[TUHS] What UNIX Artifacts Are Still Missing?

[jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)]

    > From: Larry McVoy

    > an altruistic person trying to make things better.  They aren't all bad.

I would echo that. During my time on the IESG, I'd say the vast majority of
the people in the IETF really did want to make things better for everyone.

Of course, that statement covers a vast range of subtle variations, from
people who had nothing at all to gain personally, and thus really were pushing
what they thought was best; through people who did stand to gain, but truly
thought that what they were advocating was in everyone's interest; etc.

But the people who I felt were deliberately and knowingly putting their own
interests before the community's, i.e. recommending something they knew to be
harmful because it was good for them - they were very rare.

My recollection is now somewhat dim (too much was happening, at too high a
pace) of the details of those later days (well, 'later' only in that they were
considerably later than the very early days :-), but my sense is that people
like that didn't last long in the community; I have the distinct impression
that people figured them out, and as an eventual result, they tended to fade
from the scene. The IETF culture was not welcoming to that kind of thinking.

I dunno, maybe I'm just being naive (and I would certainly welcome correction
if I'm wrong), but that's how I saw it.

   Noel