--- title: A philosophy of project governance | daily.dev description: A seasoned open source maintainer argues that the BDFL (Benevolent Dictator for Life) model is the most effective and honest form of project governance. The... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/a-philosophy-of-project-governance-psybk2k60 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: A philosophy of project governance | daily.dev og:description: A seasoned open source maintainer argues that the BDFL (Benevolent Dictator for Life) model is the most effective and honest form of project governance. The... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/a-philosophy-of-project-governance-psybk2k60 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/pSyBK2k60.png og:image:alt: A philosophy of project governance og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # A philosophy of project governance **[Drew DeVault](https://daily.dev/sources/drewdevault)** · 5 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A seasoned open source maintainer argues that the BDFL (Benevolent Dictator for Life) model is the most effective and honest form of project governance. The core argument is that social systems cannot be governed by objective rules, so attempts to codify behavior through Codes of Conduct create exploitable loopholes and can distort a project's values. Instead, leaders should trust their judgment, delegate to trusted contributors, and use informal guidelines rather than rigid rules. Contributors should evaluate whether leadership's values align with their own, and fork if they don't. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Forms of Open Source Government](https://daily.dev/posts/forms-of-open-source-government-10ybjkvoh) · Andrew Nesbitt · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Open source governance isn’t one model. 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