Yet another OS ... splits again

Robert S. Thau (rst@ai.mit.edu)
Tue, 1 Sep 1998 10:21:04 -0400 (EDT)


Robert S. Thau writes:

About a week ago, I wrote, regarding Freedows...

> 1) the group is putting a whole lot more effort into devising
> "team structures" and other organizational matters, rather than
> doing the minimum needed to support the core activity of
> writing code. (Projects like this can go places if they have
> a base of solid code to start working on --- but not from
> scratch. The only way an open source project gets off the
> ground is if someone, or at most a very small group, rolls
> up their sleeves and resolves to ignore the politics and
> get something done).

It seems to be rather worse than I thought; look at

http://slashdot.org/features/980831/2231220.shtml

and you'll get some idea of what would happen if the Seinfeld writers
decided to get George, Kramer, and Numan involved in a free software
project. It seems some of the Freedows folks were getting fed up with
the self-appointed leadership and the politicing it engendered, so
they decided to split off their own group, which they have grandly
dubbed "the Alliance", and get down to business. Which appears to
consist of... more politics.

The base note of the above discussion is a long, rambling note from a
spokesman for the splinter group (who appears to believe that he can
make himself sound important by overusing the passive voice).

What I want to know is when they incorporate so they can do the
venture deal with Kramerica Industries...

rst