On Tue, Aug 04, 2015 at 02:00:36PM +0200, tilt! wrote: > Hello KatolaZ and Rainer,
[cut] > > Using the amount of contributions as a metric that decides over the > influence an individual can exert in future decision-making of a project > means discarding the fact that contributions can be "bloat" and that > developments can turn out to be devastating mistakes. Such > developments, by the time they occurred, can be extremely hard to revert > in a meritocracy that uses such a metric. > [cut] > I think the fundamental mistake in such a meritocracy is that a > *quantitative* metric (for example the count of contributions) is used > to decide a *qualitative* property (namely the decisive influence in a > project). I agree with your points, and I have never thought that a bare count of lines of codes should be the currency of a meritocratic community of software developers. As in many other aspects of human activity, length is rarely correlated with *power* or *skill*, and is thus a poor indicator of performance. There is no doubt that anybody who has contributed 100 lines to the Linux kernel might deserve more respect than me (who have contributed 0 lines), but it is undeniable that just a few lines of code in some parts of the kernel are worth much more than thousands of lines in other sections. > > One one last note, I more generally think that in the wider field of > science, phenomena such as commercialization of research and "Duh > Science" are powered by similar mechanisms. And in fact I pointed out that deciding which facts are meritorious and which are not is a matter of discussion and debate :) HND KatolaZ -- [ Enzo Nicosia aka KatolaZ --- GLUG Catania -- Freaknet Medialab ] [ me [at] katolaz.homeunix.net -- http://katolaz.homeunix.net -- ] [ GNU/Linux User:#325780/ICQ UIN: #258332181/GPG key ID 0B5F062F ] [ Fingerprint: 8E59 D6AA 445E FDB4 A153 3D5A 5F20 B3AE 0B5F 062F ] _______________________________________________ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
