I obviously agree, but I will also add that one of the most motivating
things there *is* in open source is "personal pride".
It's a really good thing, and it means that if somebody shows that your
code is flawed in some way (by, for example, making a patch that people
claim gets better behaviour or numbers), any *good* programmer that
actually cares about his code will obviously suddenly be very motivated to
out-do the out-doer!
Does this mean that there will be tension and rivalry? Hell yes. But
that's kind of the point. Life is a game, and if you aren't in it to win,
what the heck are you still doing here?
As long as it's reasonably civil (I'm not personally a huge believer in
being too polite or "politically correct", so I think the "reasonably" is
more important than the "civil" part!), and as long as the end result is
judged on TECHNICAL MERIT, it's all good.
We don't want to play politics. But encouraging peoples competitive
feelings? Oh, yes.
Linus
-
