Hi all,
I realized what part of my frustration (aside from medically causes
reasons for oversensitivity) is that what I wanted from OpenWrt is not
what OpenWrt is anymore. I was looking for the old days of GNU/Linux
when most everyone was playing and sharing the results of playing to
benefit the community of players, and any contribution was welcome.
Those days are long gone, and for Linux as a whole and OpenWrt in
particular the emphasis is now on a product and has a lot more rigour.
This is good for people who want a final product that approachs
commercial quality (but sorry, if I wanted true commercial quality I'd
build something based on Yoctol; if I was going to do 'real work' that's
where I'd go), but not so good for people who want to experiment and
play and share the results of same, and want to be welcomed for that
type of input rather than treating OpenWrt as a second, unpaid, job.
The reality is that projects that get too serious lose community
interest because most community members aren't looking for a second job,
so unless you've got commercial interests willing to contribute back to
the project, you lose mind share.
The Linux kernel is really not a playground anymore; it is dominated by
commercial interests. OpenWrt is trying to be like the kernel without
the companies that contribute back.
Basically people who wonder why things like the attempt at an OLPC
community failed miss that fact that if you make things too much like
work, you need work-level incentives; if things you make things unfun
then people who want to play not work won't be interested, and that
means you some way to motivate people to do free work. There are far
fewer people who find that an interesting way to spend their time than
people who will work either work for pay or play. GNU/Linux didn't
attract its initial developer and user base by being serious work, it
grew to the point where enough people get paid to work on it, and
contribute back, that it can take that approach.
Regards,
Daniel
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