[pdkl95]

> wanting to make the same thing

That's not accurate. We want similar things, but there is a large amount of minor variation in the type of problems they are using their computers to solve. Fortunately, the focus on portability and simple, well-defined interface allowed multiple goals to coexist. It's not perfect, but even when variations between UNIX flavors breaks something, it is far easier to track down file-location bugs and text interfaces.

The toxic type of political infighting often (but not always) involves cases where someone decides to skip these traditions; conflict happens when someone tries to "remove old cruft" or "unify the various old methods" without first considering who it will impact. Unfortunately, this has become a common problem in recent years when JWZ's "Cascade of Attention-Deficit Teenagers"[1] started to take over some projects.

[1] https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html