Two Leaders of the Free World

“In the New Testament, Matthew wrote that Jesus fed five thousand men, and more women and children with ‘but five loaves and a couple of fish’ (Matthew 14:13-20). In the cleanup, twelve baskets of leftovers were collected. How He did this was not divulged. It’s open to interpretation. Did He perform a miracle and materialize more food out of thin air? I have my doubts.

“I base my own interpretation upon the folktale ‘Stone Soup’ where a stranger arrives in a town where food is in scarce supply. Everybody claims to be starving, but all appear well fed. The stranger orchestrates an end to the famine that afflicts the town. He calls for everyone to help him make a large pot of soup. They gather the largest pot in town, fill it with water, and set it on a wood fire. Then the stranger adds a ‘magic’ stone to the pot.

“When the water is simmering, he tastes the broth and says that it’s almost ready, but it could use some herbs to improve the flavor. Somebody runs away and returns with some herbs, which are added to the pot. In succession the stranger asks for vegetables, and eventually meat. At each request the hungry townspeople retrieve the requested ingredients. When the pot of soup is ready, the stranger retrieves his ‘magic’ stone from the hearty soup, and all the townspeople sit down to a feast – the ‘famine’ is ended.

“Generosity can be contagious, and hoarding can too. I suspect that it is less likely that Jesus materialized food than that He was able to bring out the best in people. Through His charisma He motivated people to give of themselves and share what little food the pilgrims brought with them. A small quantity from many contributors is a large amount. A miracle? No. Miraculous? In some sense, yes.

“Do you know of anybody, alive today, whose leadership skills can bring out the generosity in people like that? Two people come to my mind. Two leaders of the free world. The first is Richard Stallman who started the free software movement in Boston, with his launch of the GNU Project to build a free Unix like operating system.

“The second person who comes to mind is Linus Torvalds who finished the final obstacle in the GNU Project with the Linux kernel, the core component of the GNU/Linux operating system. The legendary development strategy employed by Torvalds is described in the book The Cathedral and the Bazaar.

“Cathedrals are built by hierarchical organizations, like central planning. Proprietary software development operates the same way, with managers and workers following a plan passed down from above. Progress is measured, throwing more people at a problem often slows progress, results can be all or nothing, and bad plans lead to ruin.

“However, untold exchanges are made in a bazaar, at a personal level, on a voluntary basis, like a free market economy. In the free software community, the Internet and a ‘release early, release often’ fast paced development cycle made rapid progress possible. The Internet also made collaboration practical on an unprecedented scale ‘given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.’ Results aim from one stable build to the next, with unstable builds in between when new features are integrated. Torvalds’ kernel project successfully leveraged the collective forces of multitudes, on a collaborative effort, in a short amount of time, with outstanding quality, and no money changing hands. It was a high point in human history. Something we can all be proud of.

Excerpted from Gistmass Story: Context