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Michael Tiemann - Subject: Torvald's is not the guy to follow here... ( Feb 25, 2008, 19:26:09 )
As I wrote in my comments on Shankland's article: Ayn Rand's "The Virtual of Selfishness" teaches (incorrectly in my opinion) that the best decision anyone can make is the decision to serve oneself--first, last, and always. Amartya Sen's Nobel Prize in economics shows that selfishness is not always the best motivator nor the best driver of outcomes. And how is it that Linus Torvalds, founder of one of the most successful software projects that happens to be freely shared, is expressing his selfishness? By thinking only of himself, and being happy that Microsoft's position puts *him* in the clear. But this is historically consistent with Torvald's behavior: he is not hoarder--he does not attempt to build his own stocks by depriving others of theirs, nor does he prevent others from growing their stocks who would like to do so by sharing the work he's done. Those behaviors represent a different kind of selfishness--meanness. In my opinion, anything that Microsoft does that falls short of the published open source minimums is...sub-minimal. Torvalds is happy because his standards are lower--he cares more about himself than his community. But other people have higher standards--we also care about the community at least as much as we care for ourselves. And Micrsoft has done nothing for the open source community that includes those who make their living by developing, distributing, and supporting open source software. More at http://opensource.org/node/257
