--Originally published at Hackerman's house
Photo by Kamyar Adl
The Cathedral and the Bazaar is an essay about the open source software, written by Eric Raymond in 1997. It starts comparing the Cathedral that is a vertical model where there are less developers focused on the product, it is more organized and carefully crafted, in this case the beta was released until the product had achieved certain goals and the product was decent enough. On the other part was Linus Torvalds’s style of development, where everyone can contribute to the software. This style is compared to the bazaar, everyone has different approaches and agendas, the problem of this could be that with so many contributors the production of a stable system might be difficult, but this wasn’t the case; the bazaar style seemed to work well.
Release early and often, delegate everything you can, be open to the point of promiscuity
Photo by Tao Mai
The success of Linux and Open source was thanks to many factors. One that I find very important is that the developers get involved because of their own interests. The case that is presented is that the existing software doesn’t serve them well enough, so they contribute to make it better, this way they can use it in their everyday life.
Every good work of software starts by scratching a developer’s personal itch
One key in the bazaar style is taking advantage of the existing software. Software can be improved and working with others and taking their contributions make your work easier and better. If you want to have contributions it is important to do constant releases, this way your contributors and clients can give you constant ideas and feedback to improve your software. Another thing that caught my attention was that every contributor has their own ideas and their approaches and strengths, this way the bugs can be detected easier.
If you treat your beta-testers as if they’re your most valuable resource, they will respond by becoming your most valuable resource
Most of the reading talks about Linux and Open source. I think the 19 lessons given through this essay are really important and most of them can be used in more aspects of your life, not just in software development.
