Do what I say

Posted May 3, 2012 18:52 UTC (Thu) by Fats (guest, #14882)
In reply to: The plumbing layer as the new kernel by burki99
Parent article: The plumbing layer as the new kernel

> I couldn't find a single line critical to the way Debian is doing things including the passage "with the arguable exception of Debian, which has always, to some extent, seen itself as being that core"

Although I am mostly an outsider to the systemd vs. the rest discussion I did also feel a pro-systemd stance in the whole article. But maybe that is just because I don't see everybody standardizing on systemd as a next step to Linux world domination.

What I don't understand is the 'do what I say' mentality in the open source world, e.g. we are developing here the next big thing and everybody has to start using it.

To me open source is all about producing code and other people using it because of it's technical merits; not because some people on a mailing list or in some comity decide what other people should use.
Having a few parallel solutions is IMO inherent to the way open source works and I think people who try to force their solution on the rest are wasting their time and probably keeping a few programmers from their important job: writing and improving code.
Sure, converging several solution in one is IMO a good thing (tm) but I think it can only happen if all people involved agree that it is the best solution for them and not some majority deciding for everyone this is the way to go. I just don't think this works for open source.