Danese leaves Sun...

So, Sister Cooper finally left Sun. I don't mean "finally" in any derogatory way (toward Sun or Danese). I just think it's about time. It's good for her to expand beyond Sun, to enable her to extend her reach beyond one organization, and give further proof that Danese is a community player. I can yap about whether or not Michael is overly partisan, but if I ever suspected Danese was, the move to Intel dissipates it. [Btw, here's her blog.

Frankly, I think it's about time she left Corporate America altogether and did the Larry Lessig thing, lobbying for the open source community full-time (unhindered by corporate policies - not that these have had a measurable effect on her opinions ;-). But there's probably some truth to the notion that she can do more good within the walls of a company than outside. She has street cred within the open source community - working for Sun or Intel gives her corporate cred, and that's important (to the group she's trying to convince). And a paycheck is nice. Last time I checked, Intel was still paying those.

Some have pooh-poohed the move, and Danese's relevance. I doubt I would have stumbled across it (like porn and other crap, I don't seek out destructive time wasters), but Danese pointed me to a rant from some Unix bigot, trashing her. (I won't link to it here, because I have no interest in pointing people to rubbish.) That's like her: perhaps miffed at this person's misinformation, but happy to take a few bullets. She does that a lot for the community.

At first, I really didn't know what to make of her. I'm fairly conservative (see top left description). Danese wears funky glasses, hangs out with the developer crowd in a way that I can only dream of (understanding jokes that begin with C++ and end in "Hello World"). I also didn't know what to make of the crusader-for-open-source role she seemed to play.

But it's legit. I've never seen her do or say anything that comprises her (rightly given) title of "open source diva." Whether self-annointed or community-appointed, it fits.

Given all this, the Intel news is a bit of a non-issue. Who cares? Danese is Danese whether taking a paycheck for Intel, Sun, or whomever. We're lucky to have her.