Re: FWD: Re: Linus is on a powertrip..
joey@kitenet.net (Joey Hess) wrote on 02.10.98 in <[🔎] 19981002223100.O5693@kitenet.net>:
> This is from the linux kernel mailing list. I find it pretty completly sums
> op my thoughts on all the new constitution and voting and policy voting
> stuff that we've been setting up. I haven't been vocal about this, but I
> think we've been moving in the wrong direction.
OTOH, *I* believe we're moving in the right direction because the past has
shown that, for whatever reason, our social dynamics are such that the
original model doesn't work for us.
Incidentally, I think the reasons are actually obvious once you think
about it. With Linux, Linus is the one that keeps the kernel source. He
decides about every bit that goes in. Debian, OTOH, doesn't have any
comparable position, and in all the time I've been here (since
.99something), it never had one. Oh, it may have had one in the very
beginning, but if so, it was already abandoned back in the .99something
days.
To put it a different way ...
Linus is the main developer for Linux. That makes him a good benevolent
dictator. Debian does not have a main developer; Ian has a political, not
a technical, job.
Linus *acts* as a dictator. He dictates what goes into the kernel, and
what doesn't. Debian has nothing comparable. There is no instance we have
to pass to get stuff into the distribution. Indeed. I suspect many
developers would leave were there such a choke point.
Linux kernel development is almost completely different from Debian
distribution development. That's why Ian's job description differs from
Linus'.
MfG Kai
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