Re: reiser4 vs politics: linux misses out again

[Hans Reiser <reiser@namesys.com>]

Horst von Brand wrote:

>
>
>  
>
>>                                          It's not always
>>nescesary to let the demand create the means. Give programmers
>>some powerful tools and wait and see what wonderful things start
>>to evolve.
>>    
>>
>
>The sad truth is that if you give a random collection of people powerful
>tools they misuse them more often than not, creating a huge mess in the
>process. That is why it is so hard to design good tools.
>  
>
We are rope makers.  Our job is to make good rope.  If someone might use
it to hang dissidents, that does not mean we should now make the rope
too inflexible to form a noose.  It is important that we know our
place.  Our place is to help users express themselves the way they want
to.  It is not our job to keep them from hanging dissidents.  If they
hang dissidents, we should not change the way we make rope, we should
shoot them.   Most of our users don't hang dissidents, to the contrary,
they do work of value to society, and need their time saved so that they
can do more of it.

The users of reiser4 know a lot more than I do, and are much wiser than
I am.  Because I focus on a narrow little area, I am able to do
something useful to help them express their greater wisdom more
flexibly.  I take pride in that.

The belief expressed above that powerful tools will be misused more than
well used, and the dislike of power for the users it contains, is why we
will never do more than talk past each other.  Perhaps we should just
agree to disagree.

Hans