3 ms·

Because it's Fabrice Bellard. Look at his ouerve, he doesn't bother integrating any of his projects into anything else, or put more charitably, dance to the po

Because it's Fabrice Bellard. Look at his ouerve, he doesn't bother integrating any of his projects into anything else, or put more charitably, dance to the politics of other peoples' projects. I don't blame him. Contributing to GNU projects as an outsider is a PITA.

beagle3 14y ago
It's more than that, I think: I've worked with people of his caliber in other fields, and I can appreciate that they need to work at their own pace. e.g., if he submitted QEMU as a patch for bochs, and it was rejected (for whatever reason), does anyone think his time was better spent fixing that patch? He produces ingenious, high quality code, and does so at an unbelievable rate (note, none of his open source projects is related to his day job as far as I can tell - except perhaps the ASN 1 compiler). I think he is arguably optimizing his contribution to society, and I hope he keeps doing that. Let people who can't produce the core do all the integration/politics/detail stuff.
- lazyjones 14y ago
  What does he do for a living? I can't find anything about it on the wikipedia page, his personal page and the blog page about his achievements - strange.
  - kamaal 14y ago
    I think he works for some big corporate. Which one I don't know. I remember reading about it in some HN thread.
    - Jacobi 14y ago
      He works at Netgem a french start-up. It's not really a big corporate.
      - DrCatbox 14y ago
        I know (well at least internet sources told me) he worked for a government agency in France similar to NSA in USA. Probably still is, and netgem is his cover.
        ema 14y ago
        Why would he need to cover up that he is working for a government agency? Considering that you apparently aren't fooled by that cover up, it can't be that much worth anyway.
        cma 14y ago
        The idea is anytime someone is on to him, someone like you will counter-argue, giving him the perfect cover.
  - sounds 14y ago
    Although my information is somewhat dated, he lives and works in Paris for http://www.netgem.com http://www.netgem.com - ffmpeg makes their boxes top-notch. It's worthy of note that his free software makes him plenty of money. It's also no surprise that he doesn't feel the need to write about himself.
    - sandGorgon 14y ago
      Seems that netgem has a history of GPL violations (http://roundup.libav.org/issue678 http://roundup.libav.org/issue678). Not sure what came out of that.
      - btbuilder 14y ago
        Looks like negligence rather than willful violation (last mentioned in 2009)
atopuzov 14y ago
> Contributing to GNU projects as an outsider is a PITA. Finally someone who has the guts to write this!!! So true, so true ...
- chwahoo 14y ago
  Why would a semi-anonymous comment require guts?
  - scarmig 14y ago
    Some people attach epic importance to their karma ratings, and making a comment opens them up the possibility of downvotes? Not that criticizing GNU is at all verboten at HN, though, so your point still stands.

beagle3 14y ago

It's more than that, I think: I've worked with people of his caliber in other fields, and I can appreciate that they need to work at their own pace. e.g., if he submitted QEMU as a patch for bochs, and it was rejected (for whatever reason), does anyone think his time was better spent fixing that patch? He produces ingenious, high quality code, and does so at an unbelievable rate (note, none of his open source projects is related to his day job as far as I can tell - except perhaps the ASN 1 compiler). I think he is arguably optimizing his contribution to society, and I hope he keeps doing that. Let people who can't produce the core do all the integration/politics/detail stuff.

lazyjones 14y ago
What does he do for a living? I can't find anything about it on the wikipedia page, his personal page and the blog page about his achievements - strange.
- kamaal 14y ago
  I think he works for some big corporate. Which one I don't know. I remember reading about it in some HN thread.
  - Jacobi 14y ago
    He works at Netgem a french start-up. It's not really a big corporate.
    - DrCatbox 14y ago
      I know (well at least internet sources told me) he worked for a government agency in France similar to NSA in USA. Probably still is, and netgem is his cover.
      - ema 14y ago
        Why would he need to cover up that he is working for a government agency? Considering that you apparently aren't fooled by that cover up, it can't be that much worth anyway.
        cma 14y ago
        The idea is anytime someone is on to him, someone like you will counter-argue, giving him the perfect cover.
- sounds 14y ago
  Although my information is somewhat dated, he lives and works in Paris for http://www.netgem.com http://www.netgem.com - ffmpeg makes their boxes top-notch. It's worthy of note that his free software makes him plenty of money. It's also no surprise that he doesn't feel the need to write about himself.
  - sandGorgon 14y ago
    Seems that netgem has a history of GPL violations (http://roundup.libav.org/issue678 http://roundup.libav.org/issue678). Not sure what came out of that.
    - btbuilder 14y ago
      Looks like negligence rather than willful violation (last mentioned in 2009)

atopuzov 14y ago

> Contributing to GNU projects as an outsider is a PITA. Finally someone who has the guts to write this!!! So true, so true ...

chwahoo 14y ago
Why would a semi-anonymous comment require guts?
- scarmig 14y ago
  Some people attach epic importance to their karma ratings, and making a comment opens them up the possibility of downvotes? Not that criticizing GNU is at all verboten at HN, though, so your point still stands.