in reply to On waiting until a world becomes a better place...

Larry could have contributed improvements to sh, or csh or awk or sed or all of them, but instead he created Perl.

Linus could've contributed to BSD or SysV or somesuch, but instead came up with Linux.

And if you're thinking, but they're are special, they weren't until they chose to go their own way.

Autrijus could have settled for developing yet another language for Parrot that will never get beyond the first flush of enthisiasm, but he didn't.

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Re^2: On waiting until a word becomes a better place...
by ambrus (Abbot) on May 06, 2005 at 17:24 UTC
    Linus could've contributed to BSD or SysV or somesuch,

    I don't suppose he could have. The point is, linux was started a few days before BSD became free.

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Re^2: On waiting until a word becomes a better place...
by Eyck (Priest) on May 06, 2005 at 18:08 UTC

    What about Alan Cox, Andrew Morton, Dave Miller and ~400 linux maintainers went on and created their own OS?

    Larry created something that wasn't available before, I don't think it would be that easy to extend bash or ksh to the point where it resembles power of perl (take a look at zsh though, one seriously powerfull shell).

    The point is, the act of re-creating something that already exists and works fine, is rather egoistic. Looking at Linux, the initiator becomes a coordinator, while those crowds of largely nameless programmers do the real heavyweight shifting..

    Sometimes there are projects where one person can create and maintain them, but this requires either very simple projects or very talented authors.

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      Linus didn't just throw out a casual "Hey, let's create a new free unix from scratch." and get 400 people to give up their free time to make it happen. He had to present them with some of his own work first and then attract the 400.

      There are many, many OSS projects that start out as a good idea with a few people collaborating, that die a death because there is no core upon which to collaborate and no single-minded individual with a clear vision of where he wants to get to, driving them.

      Almost anything that is truely innovative has a single person with a vision that starts the ball rolling. And that same person then takes the, often capricious, decisions that prevent it from sprawling in all directions and pettering out into nothingness.

      Dogged, single-minded, cussedness is a trait shared by many people later seen to be visionary. The problem they face, almost universally, is getting their contemporaries to look past their own dogmas with an open mind. And the more authoratative the credentials of their contempraries, the harder that task becomes.

      Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
      Lingua non convalesco, consenesco et abolesco. -- Rule 1 has a caveat! -- Who broke the cabal?
      "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
      The "good enough" maybe good enough for the now, and perfection maybe unobtainable, but that should not preclude us from striving for perfection, when time, circumstance or desire allow.
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        Unfortunately, dogged, single-minded cussedness is trait shared by many people, period. I certainly share it with as many people as possible. :-)
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