Re: os discuss (http://www.osopinion.com/perl/story/7263.html)

[Dirk H Bartley <bartleyd2@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

cjgidman@mindless.com wrote:
> 
>  ---- bob@acm.org wrote:
> 
> <snip>
> 
> > The Press tends to treat Linux as if there is a "Linux Corporation", with
> > industrial-type schedules.

The press is accustomed to covering the behavior of corporations.  The
mainstream press will probably not be willing or interested in understanding
open source (behaviors/methodologies) until it has a majority of the desktop
market.  Then and only then will the development standards for user apps be at
least multi platform.

> > So when someone like Linus hints that something
> > really new will be ready around Thanksgiving, the press interprets that as
> > a commitment.

Sounds like that add for IBM with the executive being interviewed on TV.  He
breaks down and says "if we have to do that, we can do that".  The interviewer
responds with "The street will hold you to it".  An example of the negative side
of corporate culture?

> > After all, isn't Linus like "The Chairman of the Board", just
> > like 

Just like?  ..  maybe there are similarities  .. without the power to fire and
leave a person destitute  ..  without the (direct) salary for sure.

> > Roger Smith or GM?  When Linus and his merry kernel men feel there's
> > nothing to release in that timeframe, the press makes a fuss. Again, how
> > could GM not release a new model when they said they would?

You have a lot of frustrated people with MS for that very reason.  It is called
win9x so we must release by the model year.  (Incidentally 9x evolved from the
model year of cars)  If they were a little more honest and took a release early
and often approach, as long as stability was the highest priority, they might
piss a few less people off.

> 
> Forgetting the schedules for a moment, I'd like to see
> your explanations as to why Linux is NOT being run like
> a large monolithic organization.  

Linux is not run like a corporation because the development model of
corporations does not work as well.  (only time will tell for sure) Do you want
to be able to use the results of developers, bug fixers and testers?  Or do you
want to use the results of the overhead of a corporations:  Janitors, interest
on capitol investments, marketeers salaries, salaries of managers who say
release the software before it is stable and a low percentage of developers. 
Software companies have a lot of overhead which I choose to support as little as
possible.

> Eric Raymond's final
> comments in his Brief History of Hackerdomp point out that the bazzar/Open Source movement flourishes because
> which has no standards, is released and fed back
> rapidly, and which involves a great many
> participants.
> >From my perspective, Linus appears to sit in his great
> white throne and judge what stays and what goes.

His throne is built on his own ego instead of a pile of money.  (OK, maybe a
little bit of money)

> If
> you don't belong to the clique then what you wrote gets
> pitched.  

Sure, I would agree that some patches get seen and not directly applied.  
However they get seen and the results of they're work does have an effect
because someone else will see the purpose of the change they made, and decide if
that is the best method.

> I would be surprised to discover that
> Microsoft's legion of programmers was much smaller than
> the "in" clique which modifies Linux code.  

Yes, this is the point exactly (assuming you remove the negative connotation of
the word clique).  There may be the similar numbers of people "working" on the
code for MS projects as there are for open sorce counterpart projects.  If the
project has enough utility, the open source version will get a GREAT deal more
capable bug finders who will for the sake of ego will fix the bugs and forward
the fixes (because they care about software quality, not $$).  This comes
straigt to the point of do you care more about features (consistant gui
interface?) or stability.   If you do care more about features/consistent gui
your probably smiling when you hand over that MS tax.

> In
> addition, there is a large standards document which
> must be followed before the code is even considered
> acceptable.  This again, weeds out contributers.  

Contributors get weeded out by MS by whom they hire, and some of these people
truly do love what they do as well.  Contributors get weeded out in open source
by whom makes the effort to learn the protocol.  I would have to say that more
expierienced MS employees get more in the source tree than less experienced just
like open source.   The "clique" atmosphere is more rampant in any corporation
than could ever be in the social atmosphere of the internet.  Most acceptors of
patches don't know (or care) whether the contributor is 8 or 80, hispanic or
martian.  (at least until they are highlighted in a magazine article that
includes photos).

> It's
> beginning to look a lot like Microsoft from here.

Evan if it looks like MS, it does not smell like MS.  There is competition to
produce the best linux distro.  The day when corporations (notice the plural)
compete to make the install of some win32 OS to have only one reboot, will be
the day I might be willing to pay an MS license fee again out of my hard
earned.  (Did I just say that?)

> However, having never attempted to contribute anything,
> I can only speculate based on my feelings.
> 
> Chris.
> 
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