[LIG] Re: [LI] kernel hackers welcome

[Arun Sharma <adsharma@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 03:33:38PM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>  Arun>>> The real issue is, Indian engineers are driven by money. Not
>  Arun>>> many people have the time, energy and resources to
>  Arun>>> contribute. The few who do, go for the big money and are not
>  Arun>>> exactly Richard Stallman fans
> 
>         There are Indian engineers who are not driven by money, and
>  who do have the time, energy and resources to contribute to free
>  software -- and if you do want just pure kernel hackers, these are
>  lsited below.
> 
>         I still don't think your rant about Indian developers being
>  driven by money is true in general, please speak for yourself.

I stand by my statement - having worked at/with a number of commercial
UNIX vendors and having seen the number of Indian software engineers
who work there and comparing it to the number of Indian software engineers
who write code for "Stallmanistic" reasons.   

> N: Asit Mallick
> E: asit.k.mallick@xxxxxxxxx
> D: Linux/IA-64
> S: 2200 Mission College Blvd
> S: Santa Clara, CA 95052
> S: USA
> 
> N: Goutham Rao
> E: goutham.rao@xxxxxxxxx
> D: Linux/IA-64
> S: 2200 Mission College Blvd
> S: Santa Clara, CA 95052
> S: USA
> 

Both of them were my colleagues on the IA-64 project and they are essentially
in the same boat as me - paid to write software.

As for the rest, I consider them an exception, rather than the rule - 
assuming that for the lack of sufficient info they were not paid to write
that code.

The intent of my statement is not to discourage people from becoming 
kernel hackers as you stated, but to point at the reality - that very
few kernel hackers exist in India and more can't be created by just
forming a list. 

Also significant is the fact that all these Indian software engineers
who know enough to be kernel hackers don't contribute to the Linux 
kernel because there is no financial incentive to do so. 

This is why I believe BSD is a better model - it keeps the financial
incentive alive. It's written by people who make a living from it,
rather than school kids and part time hackers with a daytime job.

Another way to look at it is - how much cutting edge technology has 
GPL produced ? I can't think of even one. Everything is a clone of
something or the other. Why ? Because there is no financial incentive
to do anything new. 

	-Arun