On Sun, Feb 2, 2020 at 8:58 PM Pwillis <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Yeah, I know.
> I make it seem more grave than it is maybe.
>
> Having used Linux since 1995-ish I have seen it progress from relative obscurity into the mainstream.
> In retrospect, it would seem there has been a lot of duplication of effort.
> I guess maybe that’s just the ‘ecosystem’ of choice.

Back before Eric S. Raymond started getting into some very strange
gender politics, he published an essay in 1997 titled "The Cathedral
and the Bazaar"., described part of the problem. A "cathedral" avoids
duplication of effort, but is vulnerable to getting trapped into
calcified patterns of development. The "bazear" is much more dynamic,
but can lead to incredible amounts of overlapping work. There are
balances to be struck between them, and business models predicated on
them.