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The next time you hear someone make an argument against remote work, remind them of what has been achieved in the last 30 years by the Linux kernel developers w

The next time you hear someone make an argument against remote work, remind them of what has been achieved in the last 30 years by the Linux kernel developers working across so many different countries and time zones.

readams 5y ago
Just imagine how much easier it would have been if they were all in the same place.
- GoOnThenDoTell 5y ago
  The core devs meet up all the time at conferences
wheels 5y ago
So, I like working remotely, but there are many fallacies in your statement: Distributed open source projects are obviously an example of survivorship bias: the people who thrive in them are those that work well in a distributed environment. Contributors are also usually self-motived (again, by survivorship) in a way that one wouldn't expect of rank-and-file office workers. Also, the existence of a thing doesn't show that its genesis was an optimal path to its current state. Additionally, large open source projects are not necessarily good at converging upon a particular goal. They do well when the goals of many individuals or small groups aggregate well. It would be very difficult to convince all of the kernel team to, e.g. optimize for mobile performance for the next two years. Nobody contests that large things can be done by distributed teams. Usually there's contention that a particular set of employees, that work on a particular set of projects / goals can be transitioned to working that way.
- u801e 5y ago
  > Distributed open source projects are obviously an example of survivorship bias: the people who thrive in them are those that work well in a distributed environment. Contributors are also usually self-motived (again, by survivorship) in a way that one wouldn't expect of rank-and-file office workers. Couldn't the same argument be made for those who thrive in an office environment and need to be around other people to work effectively as well as those who are not self-motivated? I guess it really depends on what the majority prefers from a worker/contributor point of view.
whazor 5y ago
Interesting enough, the Linux kernel as a whole is growing exponentially in size but this is mainly because of new drivers being added and maintained. The base code has a linear growth. The interfaces allow driver developers to work on the kernel asynchronously, and are I think the key.

readams 5y ago

Just imagine how much easier it would have been if they were all in the same place.

GoOnThenDoTell 5y ago
The core devs meet up all the time at conferences

wheels 5y ago

So, I like working remotely, but there are many fallacies in your statement: Distributed open source projects are obviously an example of survivorship bias: the people who thrive in them are those that work well in a distributed environment. Contributors are also usually self-motived (again, by survivorship) in a way that one wouldn't expect of rank-and-file office workers. Also, the existence of a thing doesn't show that its genesis was an optimal path to its current state. Additionally, large open source projects are not necessarily good at converging upon a particular goal. They do well when the goals of many individuals or small groups aggregate well. It would be very difficult to convince all of the kernel team to, e.g. optimize for mobile performance for the next two years. Nobody contests that large things can be done by distributed teams. Usually there's contention that a particular set of employees, that work on a particular set of projects / goals can be transitioned to working that way.

u801e 5y ago
> Distributed open source projects are obviously an example of survivorship bias: the people who thrive in them are those that work well in a distributed environment. Contributors are also usually self-motived (again, by survivorship) in a way that one wouldn't expect of rank-and-file office workers. Couldn't the same argument be made for those who thrive in an office environment and need to be around other people to work effectively as well as those who are not self-motivated? I guess it really depends on what the majority prefers from a worker/contributor point of view.

whazor 5y ago

Interesting enough, the Linux kernel as a whole is growing exponentially in size but this is mainly because of new drivers being added and maintained. The base code has a linear growth. The interfaces allow driver developers to work on the kernel asynchronously, and are I think the key.