You use the prestige of the project. Alan Cox didn't invent or design the Linux kernel, but he did add symmetrical multiprocessing capabilities to it, among other things.
Even if you're nowhere near famous... adding a significant feature or improvement to a famous project associates you with it, and thereby enables you to gain from its prestige. You piggyback on the project's fame.
Stallman's work goes well beyond the programs he wrote -- he spends a lot of time working with governments and corporations to help spread the Free Software movement to other parts of the world. If he gets extra credit for GNU programs, I don't think there should be a problem with that... if it weren't for him, there would be no GNU. We'd all be using BSD instead (some of us are anyway).
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Re:the problem with prestige
Posted by: Jem Matzan on June 06, 2004 09:21 AMEven if you're nowhere near famous... adding a significant feature or improvement to a famous project associates you with it, and thereby enables you to gain from its prestige. You piggyback on the project's fame.
Stallman's work goes well beyond the programs he wrote -- he spends a lot of time working with governments and corporations to help spread the Free Software movement to other parts of the world. If he gets extra credit for GNU programs, I don't think there should be a problem with that... if it weren't for him, there would be no GNU. We'd all be using BSD instead (some of us are anyway).
-Jem
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