The Wesnoth devs are
The Wesnoth devs are good but not exceptionally so, and we’re weighed down by a crappy implementation language (C++). Nevertheless our productivity, in terms of goals achieved per hour of work, is quite high. Eric S. Raymond
Eric S. Raymond
On first blush this
On first blush this looks to be about money, but it is about power. Is power going to go to the information monopolies, or will it go to developers and users?. Eric S. Raymond
Anybody who has ever
Anybody who has ever owned a dog who barked when strangers came near its owner’s property has experienced the essential continuity between animal territoriality and human property. Our domesticated cousins of the wolf know, instinctively, that property is no mere social convention or game, but a critically important evolved mechanism for the avoidance of violence. … Read more
It is widely grokked
It is widely grokked that cats have the hacker nature Eric S. Raymond
That stupid people are
That stupid people are more violent is a fact independent of skin color. Eric S. Raymond
A critical factor in
A critical factor in its success was that the X developers were willing to give the sources away for free in accordance with the hacker ethic, and able to distribute them over the Internet. Eric S. Raymond
Provided the development coordinator
Provided the development coordinator has a communications medium at least as good as the Internet and knows how to lead without coercion, many heads are inevitably better than one. Eric S. Raymond
Rushing to optimize before
Rushing to optimize before the bottlenecks are known may be the only error to have ruined more designs than feature creep. From tortured code to incomprehensible data layouts, the results of obsessing about speed or memory or disk usage at the expense of transparency and simplicity are everywhere. They spawn innumerable bugs and cost millions … Read more
Equally, the Internet interprets
Equally, the Internet interprets attempts at proprietary control as threats and mobilizes to defeat them. Eric S. Raymond
Free markets select for
Free markets select for winning solutions. Eric S. Raymond