bwaaaaaaaaaaaahahahaha!

[Benedikt Meurer]

On Sat, 12, Jul 2003, Chuck Mead wrote:

> Now that was an entertaining read. This is the first time in history
> that I can recall Olivier losing his temper with anyone and he and I go
> back at least five years (maybe longer but I am closer to 50 than to 40
> now and I forget things easily).
> 
> As to how things are said (couched)... "because I said so" is no
> different than saying "because I am right". OSS projects (the good ones)
> are not democratic... they are autocratic regimes lead by concensus
> where possible. When concensus cannot be reached the benevolent dictator
> (my be read "Olivier Fourdan" with respect to XFce) makes the decision.
> When prior decisions are not adhered to some form of punishment (may be
> read "verbal abuse") is usually swift unless the "benevolent dictator"
> is on vacation or otherwise engaged. In short TANSTAFFL applies and we
> all know it. You want developer credit here... you play by Olivier's
> rules... you want developer credit on the kernel you play by Linus's
> rules... you want developer credit on Lunar you play by mine.
> 
> Now if this was Lunar and something like this had happened I might not
> have been as genteel about it as Olivier was and those "in the know"
> with respect to my typical behavior on lists, irc, and OSS dealings
> would likely vouch for that being true. That said... danny took it well
> and it's fixed so what's the big deal? You don't like the way Olivier
> does his business say your piece... he can listen, he can change his
> actions or words if *he* wants or he can tell you to get stuffed. It's
> his project like it or no and if it comes down to it I would back him
> 100%. Does he listen to me? Usually... Does he have to.... nope. Would I
> continue to make resources available to the project if he did not...
> yup. Why? I like XFce and if you don't like it or you don't like how
> Olivier runs his project.... *GET STUFFED*!
> 
> Oh... and for the sake of posterity let me just say that that (^^^^^
> ABOVE) is me being polite! Sometimes I am not... and we can go there too!

I agree with most of the above. Just one thing to correct: The _best_
OSS projects are driven by a "core team", not by a single human, who
decides everything. Thats what makes them the _best_. The chance for a
group of 3-6 people to be wrong on a point is much less than the
chance for a single person to be wrong. For example, thats one of the
most notable problem with the Linux kernel.

Don't get me wrong. During the time I've been with XFce, Olivier was
nearly always right in his decisions, and if he wasn't, we simply
accepted his decision, because we know he's the leader and he's the
one that founded this project, and so we respect his decision. But
this is a point to think about, since e.g. Linux is a very popular
example that suffers from this kind of leadership.

Just my 2 cents...

> csm

Benedikt

-- 
NetBSD Operating system:                       http://www.NetBSD.org/
pkgsrc "Work in progress":                  http://pkgsrc-wip.sf.net/
XFce desktop environment:                        http://www.xfce.org/
German Unix-AG Association:                   http://www.unix-ag.org/