Open source development philosophy : Cathedral and the Bazaar
-
The Cathedral and the Bazaar -Eric Steven Raymond
Just reading this “internet book” version of the Cathedral and the Bazaar, very good if you haven’t read it.
How does can open source development work? and why is it great?
http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar
-
This just doesn’t get enough attention.
Open source is NOT a cathedral, it’s a bazaar. The difference is so important, and yet often overlooked in this forum.
-
Although, surely Bazaars don’t need to be made up of only ‘individuals’, they could be made up of multiple mini teams collaborating to function like an individuals? I guess that breaks the pure concept, but some people work better in focused teams.
runs off to read more on the subject.
-
The whole agile philosophy talks of small highly skilled teams that are more than the sum of their parts.
This does in no way break the bazaar model.
The agile philosophy also does not need a leader but rather a backlog of features,bugs chores and epics that are prioritised. -
Ideally you would have a product owner with a vision for what is required rather than a spec.
-
Git did a really job in trying to solve the distribution of responsibility issue.
Forums are awesome places for support etc. But the real work in crypto is done on Github.