Is anyone here familiar with the behind-the-scenes process and politics of
the Linux development community?
If I understand it correctly (and I'm not sure I have the details right),
when Linux was being developed, Linus came up with a skeletal OS based off
of MINIX, then he turned it loose. People volunteered bits of code which
Linus integrated into the OS. As the thing snowballed, Linus couldn't
handle the volume, so he chose a group of lieutenants who also had commit
authority. Now, I'm not sure where the planning came from...was there a
specific website or elist or whatever where Linus said "ok, we'd like a
TCP/IP stack that has the following interface?" Or what?
Whatever they did worked, and I haven't heard anything to suggest that the
Linux community feels excluded...is there some way we can duplicate/adapt
their process so that we can simultaneously put to rest both David Grove's
concerns about elitism and Dan Sugalski's concerns about lack of planning?
Dave
