Re: Minutes of the GNOME Board meeting February 12 2002

[Richard Stallman <rms gnu org>]

    >     And as the free software
    >     saying goes, a itch that don't itch a developer, doesn't get scratched.
    > 
    > That was said by Eric Raymond who belongs to another movement, and it
    > reflects the spirit of that movement.

    Perhaps, but it's more likely to reflect human nature than any specific
    group or movement.

If you expect programmers to work only on what they personally need,
you'd expect experienced programmers to volunteer only for projects
that are useful for experienced programmers.  But in the GNU Project
we recruited hundreds of experienced programmers to work on a
collection of packages that are mainly aimed at beginning computer
users.  (It's called GNOME.)

So be careful of simplistic models of human nature.  Human nature is
very flexible, and very malliable.  Every person is capable of
selfishness, and every person is capable of working to help others,
but how much we do of each one is partly influenced by the ideas that
we learn.