From: Adam L. Beberg (beberg@mithral.com)
Date: Sun Sep 17 2000 - 15:24:17 PDT
On Sun, 17 Sep 2000, Dave Winer wrote:
> The key point is that for a complex product there has to be someone in
> charge. I think we're in agreement on that. Could you imagine a movie
> without a director? Same with software, at least I've never seen a
> counter-example. And generosity of users is not new to the "movement"
> either, it just wasn't fashionable to look at it. Imho, of course. Dave
Open source projects that work are not a bizzare or a cathedral, they
are a form of benevolent dictatorship. If said dictator is more
concerned with the project being right then being personally right, the
project works. Note that smarts aren't the determining factor, tho it
will help if the project starts out right. If on the other hand a
super-ego is involved, it will fail or just generally suck.
The universal drift is to the second unfortunately, inertia and
followers (forcing the dreaded backward compatability) eventually drag
things down, and you just have to start over to move forward. But I
can't think of any project commercial or open that doesn't have a strong
dictator, not just a leader, at the top.
- Adam L. Beberg
Mithral Communications & Design, Inc.
The Cosm Project - http://cosm.mithral.com/
beberg@mithral.com - http://www.iit.edu/~beberg/
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