This is huge news...

Story: Eric Raymond to leave OSI presidencyTotal Replies: 3
Author Content
PaulFerris

Feb 01, 2005
10:15 AM EDT
Eric Raymond and Larry Rosen in one fell swoop? Wow.

This is a sad day -- I hope they will be truly more than advisors.

tuxchick

Feb 01, 2005
10:28 AM EDT
The article doesn't give a lot of details, but it sounds like an orderly succession. People get tired and burned out. OSI has always been a committee-type organization, it should do fine. Maybe Eric wants to spend more time with his Aunt Tillie. :)

Tell ya what does scare me- what happens if we ever lose Linus? Kernel development has gotten very well-organized and productive. But Linus is a charismatic tyrant, he makes it all work.
PaulFerris

Feb 01, 2005
11:09 AM EDT
tuxchick: we lose Linus and likely Alan Cox would take over.

Alans' a great guy. Plus, a huge Scooby Do fan.
dinotrac

Feb 01, 2005
11:48 AM EDT
Paul -

Not a moment for cute zingers, but I think you've got it wrong. This is not a sad day at all, it's a great and glorious one.

Sure, it'll take some getting used to. Eric did great work and carried a lot of the water that helped free software float up to its current level.

But a lot of things have changed. I remember the dark old days when you worked for that "other" Linux news site back at the end of the last millenium. I worked for a company that chose not to spend 2-3 weeks ( A reasonable estimate because part of the development was done on a linux skunk works and because the product ran on 3 different UNIX platforms) porting its significant UNIX project to Linux because the numb-nuts in charge were too dumb to do the cost-benefits analysis properly. Instead, they spent well over a year fighting with balky porting tools to bring out a version that could run on NT.

Companies wouldn't do that today. In fact, I'll bet there are many "hidden" Linux ports that exist so that developers can run their own private skunk works boxes on spare machines.

That former employer, BTW, went bankrupt. No wonder.

For all of Eric's ability, it may simply be time for a change, if only to symbolize that Open Source infrastructure is keeping up with the brave new world of open source software.

Linus doesn't do Linux part-time at Transmeta any more, he's a full-time Linuxite at OSDL. Things change. It's good.







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