All new frontiers are initially conquered by those who are considered the outsiders by the mainstream culture. Just look at who came over to the US first, who went West first, etc. In that kind of situation, the individual's capabilities are strongly preferred because an individual can make a much larger difference.

To take a sports analogy, there's a reason why basketball has superstars that out-eclipse those for american football, real football, cricket, and baseball (to cover my bases). Since there's only 5 people/team on the floor at any given time (vs. 9 to 11 for the other sports), each person's performance has more weight. (For those who argue that the quarterback is the superstar of american football, I only have to point to Brett Favre's performance over the past 12 years and its correlation to the capabilities of his front line. And, yes, I'm a Packers fan.)

Now, I suspect my remarks are being read into. I was specifically addressing the confusion that many have when they comes in, as what they perceive to be a reasonable question, and receives what they perceive to be rude response. I wasn't addressing how geeks interoperate or the relative amount of cooperation vs. individualism in the FOSS community as a whole. Frankly, most geeks interoperate very well.

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