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by rjzzleep 4498 days ago
i've been more and more inclined to write about engineering management myself.

if you think about this post, it's is essentially how big open source software projects work.

some open source projects have the responsibility to read commit logs once you gain commit access. that way the more you get involved into the project the more your responsibility to review your peers grows.

other projects like linux have people that are responsible for certain subsystems. oftentimes a BDFL can veto commits if he chooses to, but seldom does this ever happen, because he didn't like someone.

the thing strikes me as so interesting, because here you have hundreds, sometimes thousands of people working on high quality software together in a completely distributed, but not independent fashion, sometimes with people that can't even stand one another.

what you're describing here is very similar to this.

on the other hand we have big organizations explaining their hiring techniques, some only want people with a positive attitude, only a certain development methodology, and whatnot.

1 comments

You are forgetting that open source projects don't have deadlines, pissed customers that might go elsewhere, people that get fired by not fulfilling the quarter targets, ...
i'm not so sure that's true. if you fail to deliver in time your open source project will become vaporware and people including developers will go elsewhere for satisfaction
Partly true, as usually there are no monetary consequences.
That's pretty much not true of any widely-used open source project. They have deadlines and pissed off companies that take their money elsewhere.
They most certainly have pissed customers that might go elsewhere, and they often do have deadlines.