geek

W. Kiernan WKiernan at concentric.net
Wed Sep 13 04:17:49 PDT 2000


kelley wrote:
>
> giving away code, as far as i can tell, is all about showing everyone
> how big your dick is...

Maybe you haven't looked at very much source code. That closed source stuff is the code equivalent of the Great Oz. At the risk of offending one and all by this metaphor, it's hard to maintain that your dick is so-stupendously-huge when you are actually whipping it out in the open where everyone can size it with their own eyes. The open source stuff I've used is full of /* modest apologies inside comments */ for its flaws, as-yet-and-probably-never-fixed lacunae, and general lameness.

You could be mistaking the laughably phony media image of 31337 hax0rs for what open source programmers really are like (e.g.: relatively few shaved heads, pierced this-n-that, tattoos). To spy on the very 1337est-of-the-1337 at work, why not subscribe to the linux-kernel mailing list for a few days? Or if you don't want your mailbox flooded with a hundred incomprehensible posts every day, check out the archives of it at

http://boudicca.tux.org/hypermail/linux-kernel/

Yours WDK - WKiernan at concentric.net



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