Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Sat, 18 Jan 2003 20:27:49 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Sat, 18 Jan 2003 20:27:49 -0500 Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([199.232.76.164]:16096 "EHLO fencepost.gnu.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Sat, 18 Jan 2003 20:27:48 -0500 From: Richard Stallman To: Larry McVoy CC: nico@cam.org, 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 In-reply-to: <20030118005649.GI15753@work.bitmover.com> (message from Larry McVoy on Fri, 17 Jan 2003 16:56:49 -0800) Subject: Re: [OFFTOPIC] RMS and reactions to him Reply-to: rms@gnu.org References:

<20030118005649.GI15753@work.bitmover.com> Message-Id: Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 20:36:48 -0500 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Richard, you are failing leadership 101. The hallmark of any and every leader is letting others take credit for your work. That lesson concerns sharing credit with people who are trying to help you. That's the reason I talk about the work that we, the GNU Project, have done, rather than focusing on my individual role. (I don't ask people to name the system after my name.) However, letting the credit for our work fall entirely to someone who never was part of our project and doesn't share our values and goals is a different matter. That would be self-defeating. Leadership 101 doesn't need to talk about this, because even cadet leaders generally already know they should not let rival movements take the credit for the work they and their supporters have done. We do give Torvalds a share of the credit by calling the system "GNU/Linux". 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. If this is true--I don't know that it is--it's probably because he gets the credit for our work as well as his own. I'm trying to change that now. - 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/