Dave McGuire <mcguire@neurotica.com> writes:
>   My entire company depends on NetBSD/sparc and NetBSD/alpha.  A total of
> over one hundred machines, nearly all mission-critical.  A while back, following
> the resignation of yet another member of 'core', two people walked up to me
> and asked if we ought to consider moving away from NetBSD...because, as one of
> them put it, "well, their leaders are..."

FWIW, I personally think that that characterization is utter rubbish,
for a couple of reasons:

(1) show me a person who's interests don't change over time, and i'll
show you a corpse.  8-) How many people have the energy to contribute
to a volunteer organization like NetBSD for any long period of time?
How many of them have the ability or the energy (i'll take either; i
don't know that i've seen many people with both 8-) to contribute in a
leadership role with significant time demands for a long period of
time?  The point is, turnover is _expected_, and actually, i'd say
desirable.

(2) core members in general haven't 'moved away' from NetBSD, even
when they stop being in core.  With two exceptions (one of whom we
kicked out for bloody good reason 8-) _all_ of them are still involved
in some way in the project.  (The other had to cut involvement to
nothing due to work and family pressures.)  That involvement may be
limited to keeping an eye on the mailing lists and helping out when
necessary, appropriate, but even that level of distance is rare.


In a nutshell, being part forward-moving part of the leadership of an
all-volunteer technical project is a time-consuming, effort-consuming
task that is inherently draining to all but the very, very rarest of
people.  I'm actually surprised that some current and former core
members have stood the challenge as long as they have (or had 8-)...



cgd
-- 
Chris Demetriou - cgd@netbsd.org - http://www.netbsd.org/People/Pages/cgd.html
Disclaimer: Not speaking for NetBSD, just expressing my own opinion.