Benevolent Dictatorship

[Kragen]

On Fri, 20 Mar 1998, Lyn A Headley wrote:
>     Kragen> I suggest another way: a sort of economy, like Linux.
> 
> This is a pretty pragmatic approach, and it leads to a proliferation
> of code, which is pretty cool, but it sure as hell doesn't lead to an
> elegant system.  Rather, it leads to something about as elegant as
> Linux.  I think it's critical that we *do not* start writing code yet.
> I mean, we can't just start hacking pieces of a system without
> thinking of the system as a whole.  We must decide *what* we want to
> build before we start building it.  

Well, this is a good thing to some point.  But we should pay attention
to the schedule that was planned for the GNU Hurd and the schedule that
was actually implemented for it, and take a lesson from that.

I suspect, though, that you have more large-system experience than I
do.  Perhaps you are familiar with ways to prevent this from
happening.

Kragen