Reading11: A Shared Space

Linux was anything but an accident. Honestly, I'm surprised there aren't significantly more success stories similar to Linus's. The entire idea of open source will continue to flourish, as it is a symbol of humanity--communication as a method of constructing ideas. Now that I wrote that it doesn't feel like it means much. Do you know the whole theory that there were only ever seven original books written and everything else is some modification of what came before it? Yeah, that. That's what I'm going for

"I felt all along that if anything were to negatively affect my work with Linux, I would have taken the obvious necessary step of turning it all over to somebody I trust."

The beauty of open source projects is that they will never die as long as there is interest. I'm sure creators of these projects feel a ton of pressure to maintain them, which can really affect their personal lives. We see this in Linus's story as he begins to have kids and start a family--the community immediately doubts that he will give the necessary support to Linux, as it is assumed his attention to the project will significantly drop off. It is nice to see his self-awareness, though, as he knows that it can continue in someone else's hands. The second a project gains a community, it will never truly die. As a video game fan, I have seen reboots of lesser-known games be announced years after their peak, and these are typically embraced by an even wider group than the original community. Most of the problems with retro projects like these are that the people of interest need to capture the rights before they can truly do any work. Open-source is different, as anyone can contribute in their own way at their own time. Even if the original owner leaves and nothing is able to be merged into the master project, individuals can share their contributions and create their own communities, branching off of the original.

"'Will success spoil Linus (and/or Linux)?' Will I turn into a self-centered spoiled brat who writes books about himself because he likes seeing his name in print, and because it pays of his new useless car? The answer, of course, is yes."

Aside from the ability for a project to be continued by a new owner, this is honestly very healthy when considering its longevity. Think about presidential terms...or a distributed system...it makes sense to reassign a leader every once in a while to keep things fresh. Also, there is such a thing as burnout. But I'm getting ahead of myself. While I think one deserves credit for creating an idea, the future of that concept is not necessarily due to them. Most of the time, it's because of everyone around them and how their influence has shaped it. Think of a company--the founder slowly loses say in many of the smaller decisions as it grows larger and ultimately is reduced to making few, larger decisions every once in a while. Let those who are currently interested in and motivated by your project to continue its development. This is where you're going to get the most fresh ideas that reflect the needs and wants of the community. Linus, like many others, is a great figurehead and should be admired as the founder of this endeavor. But all open source projects deserve to be molded by their communities.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reading01: My First Hack

When asked during the first lecture what my greatest 'hack' was, I realized that I either a) have a bad memory or b) have never created anything for fun. When reading about twelve-year-olds writing compilers and building ping-pong robots, I realized that it might be too late for me to do anything original in my life. If every reading puts these thoughts in my head, this is going to be a fun class. "There were enough obstacles to learning already--why bother with stupid things like brown-nosing teachers and striving for grades?" The first part of Hackers  makes it very clear exactly what a 'hack' is. If there has been one common theme across these seven chapters, it has been the loss of self that hacking requires. Three distinct qualities are needed to be a "True Hacker:" Motivation to create something new Willingness to give your full self to your hack Selflessness, knowing your hack is not privately owned but instead an open-source contribution to t...
Read more

Reading08: Motivation (or lack thereof)

I'm so washed. It's so joever. Every morning I wake up and tell myself that I have all of this free time to work on a personal project or read a few articles about a new release, and every night I lie awake in bed hating myself for attempting neither. While I do keep my schedule pretty busy, I always wonder how hackers have motivation, and time, outside of school or work to contribute to projects for fun. "What we see implied in hacker ownership customs is a Lockean theory of property rights in one subset of the noosphere, the space of all programs. Hence `homesteading the noosphere', which is what every founder of a new open-source project does." While I've never really contributed to an open-source project, I never would think to do so just so I can claim partial "ownership" of the service. I don't think this is what ESR was getting at, either, but I was interested in how much of this essay was dedicated to defining this concept. I have always ...
Read more

Reading04: Back to Business

Reading Graham's essays were honestly such a breath of fresh air. This dude is writing exactly what I'm thinking--I completely resonate with his perception of the hacker and, more importantly, what the hacker sets out to do. "And then at the other extreme you have the hackers, who are trying to write interesting software, and for whom computers are just a medium of expression, as concrete is for architects or paint for painters. It's as if mathematicians, physicists, and architects all had to be in the same department." If anything, these writings make hacking more  desirable. When I was a senior in high school, my teachers would (naturally) ask me what I wanted to study in undergrad. "Computer science." They would laugh, "there's no world in which you sit in a cubicle and write code all day--you talk too much." I took this as a compliment. For context: I was a theater kid. While I've always enjoyed being a creative-type, there was, and...
Read more