I just have been reading an article about "Linux Meritocaste" that somehow touched me. I've been a LINUX user for 25 years, but never was involved in LINUX development, although I am software developer. I always wondered how these people work together, and how they are are organized. Nowadays they are a meritocracy, that means, ability and capacity count more than wealth or social class, which I consider to be a good thing. But even the meaning of words seems to change in the course of time ....
Many good contributions to free software projects are rejected simply because they did not come from the right class or because they do not serve to flatter the vanity of their highnesses the programmers.
I think this is generally and everywhere true, not only in software development. This is a human condition. What can we do to fix this? Maybe live meritocracy more consequently and focus on the individual, also in big teams?
About "the failure of Linux":
That is the fault of the misunderstood meritocracy that privileged programmers, despising graphic designers, marketing specialists, professional writers, but above all the common user.
Absolutely true. I can confirm this from 30 years of programming experience in teams. The role of developers is overestimated, and they behave like gold diggers. Really user-friendly systems are rare.
Thanks to that, today the development of Linux is in the hands of corporations that are the ones that determine which projects continue or not.
My conclusion is now: authoritarian decisions and carelessness of developers led to the failure of LINUX as free software. Again a human condition?
Carelessness? Isn't it maybe overzeal? I mean, they are idealists, working for an open-source and zero-cost operating system. Maybe we need more people that channel eagerness into the right direction?
The principles of free software are illusory if there is no funding to support a project.
I am not convinced of that. I think software development should be more common and ordinary, like contributing to an internet forum, like writing a newspaper article. You should not always expect money for publishing something. It will build up your image. The more you publish, the more you will be involved into businesses that can make use of what you produce, and finally you will earn more than when demanding money for every little bit. Depending on a smart contract you still could be member of the open source movement.
When we say somebody must pay for the production of free software, it is clear that corporations willing to invest will take over and promote their interests. They make money by being closed, not open.
Conclusion
Currently, the global trend towards authoritarian strategies is very strong. It would lead us back to old medieval failures, which already happened with the dropping of object-oriented paradigms in favor of copy & paste languages, or dropping the XML-compatibility of HTML. Technology must move forward, not backwards. If meritocracy was not sufficient, well, lets invent something new!
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