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I think generally you're right, but the comment you're replying to has something to it as well. If two parties are not "equals" in the arena they are in, thing

I think generally you're right, but the comment you're replying to has something to it as well. If two parties are not "equals" in the arena they are in, things get Complicated. I'm not sure true collaboration is possible in situations where parties are on such uneven footing (and I mean this in the abstract sense as well: I don't think the model you've presented is complete as is does not give you a productive way to structure this kind of relationship). In the situation where Linus is far more qualified, and obviously so, and someone is trying to get him to "approve" a patch, there's no way it's ever really going to be a truly collaborative dynamic. This doesn't mean Linus has to be a dick about it, but it's definitely not collaboration between equals.

ece 8y ago
If you read what Linus said, nowhere did he conflate technical merit with social merit. Your comment very much does this. He specifically said there haven't been pain points around technical issues, but around process issues, which is what he's personally trying to fix. Open source is about the community, and I think Linus figured this out later than most. Sure, you can dump some code out there and maybe even get users, but you won't have built a community that improves software until you've shown people can file bugs reports and patches or otherwise be a part of the community without being personally insulted. This is a pretty low bar tbh.