Effectiveness often breeds resentment
on
A History of Firefox
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
There was and remains much resentment towards Firefox and its development model. At its creation, there was much shouting about how the many were not always smarter than the few, the merits of small development teams with strong centralized direction, the need to adhere strictly to Mozilla's module ownership policy[3]. In practice, these statements resulted in effectively locking everyone but the Firefox team out of the Firefox source code. We railed against the inefficiencies of past UIs. We were unnecessarily harsh, and polarized opinions. We had been badly wounded by the Netscape experience and the disorganization that had followed. I don't think a lot of people understood that. It wasn't something we could easily communicate.
To many, it looked like we were breaking ranks. We were claiming their work had no value. It was said that what we were doing went against the principles of community development. That wasn't true -- as most open source projects are centrally managed by a small few. Many have well defined release plans and maintain tight control over what contributions make it in. We had hurt our case though by being so dogmatic up front. We did not do a good job of PR.
Recalls a Margaret Thatcher quote, from her speech at the US Naval Academy sometime around '93 or '94: "Consensus is the absence of leadership".
Impressive, indeed to admit to having been heavy-handed. Then again, there is a stark difference between leadership and running a popularity contest.
OTOH, even Emacs will have another release Real Soon Now. The ones to fear are those who claim to have Teh One True Way.
Lemmy explores these ideas in a heavy-metal context in the second and third verses of Orgasmatron:
I twist the truth, I rule the world, my crown is called deceit
I am the emperor of lies, you grovel at my feet
I rob you and I slaughter you, your downfall is my gain
And still you play the sycophant and revel in you pain
And all my promises are lies, all my love is hate
I am the politician, and I decide your fate
I march before a martyred world, an army for the fight
I speak of great heroic days, of victory and might
I hold a banner drenched in blood, I urge you to be brave
I lead you to your destiny, I lead you to your grave
Your bones will build my palaces, your eyes will stud my crown
For I am Mars, the god of war, and I will cut you down.
Hindsight mostly benefits, but also loses loses something by separation from context.
I think this particularly true concerning the motives of the leadership.
But, hey: there is good money in retrospective pettifoggery, if the Kennedy assassination (or Area 51, or Pearl Harbor, or...) is any indicator. Viva capitalism.
I have concluded that the vast majority of "big name" database users vastly underutilize the features that the big bucks pay for.
Has anybody else encountered projects for database-driven websites where the script monkeys want to use the database like text file system accessed with SQL, and do all of the logic in script on the web server? I suspect that people understand procedural code most readily, and despise thinking in the set-theoretical terms of SQL. I used to be that way, until I started realizing that I can blow off a lot of coding/debugging by eschewing state and writing as much in SQL as possible.
Then there was that one Java project, where the database schema mapped directly to the inheritance hierarchy of the object model. Booting the application server took longer than booting the operating system. While no raging Java fan, I can't help but think that particular issue was coder ignorance writ large. Wrote the test plan, got out of that swamp ASAP.
It's still a PITA for a lot of hardware drivers.
Oh, and good luck if you're not buying new. While improving core OS security is a Good Thing, it makes marginal sense to pump up the left front Firestone, if the other three (representing your peripherals) have flat old drivers, to trot out the 'tired' car analogy.
They are true, these modern tales of woe.
Thus, we must champion the cause of federalized bingo, as the relentless quest for security drives us to seek protection from lying, demented, file swappin' grannies!
Our streets must be made safe for democracy, however conveniently re-defined!
Yeah, well, that's all fine and swell in the hypothetical.
Rarely do real situations come without some ambiguity or conflicting motives.
In the overall job market graph, you really don't want to burn any of the in-edges that were your old gigs, or the out-edges of your network that land you the next node, after the current node goes TU*
How much brighter the world will be, when the black hole that is software patents is plugged.
Never underestimate the value of a good, old-fashioned backup channel.
HTTP is teh r0x0rz, until you really need to submit something, say, your income taxes, and your ISP does a face-plant.
Suddenly, the capacity to fax, telegram, or at least get a post-mark on a letter to CYA goes from being
disgustingly obsolete
to being rather quaint, but occasionally useful.
Or, as the writer of Ecclesiastes put it:
9:14 There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it: 9:15 Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man.
more to advance computing than anything Microsoft has done
Holds true for some values of "more" and "advance"
OTOH, if you factor out Mr. Softy, and just consider $800_pound_gorilla, I think a contrary case can be made that the positive network effect of $800_pound_gorilla has been substantial.
Consider CUA, or any other standard that has helped focus the market.
Somewhere between monoculture and chaos is a reasonable operating point.
So, a helpful question might be: how can we manage $800_pound_gorilla such that we minimize chaos without venturing into the Mordor of monoculture?
Well, the analysis has been quite detailed.
They have UML, use cases, entity relationship diagrams, dataflow diagrams, and a requirement what makes the Bible look like a short story.
It's the waterfall development model of justice.
"The stones...I love the stones. Still can't believe they're doing it after all these years. I watch them whenever I can--Fred and Barney."--Steven Wright
Now, now, we need to be more open and accepting. Different numbers mean different things to different people. It's the emotional quality, not the quantity, of the numbers that are more important in the post-factual world of today. Just because little Chris cannot successfully enumerate the fingers on one hand should make no difference, if he decides on the accounting arts for his career choices. Quite the contrary, to look at the recent headlines: this non-grasp of the basics might be the ultimate qualification!
Or, possibly, shorthand for 'most hobbit-esque', which would at least fit some stereotypes of FOSSiles.
I, for one, am hard at work balding myself out of this hirsute category.
The Goobuntu.com domain has been registered in the past couple of days, though presumably not by Google. It now redirects to a Cuban portal. Perhaps Google will have to think of a new name for the system before they launch it to the wider public.
Open Source Software and Google both stand revealed for the Communist plots they are!
Let every real God-fearing American instantly reject this nefarious Marxist subterfuge!
Concur. I may not agree with much else out of Mass., but a tricorn hat off to them for ODF.
Props to a state that's been thumbing its nose at tyrrany since Sam Adams
Kudos to Peter Quinn. If I were still in SOCAL, I'd check him at the Southern California Linux Expo 2006. There's a dude worth buying the beverage of his choice.
Hey man: you win.
I've no problem with being modded down when I'm being sarcastic, but I respectfully disagree with the systematic, blanket modding of my posts as 'Overrated' when I'm posting a reasoned opionion that adds value to a thread. This has happened often enough in the last week to trigger this post.
I'll simply uncheck your postings over in the preferences, so that future tension can be avoided.
Best,
Chris
</offtopic>
He served five years in prison, including eight months in solitary confinement after it was alleged that he could launch nuclear missiles by whistling into a telephone.
Subsequent to his release, when he was among the victims of a restaurant robbery, the perpetrators had no difficulty locating his wallet in their bag of loot...
Slashdot Mirror
Impressive, indeed to admit to having been heavy-handed. Then again, there is a stark difference between leadership and running a popularity contest.
OTOH, even Emacs will have another release Real Soon Now. The ones to fear are those who claim to have Teh One True Way.
No worries. When the madmen start laying down the nukes, the fallout will drive up the albedo, cooling the planet. So we got that goin' for us.
So, I should by a crap heap just to avoid the charge of 'superficiality'?
What a shallow premise.
Lemmy explores these ideas in a heavy-metal context in the second and third verses of Orgasmatron:
I twist the truth, I rule the world, my crown is called deceit
I am the emperor of lies, you grovel at my feet
I rob you and I slaughter you, your downfall is my gain
And still you play the sycophant and revel in you pain
And all my promises are lies, all my love is hate
I am the politician, and I decide your fate
I march before a martyred world, an army for the fight
I speak of great heroic days, of victory and might
I hold a banner drenched in blood, I urge you to be brave
I lead you to your destiny, I lead you to your grave
Your bones will build my palaces, your eyes will stud my crown
For I am Mars, the god of war, and I will cut you down.
I think this particularly true concerning the motives of the leadership.
But, hey: there is good money in retrospective pettifoggery, if the Kennedy assassination (or Area 51, or Pearl Harbor, or
Then there was that one Java project, where the database schema mapped directly to the inheritance hierarchy of the object model. Booting the application server took longer than booting the operating system. While no raging Java fan, I can't help but think that particular issue was coder ignorance writ large. Wrote the test plan, got out of that swamp ASAP.
Maybe I'm not a representative sample, but when then the first sentence of an article is whiffy enough for a political speech, I read no further.
I fear no Finite State Machine!
It's still a PITA for a lot of hardware drivers.
Oh, and good luck if you're not buying new. While improving core OS security is a Good Thing, it makes marginal sense to pump up the left front Firestone, if the other three (representing your peripherals) have flat old drivers, to trot out the 'tired' car analogy.
They are true, these modern tales of woe.
Thus, we must champion the cause of federalized bingo, as the relentless quest for security drives us to seek protection from lying, demented, file swappin' grannies!
Our streets must be made safe for democracy, however conveniently re-defined!
Yeah, well, that's all fine and swell in the hypothetical.
Rarely do real situations come without some ambiguity or conflicting motives.
In the overall job market graph, you really don't want to burn any of the in-edges that were your old gigs, or the out-edges of your network that land you the next node, after the current node goes TU*
How much brighter the world will be, when the black hole that is software patents is plugged.
*Tits Up
HTTP is teh r0x0rz, until you really need to submit something, say, your income taxes, and your ISP does a face-plant.
Suddenly, the capacity to fax, telegram, or at least get a post-mark on a letter to CYA goes from being to being rather quaint, but occasionally useful.
Or, as the writer of Ecclesiastes put it: s/poor wise man/telegram/
Holds true for some values of "more" and "advance"
OTOH, if you factor out Mr. Softy, and just consider $800_pound_gorilla, I think a contrary case can be made that the positive network effect of $800_pound_gorilla has been substantial.
Consider CUA, or any other standard that has helped focus the market.
Somewhere between monoculture and chaos is a reasonable operating point.
So, a helpful question might be: how can we manage $800_pound_gorilla such that we minimize chaos without venturing into the Mordor of monoculture?
Well, the analysis has been quite detailed.
They have UML, use cases, entity relationship diagrams, dataflow diagrams, and a requirement what makes the Bible look like a short story.
It's the waterfall development model of justice.
"The stones...I love the stones. Still can't believe they're doing it after all these years. I watch them whenever I can--Fred and Barney."--Steven Wright
Now, now, we need to be more open and accepting.
Different numbers mean different things to different people.
It's the emotional quality, not the quantity, of the numbers that are more important in the post-factual world of today.
Just because little Chris cannot successfully enumerate the fingers on one hand should make no difference, if he decides on the accounting arts for his career choices.
Quite the contrary, to look at the recent headlines: this non-grasp of the basics might be the ultimate qualification!
Or, possibly, shorthand for 'most hobbit-esque', which would at least fit some stereotypes of FOSSiles.
I, for one, am hard at work balding myself out of this hirsute category.
Let every real God-fearing American instantly reject this nefarious Marxist subterfuge!
Because, if you can't beat 'em, repeat 'em.
Concur. I may not agree with much else out of Mass., but a tricorn hat off to them for ODF.
Props to a state that's been thumbing its nose at tyrrany since Sam Adams
Kudos to Peter Quinn. If I were still in SOCAL, I'd check him at the Southern California Linux Expo 2006.
There's a dude worth buying the beverage of his choice.
It simply doesn't get more righteous than that.
Hey man: you win.
I've no problem with being modded down when I'm being sarcastic, but I respectfully disagree with the systematic, blanket modding of my posts as 'Overrated' when I'm posting a reasoned opionion that adds value to a thread. This has happened often enough in the last week to trigger this post.
I'll simply uncheck your postings over in the preferences, so that future tension can be avoided.
Best,
Chris
</offtopic>
Aftuw he suwvived Pwacticaw Mono-nucweosis, what kiwwed Ewmer Fudd?
U R teh st00p3d. It was teh WMD. Duh!