Dunno who you're arguing with, I didn't say they didn't produce anything of value. I said they aren't producing scientific papers. Conversations are not like papers. The scientists have conversations (sometimes on mailing lists!) as well. The analog to scientific papers in the Linux world are... scientific papers. And the occasional essay on the mailing list, which---get this---would be more valuable to humanity if it was subsequently reproduced as a paper with references and explanations and the like.

(Notwithstanding the absurdity of academic publishing, of course.)