Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 17:03:44 -0800
From: Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com>
To: "Adam J. Richter" <adam@yggdrasil.com>
Cc: lm@bitmover.com, andre@linux-ide.org, andrew@indranet.co.nz,
       linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, paul@clubi.ie
Subject: Re: Honest does not pay here ...
Message-ID: <20030106010344.GL1386@work.bitmover.com>
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	"Adam J. Richter" <adam@yggdrasil.com>, lm@bitmover.com,
	andre@linux-ide.org, andrew@indranet.co.nz,
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, paul@clubi.ie
References: <200301052021.MAA09932@adam.yggdrasil.com>
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On Sun, Jan 05, 2003 at 12:21:57PM -0800, Adam J. Richter wrote:
> Larry McVoy wrote:
> >The day that you take over the day to day running of the kernel effort
> >is the day that you get to enforce your rules.  Linus provides huge
> >value that neither you nor anyone else provides.  So he makes the rules.
> >If you don't like it, make a stink and withdraw your patches.  They'll
> >get replaced right away.
> 
> 	If you think no Linux copyright owner other than Linus can
> enforce their copyrights, then your understanding of copyright law
> is different from mine.

What I think is that Linus provides a lot more value than you and all
the other yadda-yadda-yadda folks combined.  Because he provides that
value, people follow his lead.  If you want to try and rally a bunch of
people to say that their contributions don't go along with Linus' rules,
by all means, go for it.  See how far you get.

Copyright law, this law, that law, none of it means shit compared to
real work and Linus does way more for the kernel than you ever will.
Everyone recognizes his leadership skills, most of us have disagreed
violently with Linus on more than one occasion, yet we still follow
his lead.  Why?  Because he's the best thing we have going.  He's not
a zealot, he's a reasonable guy, you can get him to change his mind if
he's wrong, he's an extremely effective leader.  You would do well to
emulate him but you are choosing to cause a fuss.   I don't think people
are going to line up behind you, you don't have the same leadership
qualities and people aren't that unhappy with what Linus is doing.
I could be wrong but if I'm not what do you hope to accomplish other
than wasting a lot of time?

The cool thing is that if the community ever changes their mind about all
this, the kernel is GPLed and a new leader can emerge.  Until that time,
how about you go back to coding rather complaining?
-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	 lm at bitmover.com           http://www.bitmover.com/lm 
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