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From Wired Innovation Insights:
In 1958, Michael Young coined the term "meritocracy" in his book, The Rise of the Meritocracy. Young used the term satirically to depict a United Kingdom ruled by a system that favored intelligence and merit above all else, including past personal achievements.
However:
Who decides who is listened to? Who decides which ideas are the best? At my company, Red Hat, the people who are listened to are the ones who have earned the right. They have built a reputation and history of contributing good ideas, going beyond their day jobs, and achieving stellar results.
In many technology companies that employ a meritocracy — Red Hat being one example — people forge their own path to leadership, not simply by working hard and smart, but also by expressing unique ideas that have the ability to positively impact their team and their company. Entire paths have been paved at Red Hat because a single person spoke up when it mattered, had gained enough trust and respect from teammates so people truly listened, and, as a result, was able to influence direction of an initiative (or start a new one).
For example, I think back to a Red Hat associate who, as we were developing our virtualization business at Red Hat, spoke up in a meeting when he thought myself, his boss's boss, his boss and others, were making a wrong decision. While we didn't follow his guidance that day, eventually we did because we valued his opinion, and frankly, because he was right.
Of course, this doesn't happen overnight. It takes time and a consistent track record to begin to earn respect and influence in a meritocracy. As you can imagine, given the right vehicles for communication and encouragement, the natural thought leaders emerge.
The article also includes some fairly standard advice about decision making.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 17 2014, @10:11AM
I saw it in the queue and had this prepared:
Subject line: One word
Comment:
systemd
RedHat has adopted an incomplete methodology which shits on multiple elements of the Unix philosophy.
RedHat has become an example of a meritocracy that is completely broken.
...then again, RedHat has given indications that it doesn't really want to be in the Linux business any more and would rather be in the "Cloud" business.
Perhaps systemd was just them pissing in the pool before they leave.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 17 2014, @11:02AM
A meritocracy depends on a certain perception of what is merit. Since Red Hat is a publicly traded company, "merit" means what is best for Red Hat, not what is best for Linux. For Red Hat, of course the best that could happen is if everyone depends on software they have the lead developers of. And the more complex the software, the more likely the main expertise will stay inside the company. In addition, Red Hat profits from maintenance being more complex because it means they'll get more support contracts.
Basically it's code obfuscation taken to the next level: The code itself may be clean, but the system as a whole is overly complex, and therefore the effort you have to make to understand it is increased.
That's why it goes against the Unix philosophy: The Unix philosophy is KISS: "Keep it simple, stupid". The goal of KISS is exactly opposite of the goal of vendor lock-in.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Bot on Friday October 17 2014, @11:15AM
I also stopped reading at Red Hat and went to see where systemd were going to be mentioned in the comments.
systemd- your argument is invalid.
OTOH given that systemd is the trojan horse that put all major distros under the de-facto control of red hat, I guess that the reasoning works well when you rename it slightly to cleverbastardocracy.
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