Debian: contempt for "end user" values has to stop!"

[marc]

Derek Broughton wrote:

> Amedee @ Ubuntu wrote:
>
>> 
>> On Thu, August 20, 2009 15:02, Derek Broughton wrote:
>> 
>>> Linux is evolutionary.  Evolution _is_ a bunch of "second-rate coders
>>> patching up every little personal gripe."
>>>
>>> A local church had a sign out front that said "If evolution were real,
>>> mothers would come with three arms".  I claim that, if anything, that was
>>> proof of evolution, because clearly, once again, evolution got it wrong.
>>> God would have got it right.
>>>
>>> Just like evolution, code (often bad) gets added, pruned and modified all
>>> the time.  The end result improves, but the methods of getting there are
>>> seldom optimal.
>> 
>> 
>> Ouch.
>> Being trained as a biology teacher (but not working in education), this
>> really hurt my eyes. What you are describing, is at best Lamarckism.
>> Darwinian evolution is a completely different beast.
>> 
> Bullshit.  Nothing is more calculated to rouse my dander than to suggest I'm 
> ignorant.  I'm quite aware of the differences between Lamarckism and 
> Darwinism. While I didn't claim it was either one, can you, as a biologist, 
> really argue that genes are not "added, pruned and modified"?  Natural 
> selection cannot begin to occur unless there is a means of mutation that 
> provides differences from which the selection can be made.
>
> The evolution of free software _is_ very much Darwinian.  Code is changed 
> (mutated) and the good changes are accepted, the bad ones aren't.  When some 
> groups find one set of code useful, and others prefer a different set of 
> code, we get a fork (speciation).

It's a fun and harmless game to consider Linux evolving in a Darwinian
way. But I think it fails at the first hurdle because the variations of
Darwinism are tiny from generation to generation, whereas it's quite
possible for a new "species" or additional appendage to appear in Linux
effectively from outer space.

Neither is a mass of variations created to stuggle for survival; but
only a few, if any.

A fork isn't speciation (the origin of species), because that is derived
from variation and natural selection, whereas a fork is a clear, and
brutal, delineation. It's more like a morphed mutant.

Anyway, there isn't, in effect, random variation (recombination) going
on so it's not much of a good fit really.

The church quote (was that really posted outside a church!) "If
evolution were real, mothers would come with three arms", shows a total,
and possibly wilful, ignorance of evolution 101; albeit while trying to
be funny -- at least I hope it's an attempt at humour.

Nature/evolution doesn't "get it right" -- whatever "right" might be --
that's the whole point. Hopefully, Linux, whatever its incremental
process is called, is getting it right, though.

-- 
Best,
Marc

"Change requires small steps."
auxbuss at jabber.org