> However, the general open source policy that if you don't code, you
> don't get to have a say, is a good policy and an important one.
should we apply this policy to you, for example? i searched google w/ __ "Scott Martens" linux__ and got bupkiss..... ditto over at deja USENET archives (author search and by name). ;-)
whats my point???!!!!!???
my point is you sound like a perfectly reasonable person to have a discussion with about the direction and politics of free software, and yet i dont see overwhelming evidence that you have supplied code or bug reports. (i am sure this cursory search has missed something).
my point is that for free software developers to become a political force, we have to move beyond this 'well have you wrote your own code yet' mentality.
> The libertarian ideology of the open-source people is about as deep
> as Trotskyism was among hippies. Give them a little bit of time and
> money, and suddenly the ideology disappears. The contradiction of
> opposing intellectual property restrictions and supporting an
> anacronistic Austrian view of economics has already caught up with
> the smart ones, and the others will deal with it when they grow up.
as you note later on, the "community" is not homogenous on this score. one does get the feeling reading slashdot that the group is split between those slobbering for the next IPO, those indifferent, and those who don't like __over__-emphasis on commercialism.
> Note my e-mail address. :^) (Also note that I can't speak for my
> employers in any capicity whatsoever.) Sun is one of the better
> shops for open systems, but yes, we're in it for the money.
any insights into why Sun was so uhhh slow to fully support Java under linux????
> Here I disagree. The biggest problem open source has right now is a
> proliferation of people who have opinions, but who don't write code.
i have mixed feelings on this one. in some of the development niches i hang in there is too little room for opinion and debate on politics. and though i know people complain about the linux kernel development list, you have to admit there is much higher signal-to-noise ratio amongst developers and troubleshooters than we almost have a right to expect.
so i am not sure the proliferation of opinions is the problem here. i'd say more taht the problem is that there are negligible organized political currents in the free software world other than what either accumulated capital can organize for its own benefits,
> Corporate software outfits have the same problem, in the form of
> non-technical managers. Letting everyone in on design decisions is
> the road to gridlock. The current system, for all its flaws,
> doesn't work so badly.
IMHO you missed nathan's point, which was a political one, not a technical point about keeping code generation at high quality level by filtering mechanisms to keep the "masses out".
les schaffer