Re: SEUL: FADE - GTK - GNOME

[bruce@va.debian.org]

> But the GNOME group seems to be more busy, trying to implement a new
> PhaserChess version in a mixture of
> Guile, Objective-C and Python than with writing any useful desktop
> application.

Anyone who says this sort of thing has no idea how free software
development works. We hear similar criticism for Debian: "The Debian
team is more interested in having six different web servers than it
is in ease-of-use".

One person is working on Phaser-Chess out of many people who are working
on GNOME. Gnome is not a commercial company that allocates every drop
of its resources based on some management decision and then forces every
person to work on what was decided at the pain of losing their jobs.
Like Debian, GNOME offers the freedom to work on the project you are
interested in. That's essential, or nobody would ever volunteer.

Similarly, Debian does have many different web servers because many people
wanted to package their favorite web server and we have no reason to stop
them. Only one person out of 200 or so worked on each web server, and not
for awfuly long. They all do other useful work, too.

I wonder if the problem is that the people who write this stuff are
essentially loners, and do not understand teamwork, or if they have
an autocratic complex and want to see everybody doing exactly the same
thing? Obviously, we can't hold those attitudes and operate large volunteer
software teams.

	Thanks

	Bruce