Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2001 00:19:33 -0700 From: Jordan Hubbard <jkh@osd.bsdi.com> To: jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG, grog@lemis.com Subject: Re: BSD direction/Damonnews article Message-ID: <20010606001933H.jkh@osd.bsdi.com> In-Reply-To: <20010604200851.A65559@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> References: <20010604200851.A65559@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>
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From: j mckitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org> Subject: BSD direction/Damonnews article Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2001 20:08:51 +0100 > I have been very nervous about both the BSDi merger and now the Wind River > merger. I do not have negative thoughts about the companies as much as i do These things always make me really curious. Either people are giving companies far more credit for influence wielded or they're grossly underestimating the resilience of open source projects. Do you really think that if SGI, for example, were to stop supporting Linux that the Linux community as a whole would come to a screeching halt or indeed even particularly notice beyond the inevitable throw-away slashdot postings? I don't think so. The same goes for FreeBSD. Yes, WindRiver does employ around 8 people to do FreeBSD-related work and that's certainly a very useful contribution. If those people were to suddenly need to shift jobs for whatever reason, however, then that would hardly mean the end of their careers or contribution to FreeBSD. They'd simply get jobs elsewhere, preferably FreeBSD-related. While you wouldn't perhaps see the same level of contribution from those specific people for awhile, the slack would get picked up. There are well over 200 people in committers now and if 5 or 10 go AWOL at any particular time, even when they're "key people" on some particular sub-project, people tend to react to their absence and seek to fill the hole. FreeBSD has been going on for just about 10 years now and it's far bigger than any one contributor, company or institution. When people or companies contribute to the project then it certainly _helps_ to a great degree, that's nothing I'd even want to down-play, but it shows a remarkable ability to heal itself and move on when those people or companies move on to other things. I'd save your nervousness for something more significant, like the next global military conflict. We're currently overdue for one of those. ;) - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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