still compromises to be made in terms of prioritisation on which features are introduced first. Or which functionality is dropped / delayed if funding doesn’t permit.

The more likely situation is that each of the product options will have different strengths and weaknesses, each possibly aligning better or worse to some of the requirement contributor needs. By making the final decision, some requirements will be included, others precluded. Compromise isn’t an option, it’s a reality. The perspective posed by the Heath brothers is whether all requirement contributors enter the OSS vendor selection process prepared for compromise (thus diversity of thought) or does one actor / business-unit seek to steamroll the process (thus introducing greater risk)?

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