Why Wikipedia isn't like Linux | The Register

More on Wikipedia in The Register today.

A couple of things about this piece. One reader writes to ask why Wikipedia is considered "bad" while the Linux project is "good." Both projects are created by people who donate their time and "expertise" for free. Another reader points out that tighter control is exercised over Linux:

[T]he Linux kernel ... is not produced by a radically-democratic value-neutral mob, but rather by a pyramidal hierarchy of maintainers - experts, so judged by their peers - who exercise strong control over what code is allowed in the kernel tree.

But here's the thing. For all the years and years of people devoting their time to Linux, and for all the control exercised by the hierarchy of maintainers, the project has still not come up with a viable alternative to a commercial operating system that a non-technical person could use. As an operating system for raw-chicken-eating propeller heads, maybe Linux is perfect, but without an über-geek to manage it, no commercial enterprise should consider it, and no regular Joe end-user would know what to do with it.

Another quote in the Register article concerns the Encyclopaedia Britannica and other commercial encyclopaedias, which are "doomed," according to one of the senior Wikipedes. They're doomed because it's hard to compete with free. Well, yeah. But if I was the last person to leave the Britannica building, and I'd been put out of business by Wikipedia, the very last thing I'd do before turning out the lights is upload the entire Britannica content - for free - and create an open source project modelled after the Linux project to maintain it in the future. Boing - bye-bye Wiki.