Re: Open Source

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>]

>>>>> "Simon" == Simon Cozens <simon@example.com> writes:

    Simon> On Thu, Oct 05, 2000 at 10:29:52AM -0700, Scott M. Stone
    Simon> wrote:
    >> > Linux - nope, single manager: Linus
    >> 
    >> load of crap.  What about Alan and ALL the other folks
    >> involved?  Linus doesn't have absolute say over many things
    >> anymore, IIRC.

    Simon> If he says it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. Why isn't
    Simon> there a kernel debugger? Because Linus doesn't want
    Simon> one. Sure, the other folks have things to do, but he still
    Simon> runs the show.

Yeah.  Simon's totally wrong about XEmacs, of course, but he got that
right.

The point about management, as Jonathan Shore can surely tell you, is
not that the boss makes all the decisions.  Making all the decisions
about what you are responsible for is the lowest possible level of
first line management.  What executives do is delegate.

Linus has turned out to be either very lucky or a certifiable genius
at delegation.

The problems that Jonathan experienced may (as someone unkindly
suggested) have been due to his (or the responsible manager's)
incompetence.  But I find his explanation, that there was no single
boss for the project with the authority to make the decisions,
entirely plausible and more likely than the "direct incompetence"
theory.  "Indirect" incompetence is where the higher-level executive
fails to set up the structure of delegation correctly.

This contrasts with the way things are run at XEmacs and Debian, where
all the power is decentralized.  At XEmacs, this is partly due to
Steve's design and partly due to Ben's chronic illness.  Ben has the
credentials to take over, and has shown signs of wanting to, too---
fortunately (for XEmacs.org; it's not clear what would be best for
XEmacs, tome), he doesn't have the strength.

There are problems cropping up, we're sort of drifting at the moment.
But only a boss with the time for a heroic coding effort could do
anything about that:  besides Ben's situation, four of the most
prolific contributors have made the transition from student to
employee over the last 6 months, and it has certainly put a big dent
in their rate of patches.  Not to mention several other career
transitions.

It will be interesting to see how we cope with this; it's a big
experiment.  Fascinating.

-- 
University of Tsukuba                Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences       Tel/fax: +81 (298) 53-5091
_________________  _________________  _________________  _________________
What are those straight lines for?  "XEmacs rules."