[svlug] celebrities in the Open Source community

[Ian Kluft]

> From: Hans Cathcart <hans at itavera.com>
> >They are nothing alike. Socialism is working for the good of the community
> >because if you don't you go to jail and most likely die.
> 
> Plus, under Socialism our fearless leader Linus wouldn't be making
> $[...]/year(*) at the age of 28!
> 
> (*) The source was the Internet... it must be true.

I don't think it's a good idea to be spreading those numbers around, even
with the caveat that it was a guess from the Net.  Linus is a resident of
our local community so we should do at least a little more to respect info
that's considered private for most people.  Remember, Linus is not a
politician, Hollywood-type celebrity or officer of a publicly-traded company
so his income is nobody else's business.

I've been thinking for a while about this issue of the new "celebrities"
within the Open Source community, especially since we have quite a few of
them here in the local Silicon Valley area and the Bay Area.  Once in a
while I've talked with some of SVLUG's leaders about it.  The idea came
up in March when Linus spoke at SVLUG and, needless to say, anywhere he
was in the room there was a mob surrounding him...

Whether in Linus' case or for any other high-profile contributor to an
Open Source project, it's getting to the point that they can no longer
attend an SVLUG meeting because they don't want so much attention.  Is
the reward for contribution to drive them into hiding?  We should try to
agree on some rules of conduct as a community that will help alleviate
this problem and help our most productive contributors maintain a low(er)
profile if they want to attend a meeting.

Yup, I guess it's another case of the Open Source community needing to
deal with its success.
-- 
Ian Kluft  KO6YQ PP-ASEL                                  Cisco Systems, Inc.
ikluft at cisco.com (work)  ikluft at thunder.sbay.org (home)          San Jose, CA

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