Re:It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software
by mjg59 on Saturday September 14, 2019 @09:58AM
(#20970782)
People have literally talked about how they left the field because of RMS's behaviour. This isn't a case where we're randomly guessing that he discourages participation, we know he does.
Re:It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software
by prepend on Saturday September 14, 2019 @10:23AM
(#20970941)
“People” is not very specific. This is a tricky discussion topic because I don’t really care if people left the field without more info. Were they awesome programmers? We’re they mean people? Was it a net positive that they left the field? I have no way of knowing this.
I’ve worked on a lot of projects and software is weird and awesome because the impact of one person is so amazing. Lots of people can come and go without making a difference. So discouraging participation isn’t some absolute evil to be avoided. Sometimes it actually helps cut down on noise per the whole Brooks Law kind of thing.
I think it’s easier to be inclusive by people’s preference to join rather than to try to guess about unknown groups that may be be comfortable enough to participate but since we don’t know them we can’t query them.
I don’t think RMS is scaring off good developers. I also don’t understand what kind of developer would be put off by his statements so much they would not collaborate on a project.