Re: [LI] Message from RMS.

[Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@xxxxxxx>]

>>"Arun" == Arun Sharma <adsharma@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

 Arun> On Sat, Dec 04, 1999 at 04:31:59PM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
 >> No. I am implying that lots of commercial companies merely
 >> ripped off the BSD fee work (Sun, Digital, Data General), branded it,
 >> and no benefit accrued to the community from these advances.


 Arun> But it didn't hurt any of the developers in any way. They were just
 Arun> as free. Empire building was not their goal.


        And therin lies the differnce in philosophies. The BSD people
 are content with whatever they have, they give the code off, and want
 nothing in return. The GPL folks are more into share and share alike
 -- I scratch your back, you scratvh mine philosophy.

        The BSD folks often characterize their code give away as
 charity, the GPL folks tend to talk more about community building.

        I personally prefer the latter. I still retain vestiges of Ayn
 Rand's "The virtue of selfishness" and "Atlas Shrugged".


 Arun> I don't know any of the (Free)BSD developers personally - but I
 Arun> like their organization - what appears to be merit based core
 Arun> team structure, as opposed to dictatorships.

        The problem is determining ``merit''. And the inherent
 snobbery in the *BSD teams does not help.

        As far as social structures go, I prefer Debian -- we are an
 independent lot, and we elect our Project leaders for a term. No
 ``core'' members lording it over all comers. We realize that some
 times decisions need to be made swiftly, or there are posts that
 require responsibility (like release management) that need to come
 with commensurate authority, and we *choose* to submit to elected
 officers. 

        Decisions are determined, to the greatest extent possible, by
 consensus (with the elected officers having the duty and the right to
 step in and unstick stalled debates). Technical issues are rarely
 open to voting -- popularity is not a substitute for correctness.
 However, matters of policy and opinion are often decided by voting
 amongst (possible subsets of) the member body.

        I much prefer this to the strict, elitist heirarchy that *BSD
 folks are stuck with.

        As to dictatorships, you should be aware that even the Linux
 kernel is now closer to an oligarchy than a dictatorship. ;-)


        manoj
-- 
 Computers are useless.  They can only give you answers. Pablo Picasso
Manoj Srivastava   <srivasta@xxxxxxxxxx>  <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
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