Michael Graff <explorer@flame.org> writes:

> Dave McGuire <mcguire@neurotica.com> writes:
> 
> >   What the hell is going on?  It seems from my [admittedly rather
> > isolated] point of view, my favorite OS...one which I've been
> > evangelizing and selling people on since the 0.9 days...is folding
> > in on itself due to petty political bickering, massive ego problems,
> > and an apparent lack of tranquilizers/beer/prozac/whatever it would
> > take to keep people from yelling and screaming at each other like
> > children.  Is this really what's happening?  If so, why?  Is that
> > even an answerable question?
> 
> IMHO, and I've seen this from the inside, too many inflexable people
> with too large of egos, and far too much willingness to share.
> 
> I have long thought that NetBSD needs a single leader, rather than
> "core."  Linux has Linux, FreeBSD has Jordan, and NetBSD has a
> committee.

And that which is obvious by its omission has the0. Be careful what
you wish for, you just might get it.

Jordon, btw, does what Jordon does, because Jordon is Jordon. He
hasn't been given any magical powers, other than being part of FreeBSD
core. I don't see any equivalent proselytising personality rising up
in the NetBSD camp. This is part historical accident, and partly
because rabid advocacy and the apperance of being able to write good
code have been considered by NetBSD people to be antithetical, and
NetBSD has traditionally placed a lot of importance on production of
quality code.  This culture within NetBSD is slowly changing, as
people grimly realise that you can't do it all on your own, and that
having more developers means more ideas and more code -- that strong
advocacy leads to more developers.  Hopefully this slow change of
attitude will result in some proselytising force like Jordon ending up
in core.

Electing a `netbsd Great Leader' every six months, might be a way to
encourage such talnet to float to the top, with the damage limited to
six months if people pick badly -- but given the experiences of Herb
et al, you would have to question why anyone would want to
nominate. Hopefully, after the recent spate of resignations, we are in
for a positive cultural shift there too.

Julian.