Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 01:02:41 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: bright@rush.net (Alfred Perlstein) Cc: rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in, asmodai@wxs.nl, kkennawa@physics.adelaide.edu.au, advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Some thoughts on advocacy (was: Slashdot ftp.cdrom.com upgrade article) Message-ID: <199905030102.SAA16077@usr05.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.990502141012.7628e-100000@cygnus.rush.net> from "Alfred Perlstein" at May 2, 99 02:19:30 pm
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> Although I must say that SCO's CEO's blatant flames against > Linux & GNU look more like a desperate PR tactic, I hope he falls > on his arrogant face. I first met Doug Michaels in person, and had the opportunity to have a long chat with him and Esther Dyson, back in 1988. The three of us talked for about four hours at the SCO Forum88, until the early morning. He is reasonable, level-headed, and personable. Unlike most of people I know, he also has Vision [the capital "V" is not a typo]. I believe the so-called "flames" to be rational, well reasoned arguments about why free software that comes from anything larger than a small team working in isolation generally fails to be able to do anything revolutionary, only evolutionary. The statements about the state of SMP in Linux (which apply equally well to the state of SMP in FreeBSD) relative to SVR4 are well founded, from my experience as a former employee of the former USL in the innards of a high granularity SMP kernel, and on general architectural principles. Volunteer projects attract "cowboys", not team players. The larger the project, the more balkanization into territories, and the sooner the cowboys start plinking pot-shots at each other over rights to the watering hole bordering their territories. Occasionally, a range war starts, and you get a schism. Cathedrals are large public works; like the Apollo missions, they require a disciplined group of individuals to build. Such projects can not tolerate even the spectre of schism. Volunteer projects, by their nature, lack this discipline. Volunteers do not build mass transit systems, and volunteers do not build superconducting suppercolliders. SVR4 is a cathedral. CORBA is a cathedral. BSD 4.4 is a cathedral. Linux and FreeBSD are *not* cathedrals. As Doug pointed out in the article referred to, there are merits to having a roadmap, a clearly stated long term vision, and an organization capable of forcefully executing that vision: only with these, can you build a cathedral. It's not a cardinal sin to not build a cathedral; but when you are not building a cathedral, and somone says "Hey, you're not building a cathedral", it's unfair to characterize the bald statement of fact as "blatant flames" or "a desperate PR tactic". Instead, take the statement at face value: as an observed truth; if you don't like what it says about you personnally, or what you choose to spend your free time on, then it's probably time for some introspection. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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