Ulrich Drepper is a brilliant programmer and an expert on his field, but he cannot work with people. I figure that the former is the only reason why he's still around.
Ahhh... an unfortunate - but all too common - collection of personality traits. I propose that those people should be given lots of power but not be promoted to package maintainers. Of course, it's open source, so it's not like we can decree this or anything, but it sure would make many open source projects easier to contribute to.
Of course, it's open source, so it's not like
we can decree this or anything
He is employed by RedHat, so they're implicitly making the decision his working style is worth it.
But this is an example of open source at work -- people forked GLIBC due to, in part, dissatisfaction with Depper's (or Redhat's) working style and priorities.
Isn't that fork essentially a logical solution? If RedHat continues to pay Drepper for his work, he will still develop/maintain glibc. Meanwhile every valuable patch can be ported to eglibc (provided the licenses are compatible). It's a win-win scenario... community gains something and Drepper can still do what he does best in his sandbox.
