EU software patent law faces axe 791

I don't disagree that is what open source is in general! The naked facts are that there are a very few people who have organized themselves into a project devekopment team of sorts and they converse via e-mail and check in code and buttign things to one another. Then there is a large group of people who consume their output and congratulate themselves on their ability to avoid paying Microsoft or any other commercial company for the equivalent functionality. They maintain that their way produces superior product because this consumptive element is so hard to please and therefore can more effectively find defects and thus shorten the repair cycle.

The consumers call this "altruistic", even for their own part, and have convinced themselves that the process is natural, viable, and will certainly replicate itself in the future.

This situation was, for a long time, just a curiosity, but now it has become a diversion within the software industry and needs a more practical analysis. Can this process really succeed? Is it likely to do more harm to the system than good? How can the process be optimized? How do we ever know where we are going?

Well it's not a shameful thing, is it? If you know of someone who is doing something for real, why not say so?

This is a topic that needs some expansion, I believe, and maybe a separate thread is needed. But I'll ask the question as to why there are so many "distributions" of what is supposed to be the same thing. It seems to me that there is the linux core, a couple of front-runner GUIs (Gnome and KDE), the goat boy's utilities, and a laundry list of the current 0.x.x.x releases of hundreds of freeware apps that come with the package. What distinguishes one distribution from another and why?

You don't have to contribute, certainly. There is no way to force that to happen. Under the philosophy, though, if you do use it, you are under a moral obligation to help out and if you have something that makes it better, even if it is your own personal use, the spirit says you have to cough it up.

It certainly makes you unnecessary. The process will sink or swim regardless of your "participation".

I don't think that is the case at all. Commercial companies who have worked to distribute linux, notably Red Hat, SUSE, and Mandrake, have had a terrible time making any money out of their efforts. These companies have had to hire thousands of people to help with the distribution and promotion and even with a lot of the development. Overall, they are still way below any break-even point in terms of overall cash flow and there is nothing in Linus' background to suggest that he knows a fig about business theory or has any entrepreneurial talents.

He would have been much more effective if he had gone to work for Microsoft and had the power of the Borg propelling his contributions to the world. He could join the ranks of the others who have done so:

Like Shaquel O'Neal, you can't win the NBA breastle playing for the Magic, you have to move to the Lakers.