While I agree with you, that is an impressively humble attitude. Having watched some of the early history, you can take at least partial credit for building some of those contributors as well.
It was a different time, but Linux did not come so far so fast.
Yeah it's a state of mind, you do something for and with a community and not exclusively for your personal gains. In the US that was often compared to communism (just listen to the questions from reporters in the early day of Linux)
It's not a political thing, maybe more as a side effect of living in a society that promotes well-thougth actions and good planing and gives you the tools to achieve things.
That being said, I consider the the Scandinavian "socialism" the perfect combination of communism-light and capitalism-light: you can get rich if you work hard, but your boss can't get extremely rich by paying you far below a living wage. In the long run it's a win-win for everyone.
Adding to what nix23 said, it gets made political by those who cannot comprehend social norms and cultural differences outside of their own experience and can only interpret "different" as "antagonistic".
> living in a society that promotes well-thougth actions and good planing and gives you the tools to achieve things.
I know, but the US-Press always try to make something political, even when it's a cultural thing (and the only way to survive in the past..working together).
>That being said, I consider the the Scandinavian "socialism" the perfect combination of communism-light and capitalism-light
Absolutely on your side...and as someone from Switzerland i think we tend more and more towards the Scandinavian model.
> Yeah it's a state of mind, you do something for and with a community and not exclusively for your personal gains.
That's just as common in the U.S. - but you need a strong community of practice with high standards of achievement to really achieve this mindset. (In the real world, this would of course be an actual, physical community bound to a well-defined place, ultimately with similarly strict norms of acceptance, behavior etc.) And that can get in the way of contemporary norms against perceived "gatekeeping". Though it's interesting to see that some communities of practice (e.g. the one which is forming around Rust and Redox OS) are being more successful in navigating this challenge.
It was a different time, but Linux did not come so far so fast.
Damn Scandinavians!