From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id MAA03491; Mon, 22 Oct 2001 12:16:20 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: (from weis@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id MAA02992 for caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr; Mon, 22 Oct 2001 12:16:19 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id BAA28311 for ; Mon, 22 Oct 2001 01:06:38 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from fichte.ai.univie.ac.at (fichte.ai.univie.ac.at [131.130.174.156]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.11.1/8.10.0) with ESMTP id f9LN6bn06447 for ; Mon, 22 Oct 2001 01:06:37 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (from markus@localhost) by fichte.ai.univie.ac.at (8.9.3/8.9.3/Debian 8.9.3-21) id BAA13187; Mon, 22 Oct 2001 01:06:28 +0200 Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 01:06:28 +0200 From: Markus Mottl To: Brian Rogoff Cc: caml-list@inria.fr Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Whither the Caml Consortium? Message-ID: <20011022010628.C10163@fichte.ai.univie.ac.at> References: <20011020172932.A5967@fichte.ai.univie.ac.at> <20011020174749.E24998-100000@shell5.ba.best.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <20011020174749.E24998-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>; from bpr@best.com on Sat, Oct 20, 2001 at 18:17:36 -0700 Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk On Sat, 20 Oct 2001, Brian Rogoff wrote: > I think altruism and love for OCaml is a lot closer than very specific > selfish reasons. I love OCaml, because it helps me solve my problems much more easily. Does this make my love selfish? ;) > That's still not quite right, maybe idealism and civic virtue come > closer? The older I get the less I am sure what "idealism" is supposed to mean. Especially the last weeks have made me much older. Is it: "Act according to what the majority wants even if this does not correlate with your desires."? Hm, I am not sure whether I can identify with this without restrictions. E.g. when I desperately need better and more ADT-libraries, why should I finance GUI-building tools only because the majority wants them? - A goal conflict... Furthermore, the majority may know what it wants, but it may not know what it needs. It could well be that it also needs better ADT-libraries rather than GUI-building tools, but due to lack of intelligence they choose unwisely. - Bounded rationality... Even if the goals coincided for some miraculous reasons, there could be a lot of dispute concerning the concrete way to reach them. A means conflict... As you see, there could be plenty of causes why a Consortium from which one cannot exit without a complete loss of investment may be a rather unfavourable choice. Which might, again, explain its current state. (Sorry, I am in an illusion-smashing mood today ;) > I'm not convinced that my, or anyone else's, behavior is entirely > rational, or at least that the objective function and even the decision > variables aren't somewhat arbitrary. People act so as to maximize their utility function, whatever this may be: in economics this notion is so general that it can explain any kind of behaviour, which gives it little significance in practice. But restricting its applicability is impossible without making value judgements. > So the model of a corporation as a purely money optimizing entity > is inaccurate. If people were maximizing their monetary assets only, they'd all be starving. Since not all are doing this, only some are. The two groups do not necessarily overlap. > But I'll stop here, this list isn't the place for a discussion of my > world view; if you want that, join the Consortium and I'll send you > a private, copyrighted e-mail :-). No spam, please! ;) > No doubt the process and goals of the Consortium can be tuned. This will have to happen in any case if they want to be more successful. I was actually surprised that there was no invitation for discussion before its foundation. E.g., it seems to me that the fees were set quite arbitrarily. Some initial "market analysis" as to how much how many people would be prepared to donate might have turned out useful to maximize the income of the Consortium. > Thanks for your altruistic work on behalf of OCaml, Markus! This is only a misconception: it's out of purely selfish reasons, sold under the label "altruism"... ;) Regards, Markus -- Markus Mottl markus@oefai.at Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence http://www.oefai.at/~markus ------------------- Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr