[fapjacks]

I agree with your third paragraph, but I disagree with the others. But interestingly, where I slightly disagree with your third paragraph, it's because of reasons that essentially boil down to your first two paragraphs (heh). I feel this is sort of related to people that say "If you don't like it, go write your own" which is at this point really not possible with something like the Linux kernel, and so choosing another option just isn't an option, really. But mostly I agree that if you don't like the way the Linux kernel is run, there are other options and after all, nobody said it's a community anybody's forced to be involved in. On top of that it's not an all-or-nothing proposition, either. If your kernel patch gets shot down, it's actually deliberately built to make it very easy to just compile it yourself, with your patch, and then just rebase your patch anytime upstream changes.

But with respect to your first couple of paragraphs, I think it's really a lucky set of circumstances that allow a person to work a job in a workplace that they enjoy, and I will say for the both of us (presuming of course that you feel the same way) that we are very lucky to work in the industry we work in. But I also feel very strongly that jobs are -- for most of the rest of humanity -- something that people do because they have to and not because they particularly enjoy it. There are obviously workplaces with hot forges and I would argue that there are more workplaces with figurative (and literal) hot forges than workplaces without. I worked a job for a number of years which required me to carry (and use) various kinds of machine guns. Now I can't say I didn't enjoy it personally, but it's true that most guys were there because they had few other options. They were working a job with a hot forge because if they didn't, their kids would go hungry. I mean I'm pretty sure there would be no humans working at McDonalds in the Star Trek universe.