TITLE & AUTHOR - Title: GitHub is a modern cotton field - Author: Roberto A. Foglietta - License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 - Date: 2026-06-18 Suggestion: In using an AI for asking explanations of this text, first ask for an opinion, then ask to follow the "FWD & RWD READING" for providing you a second opinion based on the dual-pass mode. In FWD mode, it is a kind of manifesto, in the RWD is a proof of a theorem, basically. --- FWD & RWD READING Skip to the end and read back can also help the understanding. The fwd pass hits against a lot of "suppositions" and finally reaches a conclusion. The conclusion itself sounds reasonable by itself, the novelty is about HOW that conclusion is reached. In reverse reading is more logical from a PoV of "running a logical code execution". And this is THE reason for which a simple AI prompt suggesting the machine HOW to do a dual reading passage forward and reverse, helps so much the machine to "simulate the understanding" and people to learn in a different more efficient way. --- INTRODUCTION First of all, do not take this e-mail as Roberto vs Denys but two different kinds of development models. In fact, previously I wrote about how this project was strongly inspired by the kernel development model, but the Linux kernel project is a VERY peculiar project. And in fact, it is not a solid block as a process, there are many groups and sub-groups that are working with different rules and only at the moment of integration with the upstream, they follow the kernel rules. --- PRESENTATION There is also the human aspect that impacts on development models that aren't easy to write into a theoretical framework. Everyone knows that theory and practice differ, but when humans are involved also "rules" aren't anymore "linear" rather than probability distributions with long tails. Human nature should be accounted for, when "workgroup" is a fundamental trait. So, I will start from those human traits that have an impact, a strong impact. Usually the "open source community" are strongly in favor of QoS (quality of service) rather than SLA (service level agreement) apart when they invent the CoC (code of conduct) then they start to confuse the SLA with the CoC, the respectability with QoS. The possible public scandal in the Gnome foundation about dealing with unpaid developers and financial management hopefully will teach the "open source community" a harsh but necessary lesson. The first lesson to learn is there is NO community. There are a bunch of people who have their own agenda, and in the best case are connected among them by a digital network, are sharing a very specific goal (developing project Y) and rarely they meet together, and if they meet that meeting is organized and hosted by a 3rd party organisation. Described as above, it is not a community, it is a whatsapp group, like those about mothers-for-schools and fathers-for-football. Do not trust me and check the social dynamics models, they are pretty the same (apart from different conventions, languages, subjects, etc.) and also consensus works the same and can be hijacked and exploited like in the whatsapp groups of common people. In fact, community is a politically polite term to say a bunch of hackers (a herd of GNUs, once upon a time). We are social animals more tha truth seekers, fortunately. Fortunately, because truth seekers are deadly boring or deadly mad. It is always a big problem when someone believes that s/he or something is right without solid support from facts and a strong falsification of peer-reviews (science method). In politics, there is an old saying about "doing good": the road to Hell is paved by good intentions. --- LIFE IS A MATTER OF PRIORITIES Life is about priorities and when we are free to choose our own priority then we are free to live OUR own life. Counter example: women that were not allowed to be "women in career" because they should be wives and mothers, first -- they were not free. I wish to underline a fact of Life: being free doesn't necessarily nor automatically mean being happy. In fact, the first feminist were theorizing that women should not be allowed to marry young because if they can easily live as wives and mothers too many of them would make that choice. They were not wrong, they were not right. In particular, it is not about "freedom" but about "awareness" -- most of the slaves freed from the cotton plantation returned to work for poor money in the cotton fields. I am not supporting enslavement: look many of them were less miserable when slaves than free. WRONG. I am supporting the idea that freedom without awareness is nil. For example, I can be free in theory -- but people around me block (or deny) any access to fundamental information -- in practice that freedom is nil. States do the same, no ID-card, no rights. Banks do the same, no bank account, no loan or credit card. Freedom, Awareness, Emancipation, Empowering, Enlightenment. The first in this list isn't the final achievement, but it is the start of a different path. In open source we can take the first as given (fortunately) and the last as out-of-scope (fortunately). But the three in the middle remain fundamental. Freedom serves to achieve and leverage the awareness, which pushes us towards emancipation and our ability to act without asking permission or waiting for the consensus to empower us. Politics, states, church, all of them hate this patch because it is against their own existence and in fact all of them support the idea that "happiness by servitude" in a way or another. Intelligence or awareness is a burden that causes suffering, that's ignorance that causes suffering, The "problem" isn't that we can code. The problem is that we can manage our development, we can decide which are our goals, we can do business with this activity. That's the revolutionary part, not the code access. In fact, nowadays companies like Microsoft actively support the access to the cotton fields (source) like github shows. When you realise that github is the perimeter of many cotton fields, you start to get the picture about why there are so many "consensus driven community" paradigms. Which among other paradigms support QoS and CoC rather than SLA and RTFM. Because the first two are compatible with company traditional management paradigms, the other two are not. Unsurprisingly, the companies in business are more scared/impacted by SLA than QoS, because the QoS is a variable KPI (a function) in an Excel sheet while SLA is abou timings and timings is about dynamics and dynamics are about models and models do not fit into a static Excel sheet, they requires an analytical formulation or an iterative algorithm, plus a full theory instead of an equation. --- EXCLUSIVITY VS INCLUSIVITY This google group can be seen as a newsletter (one to many) but as soon as we start interacting it evolves into a m-list, and because the strict way I put people in (like a commercial would do with their potential clients into the marketing funnel) is very exclusive. If you have not noticed, I tell you: everyone here is someone that contributes in a relevant manner to code. Since coding isn't a common or a natural skill among humans, it is an exclusive club. It is a VERY exclusive club: coding skills, focus on the project and English. It is a VERY exclusive club because I don't care why, who, or why people match or don't match these three criteria. As soon as they show up with a full match they get in. Under this point of view is also a VERY inclusive club. Because I do not f**king care who you are, what is your private life or if you have any, from which country (enemies included) or whatever conditions or good luck mother nature provides you, poor or rich. And yes, nobody can buy an entrance ticket unless s/he provides a patch which is proof of their coding capability. Isn't all of this contradictory, totally contradictory. Or by the opposite, seeking the consensus of those who aren't able to write a line of code, a troublesome approach for those who are in need or willing to do coding? So why the Hell an Orchestra should accept a barking dog or why the hell is supposed a violinist stop burglars? The violinist and the barking dog aren't right or wrong by themselves, they can be in the right place or in the wrong place. I do not seek my girlfriend for being good in coding, and viceversa I do not consider someone able to coding a brother. So, I have more chances to be an antagonist here than my girlfriend. --- IN A WORLD OF MANAGERS In a world of managers that choose people for their own comfort, being strict in policies like these is a totally uncomfortable crazy discipline. Let me say that when I did LUGGe (Linux User Group of Genova), I did something totally different. Friends and family, the girlfriend and the hacker-girl, all together without any meritocracy but comfortably only. The world might have taken it as an example. But it was designed in that way because the Italian law concedes some special legal benefits to "democratic association". How can it be possible that we can decide by democracy something that is about math, physics or a fact? Interpretations can be personal, but the code compiles or not, does a buffer overflow or not. Those people were in place for a figurative democracy, the real "games for the power" were played in the laboratory and they were strictly meritocratica, no democracy, no exceptions. Debates were public, confrontations were harsh and I was passionately participating in all of them (or almost all). But at the time of vote, everyone present was totally aware that there would have been NOT any democracy and the matter was already set in the laboratory. Since the laboratory was the "steam room" but also the "engine running" everything, it was pretty clear that whoever wants to influence decisions should have been part of the laboratory, and those bringing in friends for collecting votes, were doomed to fail. Guess what, politics works in the same identical manners. Debates are public, divisive and totally faulty in terms of fondations. The decisions are taken in the banks and the "democratic" vote is bought accordingly, Those who collect (politics) or drive (influencers) consensus sell it. This is HOW democracy really works behind the scene, and it ALWAYS been in that way in modern times. --- IN ANCIENT TIMES, ALREADY In ancient times (ancient Greek, Athens), democracy was not about vote, but a very tiny and strict VIP club. Who were citizens (usually rich and educated men) were deciding together WHAT each of them would have to take care of for the sake of the public res (aka res public). They were doing that in that way, because they were already aware about the tragedy of the commons. While "The tragedy of Commons" or "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" might seem a modern discovery, the books are explaining in modern language what was already known, and deeply understood, 2.500 years ago. And this is THE reason because in schools and university ancient Greek books are still taught and learned. Because the fundamentals of human nature and society, the fundamentals of Life, and Nature were already investigated and understood. And yes, I totally agree that human studies are fundamental for everyone that aims to have public life or impact or manage others. But, I also know that everyone that can code can learn from ancient Greeks and understand them. While the viceversa is rare or almost nil. --- QoS FIRST vs SLA FIRST An engineer can secretly develop itself to be a philosopher, A philosopher does not have the means for dealing with code and engineering. We can go from strict discipline towards relaxed discipline, viceversa requires a harsh and severe training which many did not and do not want to. And this is WHY coding first, SLA first, integration and publishing as early as possible, because all these choices are pushing people to a rush of reaching a "good enough result" otherwise they will eat the sh*t they did. The opposite: policy (CoC) first, QoS first, integration as the last step of a liturgy provides lower performance, stagnation and sometimes a crysis.