Re: [OFFTOPIC] RMS and reactions to him

Larry McVoy
2003-01-18T00:48:01Z

> I'm glad you appreciate our work, but if you call the system "Linux",
> you lead other people to suppose it was done by Linus. If you call
> it "GNU/Linux" you will teach other people to appreciate our work too.

Richard, you are failing leadership 101. The hallmark of any and every
leader is letting others take credit for your work. Haven't you ever
heard "make them think it was their idea"? Every engineer who grows
into a leader learns that while he or she may have (or thinks they have)
more foresight, vision, talent, whatever than their team members, the
trick to successful leadership is to let the other people think they
are the leaders. That is how you create people who will carry on your
vision.

Doing what you are doing is going to make you universally disliked and
even if you win the battle, you will lose the war. The second you stop
pushing, everyone will turn against you and do something else. They'll do
the opposite of what you want simply because they resent what you are
doing: telling them that you know best, their opinion doesn't matter,
you're right, they are wrong.

That's not leadership. That's browbeating and I know of no example of
that style of affecting change succeeding.

It's worth pointing out that Linus frequently states that other's work
is more important than his, that he is just a small part of this effort,
there is no way he could do it by himself, etc. Contrast that with your
words. Then contrast the number of people following you vs. the number
following him. There has to be at least 3 orders of magnitude difference,
he's doing something right and you are doing something wrong. Shouting
incessently isn't going to help your cause, you lose followers every time
you open your mouth.
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Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitmover.com/lm