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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!qns3.qns.com!imci4!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in1.uu.net!newsfeed.pitt.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!pwb+ From: Peter W Boettcher <pwb+@andrew.cmu.edu> Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc Subject: Re: Historic Opportunity facing Free Unix (was Re: The Lai/Baker paper, benchmarks, and the world of free UNIX) Date: Sat, 20 Apr 1996 18:49:58 -0400 Organization: Freshman, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 46 Message-ID: <olSKcKG00iWQ85P5MQ@andrew.cmu.edu> References: <NELSON.96Apr15010553@ns.crynwr.com> <3175DBD4.167EB0E7@FreeBSD.org> <4l5f31$ijv@solaria.cc.gatech.edu> <3176D081.794BDF32@FreeBSD.org> <4la318$ah3@sidhe.memra.com> <31794DB6.7DE974DF@lambert.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: po9.andrew.cmu.edu In-Reply-To: <31794DB6.7DE974DF@lambert.org> Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.system:21997 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:762 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:3255 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:17873 comp.os.linux.advocacy:46647 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:3407 Excerpts from netnews.comp.os.linux.development.system: 20-Apr-96 Re: Historic Opportunity fa.. by Terry Lambert@lambert.or > Michael Dillon wrote: > ] The fact is that the successful collaborative software > ] development projects up to now have been mostly systems > ] level stuff like *BSD, Linux, X, wxWindows and so on. If > ] we can collect a core team of people who are willing > ] to manage an *APPLICATIONS* development project using the > ] same collaborative techniques, then we can tap into the > ] skills of people who are reasonably good programmers but > ] don't have the mindset to dig into SCSI driver race > ] conditions and VM paging systems etc... > ] > ] These really are two separate groups of people so I don't > ] think it would have any negative effects on the *BSD or > ] Linux projects. > > I don't think this works. > > In practice, we reaaly have two groups of people: those who > burn their free time playing with computers and those who > don't. > > I'd argue that the people you are talking about belong to > the second group -- they aren't willing to cook a bunch of > Saturdays on building "Word for X windows". > > The people in the first group quickly become systems level > people. They tend to be into it for the challenge, and > finding SCSI driver race conditions (per your example) is > a heck of a lot more challenging than getting the cursor > to the right screen location. I disagree. I am a fairly competent programmer, but do not have the experience necessary to do anything productive with system development. I would, on the other hand, be willing to spend some time working on applications. I would also place two of my friends in the same category. In fact, I would argue that there are much more than two groups... there is a wide range programmer types, not just Those Who Program and Those Who Don't. I will probably become a Kernel Hacker(tm) within a few years, but for now,... Regards, Pete Boettcher