[conspire] Speculation on derivatives won't save your freedom (was: ...Flattr...)

[Nick Moffitt]

Don Marti:
> begin Nick Moffitt quotation of Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 04:39:05PM +0000:
> > Oh, I'm sure the distribution that operated it would smile
> > beatifically and hold its hands in the air and say "but all we do is
> > bring people together!" while speculators hyped up the importance of
> > irrelevant bugs they knew a special fix for.  Consider the security
> > fix where a coder waits for lucrative hysteria to build before
> > releasing the patch!
> 
> How often could you do that before losing users or kicking off a fork?
> A pure speculator might hype an insignificant or invalid bug, but a
> maintainer with time invested in learning the software would be
> unlikely to reduce the future market by pulling stunts.

If it's a big-name distro?  Rather a long time, I'd say.  That said,
this kind of dynamic could accelerate the nerdrage disillusionment with
any successful distribution, pushing masses of unprepared novices toward
obscure blink-and-you-miss-them white-box projects.

What's more, you're taking the answer to "why is my work-stopping
critical bug not fixed?" from "because we actually have more critical
bugs in the works that we feel are more likely to yield fixes" to
"because it is NOT WHAT THE MARKET WILL BEAR".  Party time in alienation
city!

-- 
"Forget the damned motor car
and build cities for lovers and friends."
       -- Lewis Mumford