This whole discussion brings to mind Eric Raymond's three essays;
later an iconic 1999 book: "The Cathedral and the Bazaar".
They discuss software development, culture and control, and business models
between open-source and closed-source models.

A decent synopsis of them can be found here:
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__informatics.bmj.com_content_23_2_488&d=DwID-g&c=gRgGjJ3BkIsb5y6s49QqsA&r=gd8BzeSQcySVxr0gDWSEbN-P-pgDXkdyCtaMqdCgPPdW1cyL5RIpaIYrCn8C5x2A&m=kTytgzKkdHhIqdndyIcBX0DwNa_qVjjolf67ZOV5G10&s=oyQdXE2psOUlCUbuAYDOan3V_Lie-oK7KsICGigaoDo&e= 

They bear revisiting, I think.



Teh, Kenneth M. wrote on 12/17/20 10:14 AM:
> Hear hear!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* [log in to unmask] 
> <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Lamar Owen 
> <[log in to unmask]>
> *Sent:* Thursday, December 17, 2020 10:04 AM
> *To:* scientific-linux-users <[log in to unmask]>
> *Subject:* Re: Update from Rocky EL
> On 12/16/20 9:55 PM, Yasha Karant wrote:
>> ... The question I raised still needs to be addressed:  will Rocky EL 
>> be done by paid professionals (as with SL or Springdale Princeton EL) 
>> or will it be done by volunteers, some (many) of whom are "amateurs"?  
>> I am very concerned about the use in a production professional 
>> environment of an "amateur" port of RHEL.  ...
> Conflating "amateur" with a lack of quality and "professional" with high
> quality and guaranteed support is provably fallacious.
> 
> One of the very first RHEL rebuilds, White Box Enterprise Linux, was, to
> use your notation, a "professional" production, sponsored by and for the
> Beauregard Parish Public Library in DeRidder, Louisiana (read "County"
> where they write "Parish," it's a Louisiana thing); see
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__distrowatch.com_-3Fnewsid-3D01205&d=DwIFAw&c=gRgGjJ3BkIsb5y6s49QqsA&r=gd8BzeSQcySVxr0gDWSEbN-P-pgDXkdyCtaMqdCgPPdW1cyL5RIpaIYrCn8C5x2A&m=JTBeF2QPN2-NB4l7sB0VdZhNuE_mxophQaMcRPYwn5E&s=se-D6Q6pwAPkByDwIbTumyo9JAE46Eo5L8V6yTTzYvY&e= 
> 
> 
> But being "professional" didn't guarantee success; the last release was
> in 2007.  The "amateur" CentOS ended up with far better support with
> mostly volunteers.  I have liked and respected the Scientific Linux
> developers and their attitude for quite some time, but it honestly
> wasn't a surprise to me when it was announced that there would be no
> SL8.  The SL community seems to expect long-term support for any
> arbitrary point release; that is really unsustainable with a small staff
> and budget.
> 
> "Amateurs" can afford to dedicate more time in some cases than
> "professionals;" in my own field at $dayjob the whole science of radio
> astronomy owes its very existence to a talented and persistent amateur
> by the name of Grote Reber.  Sure, Jansky made the initial discovery
> while on Bell Labs' payroll (as a "professional" he had to follow his
> employer's money and go to the next project); Reber did the legwork and
> got others interested, paving the way for "professional" radio astronomers.
> 
> In another major area of physics, thermodynamics, medical doctor Julius
> von Mayer was overshadowed by James Joule; it didn't help that von Mayer
> was a medical doctor, not a "professional" physicist. (a good overview
> of that history:
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_Mechanical-5Fequivalent-5Fof-5Fheat-23Priority&d=DwIFAw&c=gRgGjJ3BkIsb5y6s49QqsA&r=gd8BzeSQcySVxr0gDWSEbN-P-pgDXkdyCtaMqdCgPPdW1cyL5RIpaIYrCn8C5x2A&m=JTBeF2QPN2-NB4l7sB0VdZhNuE_mxophQaMcRPYwn5E&s=p0ZIGrcPxwlbndK4YUIC_ynHLup-BPnuyhqss6Ez9pY&e= 
> ).
> 
> In computer science (using the non-ACM generalized definition of that
> term), well, all I need to say is "Linus Torvalds."  The very kernel you
> run was an "amateur" creation, and for a number of years had no
> "professional" support.  Likewise, the Debian distribution was started
> by "amateurs" and still has many "amateur" contributors; Ubuntu, a
> supposedly "professionally"-supported distribution bases its work on the
> "amateur" Debian; a chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and if
> any part of even a "professional" distribution is supported by
> "amateurs" ... "professional" Linux distribution support is a house of
> cards built on an "amateur" foundation.  It reminds me of the reasoning
> in Ken Thompson's Turing Award acceptance lecture "Reflections on
> Trusting Trust" (
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.cs.cmu.edu_-7Erdriley_487_papers_Thompson-5F1984-5FReflectionsonTrustingTrust.pdf&d=DwIFAw&c=gRgGjJ3BkIsb5y6s49QqsA&r=gd8BzeSQcySVxr0gDWSEbN-P-pgDXkdyCtaMqdCgPPdW1cyL5RIpaIYrCn8C5x2A&m=JTBeF2QPN2-NB4l7sB0VdZhNuE_mxophQaMcRPYwn5E&s=-rEo5cSVS2fhIGxF42uFd_CWmc6DGwZNL3uLrDtYeL4&e= 
> 
> ).
> 
> One problem with relying on "professional" staff is that the entity
> paying that staff has direct oversight into how much time they spend on
> those problems; the funding entity's goals and any particular end user's
> goals may differ dramatically, and the goals of the funder will trump
> the goals of the user.  A second problem is that the same "professional"
> staff can be hired away by another company.  A third problem is that
> "professionals" expect to be paid; where does the salary come from?  The
> fourth problem is since there is very likely to be fewer "professional"
> staff supporting a revenue-negative project, each "professional" becomes
> extremely important or maybe even indispensible, and the project might
> have a hard time surviving a "bus incident" or even a major hurricane.
> I've witnessed all four of these issues first-hand  RIP Seth.
> 
> The problem with "amateurs" is that they can quite literally walk away
> without it negatively impacting their livelihood, and they're going to
> work on what interests them, whether it interests the end-user or not.
> I've witnessed "amateurs" walk away, try to delete everything they ever
> contributed, and get mad when folks wouldn't forget what had been said.
> At least with "amateurs" you can afford more of them, and have backups
> for when people do leave.
> 
> As far as Rocky Linux is concerned, there is a middle ground where you
> might have some paid developers and some volunteers; nothing wrong with
> diversity here.  I would expect that, just like the Linux kernel itself,
> that we'll see a mixture of paid developers and volunteers for Rocky Linux.


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