Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Fri, 17 Jan 2003 19:48:01 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Fri, 17 Jan 2003 19:48:01 -0500 Received: from bitmover.com ([192.132.92.2]:23450 "EHLO mail.bitmover.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Fri, 17 Jan 2003 19:48:00 -0500 Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 16:56:49 -0800 From: Larry McVoy To: Richard Stallman Cc: Nicolas Pitre , mark@mark.mielke.cc, galibert@pobox.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, dax@gurulabs.com, lm@bitmover.com, root@chaos.analogic.com, pollard@admin.navo.hpc.mil, R.E.Wolff@BitWizard.nl, jalvo@mbay.net Subject: Re: [OFFTOPIC] RMS and reactions to him Message-ID: <20030118005649.GI15753@work.bitmover.com> Mail-Followup-To: Larry McVoy , Richard Stallman , Nicolas Pitre , mark@mark.mielke.cc, galibert@pobox.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, dax@gurulabs.com, lm@bitmover.com, root@chaos.analogic.com, pollard@admin.navo.hpc.mil, R.E.Wolff@BitWizard.nl, jalvo@mbay.net References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i X-MailScanner: Found to be clean Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org > I'm glad you appreciate our work, but if you call the system "Linux", > you lead other people to suppose it was done by Linus. If you call > it "GNU/Linux" you will teach other people to appreciate our work too. Richard, you are failing leadership 101. The hallmark of any and every leader is letting others take credit for your work. Haven't you ever heard "make them think it was their idea"? Every engineer who grows into a leader learns that while he or she may have (or thinks they have) more foresight, vision, talent, whatever than their team members, the trick to successful leadership is to let the other people think they are the leaders. That is how you create people who will carry on your vision. Doing what you are doing is going to make you universally disliked and even if you win the battle, you will lose the war. The second you stop pushing, everyone will turn against you and do something else. They'll do the opposite of what you want simply because they resent what you are doing: telling them that you know best, their opinion doesn't matter, you're right, they are wrong. That's not leadership. That's browbeating and I know of no example of that style of affecting change succeeding. It's worth pointing out that Linus frequently states that other's work is more important than his, that he is just a small part of this effort, there is no way he could do it by himself, etc. Contrast that with your words. Then contrast the number of people following you vs. the number following him. There has to be at least 3 orders of magnitude difference, he's doing something right and you are doing something wrong. Shouting incessently isn't going to help your cause, you lose followers every time you open your mouth. -- --- Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitmover.com/lm - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/