On 19/12/06, Neil Bothwick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Mon, 18 Dec 2006 23:18:19 +0000, Jeff Rollin wrote:
> On 18/12/06, John J. Foster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > It may, but you are confusing cause and effect. A distro with more
> > > developers should be a better distro, and should have more users.
> > >
> > Well, Microsoft has proven that theory wrong ;->
Windows is not a distro. The development model is completely different.
On the other hand, Windows has more developers and users than any Linux
distro, so by the original argument, it must be much better...
> Indeed. In fact Fred Brooks, (In "The Mythical Man Month",
> specifically cited MS-DOS as one of the computing projects that
> "people don't get excited about" - for the very reason you and he
> cites, that throwing more developers at a project will not only fail
> to improve it, and improve it faster, but will slow it down and make
> it buggier.
Eric Raymond explained why this doesn't apply to open source development
in "The Cathedral and the Bazaar".
I haven't read it, BUT, in my understanding you still have to have
"the right people".
Yes, people can download (e.g.) the linux kernel and alter it willy
nilly, but unless linus and the rest of the core kernel team (no
capital letters) think it's a good idea, they will not integrate it.
Jeff.
http://latedeveloperbasketcase.blogspot.com
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