I'm dead center of a user that Linux should be able to make happy, and they keep missing the boat.
-TaoPhoenix
And therein lies the problem. There is no single "Linux." And the "they" who are involved in it's development are both numerous and divergent in their goals. And not everybody playing the game is interested in playing fairly. Or even rationally. These are points de Icaza discusses in his blog post.
From my perspective it's amazing that the bloody thing boots at all. Especially when you consider how the GNU/Linux open development model is probably one of the least efficient methods (except for a few rare Cinderella stories) of software development out there.
Remove financial incentives from the mix and you need to expect seeing developers insisting on their own agendas and priorities. "Free" in the F/OSS world is often explained as "Free as in speech." I think a better characterization is more along the lines of "You don't
pay me - and you're
not my boss. So don't tell
me what to do!"
Ain't nobody in the world so "free" as the person who makes the time to
do something and not need to get
paid for doing it.
