Henri Yandell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: IMHO, it is a real "must read" for everyone that writes and especially uses open source. Funnily enough, many of the points that she raises don't apply to the ASF.
Hmm... I might disagree with that one. For example, I don't know many newbie users who could single-handedly set-up and configure the Apache web server with Tomcat without encountering a few problems. Also, some ASF projects have very skimpy documentation in places.
"Fighting for one's political stand is an honorable action, but re-
fusing to acknowledge that there might be weaknesses in one's
position - in order to identify them so that they can be remedied -
is a large enough problem with the Open Source movement that it
deserves to be on this list of the top five problems."
-- Michelle Levesque, "Fundamental Issues with
Open Source Software Development"
I have heard an interesting theory behind this: that the technical affinity shared by geeks and open-source advocates across the world is actually a form of mild autism, passed down the male line. Anecdotally, on my father's side many of my uncles are engineers, and my grandfather was an engineer (who, interestingly, claims to have invented the flip chart which he failed to patent) - the geek old guard. And, in this generation, most of my male cousins are working in the IT industry as programmers and system administrators - the new geeks.
Anyway, my point is that it would also seem that, along with poor social skills and shyness, a form bi-polar fanaticism seems to come with this "techno-autism". The constant "them or us" attitude one sees on forums such as /. seem to be near universal constant.
I mention it only for interests sake. :)
Kind regards, -- Ricardo
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