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New FreeBSD Core Team Elected
BSD-Pat writes "A new FreeBSD core team has been elected for the first time in the project's history. The BSDToday article can be found here.
I'm personally excited that this seems to open up the playing field for developers to get involved on a deeper level with FreeBSD and choose the direction to take for the future." Update: 10/14 01:44 PM by H :BSD-Pat sent an update saying that the story was actually broken by Daily Daemon News.
Hi Bruce,
Obviously "gets hit by a bus" is a metaphor, and it is not to be taken seriously. It means "becomes unavailable", and I think you'd agree that if Linus did become unavailable, there'd be quite a bit of upheaval. Nothing fatal I imagine, but some upheaval - whoever takes over would also probably get quite a bit of "But Linus would have done this..." coming his or her way.
However, if one of the FreeBSD Core "became unavailable" because of other work, a change in direction, moving to another project, it wouldn't have nearly the effect. I imagine the most likely to cause the most upheaval is jkh. Whoever replaces the core member isn't likely to face "but foo would have done this..." arguments - core is about reaching concensus on issues that have escalated to that level - to settle disputes, add more committers, and very very occasionally decide policy. Everything else is based on rough concensus and working code in the project.
I don't believe you can say that the Linux kernel development is "at least as decentralized", in the sense that at least 233 people can directly modify the FreeBSD source code, including kernel. There is no need for them to get formal review and acceptance by a single person before it is possibly to go in - it is simply expected that review is sought, that the code is tested, and that you know what you're doing, and that you notify the maintainers or active worker on the subsystem you're working with. Architectural changes are monitored by various people (as I imagine it is with Linux too), and any questionable code is (optionally) backed out and discussed. People who repeatedly refuse to get review and discuss changes would theoretically get their bits removed, but there hasn't been a case in the time I've been following the project.
This is "decentralized", meaning ``withdrawn from a center or place of concentration; especially having power or function dispersed from a central to local authorities''. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but that's what it means - all changes are centralized through a point of concentration (Linus at the moment). The function of physically changing the code and generating the tarballs or whatever (since there's no versioning) falls with him.
One could theoretically extend that to FreeBSD in the fact that changes have to be made via cvs (or locally with cvs) on the FreeBSD cvs server, but that's a little technical. The function of changing the code is performed by the committers - the rest is automated and not concentrated through a single reviewer and changer.
Again, this is not a judgement, simply an observation. I don't think anyone in FreeBSD has the time and inclination to step up and manage every single change to the kernel, userland, documentation, or web site, so the functionally-decentralized distributed method probably suits FreeBSD.
Neil