Messages in this thread | | | From | (Larry McVoy) | Subject | Re: People need to say "no" | Date | Thu, 25 Feb 1999 12:32:27 -0800 |
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: That said, I think you are over estimating our (the Linux community) place in : the development of Linux. Linus gets to decide.
That's not the point at all. The point is whether we are learning anything or are we just counting on Linus to catch every bad idea we want to put into the kernel. We should be working smarter every day, not just working and hoping it is right. That means we should understand /why/ Linus says yes to some things and no to others.
The last thing we need is to start learning how to do good work the day Linus disappears. If we have to learn then, it will be too late. Even if Linus never disappears, we shouldn't be wasting his time by sending him bad code or bad ideas. Consider that he is, while brilliant, also a human being with limited resources. Do you want him spending his time weeding out garbage or do you want him spending his time doing something cool which will blow away Microsoft or change computing for the better, whatever? It is a zero sum game - if you eat up his time with fluff, you'll never get any substance out of him.
It's sort of like the old "give a man a fish and he is not hungry today, teach a man to fish and he is not hungry ever" story. We should be striving to reach a point where Linus always says yes because the only thing we send him is good work. Otherwise we are just playing around. And when 20 million people get affected when someone plays badly, well, that's not good.
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