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<HTML><HEAD> <TITLE>BBS水木清华站∶精华区</TITLE></HEAD><BODY><CENTER><H1>BBS水木清华站∶精华区</H1></CENTER>发信人: reden (鱼 ～ 梦娜丽莎的微笑 流星的故事), 信区: Linux, <BR>标 题: Where did Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis go? <BR>发信站: BBS 水木清华站 (Thu Jan 14 00:36:27 1999) WWW-POST <BR> <BR>This is a really good interview, i agree some opinion of two authors
<BR>
<BR>you can find the original one from:
<BR> <A HREF="http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-1999-01/lw-01-gimp.html
">http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-1999-01/lw-01-gimp.html
</A> <BR>
<BR>
<BR> Where did Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis go?
<BR>
<BR> An interview with the authors of Gimp and Gtk
<BR>
<BR> Summary
<BR> After bringing their Photoshop-like free software, Gimp, to the brink <BR>of
<BR> 1.0 release, creators Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis left school,
<BR> ceased Gimp development, and took jobs in the private sector.
<BR> LinuxWorld's Stig Hackv鋘 caught up with them recently to find out <BR>what
<BR> they've been up to and what they think of Gimp today, and to get <BR>their
<BR> thoughts on open source developer attrition. (3,500 words)
<BR>
<BR> By Stig Hackv鋘
<BR>
<BR> he Gimp (GNU Image Manipulation Program) image editor is one of the
<BR> newest shining stars in the open source firmament. It bears more than <BR>a
<BR> passing resemblance to Adobe Photoshop and has served as the
<BR> proof-of-concept that the open source community can write applications <BR>suitable
<BR> for use by nonhackers. Gtk (Gimp Toolkit), the windowing toolkit that now <BR>lies at the
<BR> core of the Gnome desktop, was originally written as part of Gimp.
<BR>
<BR> Gimp and Gtk were primarily developed by Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis <BR>over
<BR> several years while the two were students at University of California, <BR>Berkeley.
<BR>
<BR> In the spring of 1997, however, they graduated, leaving their work on Gimp <BR>behind
<BR> to start their careers. The wildly popular (amongst open source hackers, <BR>at least)
<BR> Photoshop-like image editor was left unfinished, crash-prone, and <BR>unmaintained at
<BR> version 0.99.10. New developers eventually stepped in to take <BR>responsibility for it,
<BR> but only after the software's development had been frozen for many months, <BR>leaving
<BR> eager Gimp users in the lurch.
<BR>
<BR> The cost of turnover
<BR> The most vocal open source proponents contend that open source software <BR>can
<BR> flourish on the strength of globally-distributed volunteerism alone; but <BR>Gimp and Gtk
<BR> weren't the product of either Internet-based collaboration or bazaar-style <BR>software
<BR> development.
<BR>
<BR> When Spencer and Peter left, progress on Gimp screeched to a halt, <BR>resuming
<BR> slowly as new volunteers picked up where the Berkeley developers had left <BR>off.
<BR> After 19 months, Gimp is more stable, but it still crashes and its <BR>Intelligent Scissors
<BR> tool still doesn't work quite right.
<BR>
<BR> If the story of Gimp's development represents an emerging pattern, then <BR>all is not
<BR> well for open source software.
<BR>
<BR> According to Tom Demarco and Timothy Lister's 1987 book Peopleware, which
<BR> addresses a wide range of important workplace and productivity issues, a <BR>typical
<BR> technology company has an annual turnover rate somewhere between 33 and <BR>80
<BR> percent. That's two years between job changes for the average engineer.
<BR>
<BR> For the free software community, the rate of turnover for both volunteer <BR>and fulltime
<BR> contributors is probably higher, and the resulting losses to productivity <BR>and
<BR> momentum are probably more severe. New developers have the source code, <BR>but
<BR> usually they can't rely upon local experts for assistance with their <BR>learning curves.
<BR> E-mail and IRC are great, but they're not the same as having another <BR>human
<BR> looking over your shoulder or scribbling on the same whiteboard.
<BR>
<BR> Linux and many other open source projects are thriving now, but could they <BR>be
<BR> doing better?
<BR>
<BR> The answer to this question may lie in the economics of open source: can <BR>the
<BR> rewards (both tangible and intangible) of open source hacking approach <BR>those
<BR> available elsewhere in the computer industry? If so, then the open source
<BR> community won't have to bid farewell to some of its most talented <BR>contributors. By
<BR> now, Spencer and Peter would probably want to be working on something <BR>besides
<BR> Gimp anyhow, but they could still be working for us.
<BR>
<BR> LinuxWorld: You both stopped working on Gimp after your
<BR> graduation from Berkeley in spring, 1997. What have you
<BR> been doing since then and how do you like it?
<BR>
<BR> Mattis: I graduated from Berkeley in May of 1997. My work on
<BR> the Gimp had slowly been declining that semester. Since that
<BR> time I've worked at Inktomi.
<BR>
<BR> Inktomi is fun. The project I work on is nothing at all like
<BR> working on a graphics program. Traffic server is a big,
<BR> multithreaded proxy cache. In college I had mostly stayed put
<BR> in the little sphere of graphics programming. I felt the desire to
<BR> branch out to other areas when getting a real job, which is part of the <BR>reason I took
<BR> the job at Inktomi.
<BR>
<BR> Kimball: I've been working at a small company called <BR>Delphi
<BR> Structured Finance Corp. that provides the quantitative
<BR> analyses necessary to value complex financial <BR>transactions.
<BR> About three-quarters of what I do is in the US; the <BR>other
<BR> one-quarter is in Europe, primarily Denmark, Germany, <BR>and
<BR> France. I like the field, but it may soon be time to <BR>move to a
<BR> different job. I'm leaning strongly towards Wall Street, <BR>and
<BR> would probably already be there if the markets didn't <BR>blow up
<BR> recently.
<BR>
<BR> I've also been working on a new project that's <BR>completely
<BR> outside of work. It's called the Online PhotoLab and it <BR>⌨️ 快捷键说明
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