[Gnu-arch-users] [OT] Feeling good about project leadership

[Parker, Ron]

I've been known for left-handed complements, so take this in the right tone
and realize I really mean this in a positive way.

It's been my observation that successful projects and movements are lead by
a certain type of person.  Take the following as examples.

Projects:
        Linux           lead by Linus Torvalds
        Cygwin  lead by Chris Faylor (and previously Geoff Naur)

Movements:
        GNU             lead by Richard Stallman
        Microsoft       lead by Bill Gates

All of these men share a number of traits.  Most are extremely intelligent,
idealistic, driven by a vision, guard their project like a lion, don't care
what anyone else thinks of them, can be hard to work with,
unintentionally(?) make others feel stupid or like their ideas aren't worth
much from time to time, have to be proven wrong, and still lead large and
difficult projects in spite of everything.

At Butler, I have worked on a project that has been very successful for over
10 years now.  A long time ago they recognized one of the developers as a
leader and he is left to his own devises as long as the project meets its
goals.  He, too, has pretty much the same traits as seen above and can
really frustrate his coworkers to death.  But the project has continued to
succeed because he has been working on it, guiding its development from the
start.

While these are certainly not the traits one would expect to seek out in a
project leader, they seem to be the ones that have proved themselves time
and again.

Given this I feel very good about the chances of arch's long-term success.
I'm not stroking Tom, obviously, because he doesn't need it.  But when you
get a little irritated with him remember, he is just like a lot of the other
"great ones".  Given that, I expect tla or his next great version of arch to
come out on top of the heap of source control projects when the dust
settles.  Sure everyone won't always agree with him and we will probably all
get our toes stepped on now and then, but he will get the job done.

While your at it, look at some of the other SCM projects out their and ask
yourself if they are lead by the same type of man that has caused these
other projects to succeed.  Then pick a horse and back it.  I'm picking tla.

-- 
Ron 'the PITN' Parker