[DotGNU]Re: [Mono-list] Mono/dotGNU Love-In Proposals

[Garrett Rooney]

On Thu, Aug 16, 2001 at 02:47:58PM +0100, Simon Cozens wrote:

> I thought the idea was to come up with an open source C# library.
> 
> See, you're assuming the duplicated effort is by definition Bad, and
> therefore we shouldn't do it. This is, unfortunately, a flawed argument,
> because the assumption isn't provable; it's especially flawed given that
> we have two open source projects that can freely borrow from each other,
> assuming pride doesn't get in the way. What you call duplication of
> effort, I call diversity: it's why we've got more than one editor, more
> than one Unix kernel, more than one mail user agent, more than one mail
> transfer agent. Diversity is our strength. Think about it.
> 
> Competition is *useful*. A lack of competition in the software world
> leads to... well, you know full well what it leads to.

this sums up my opinions perfectly.  perhaps these projects will produce code
that they each can use, and perhaps they will each evolve separately into
useful tools that will compete with each other somewhat.  neither of these
things are bad, and either way, we will end up with better tools.

i just think rather than discussing to death the best way to 'avoid
duplication of effort' we should let people work on the projects they wish to
work on, and do so in the manner which they wish.  i'm not saying discussion
of technical similarities and approaches to problems is bad, but if we
immediately assume that the only way to do things is to assimilate everything
into one overarching project, that isn't going to do much other than start
arguments.  imho of course.

-- 
garrett rooney                     Unix was not designed to stop you from 
rooneg@electricjellyfish.net       doing stupid things, because that would  
http://electricjellyfish.net/      stop you from doing clever things.