Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Debunking the OSS Bazaar?

Author:Joshua Allen
Posted:9/15/2000; 10:59:34 AM
Topic:Debunking the OSS Bazaar?
Msg #:21352 (In response to 21351)
Prev/Next:21351 / 21353

I've seen this canard repeated over and over ad nauseam. Sufficiently frequently that some uninformed people might start believing it. The problem is that it's not true

Whatever. I think you would have to be blind to deny that anti-Microsoft sentiment is just about the only sentiment that the whole OSS community agrees on. And Eric Raymond has (as usual) written some very betraying diatribes (or Jeramiads, as he is so anxious to characterize them) against Microsoft. Of course, the anti-Microsoft rhetoric is not necessarily the reason for being of the OSS movement, but anyone with two eyeballs can see that the association is not canard.

The ironies of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" are pretty apparent; I don't think it took the Lotus article to make them clear. I mean, I thought a bazaar was a place of commerce and intense negotiation? What bazaar have you seen that operates by high priests who need to constantly exhort the merchants to give up their wares for a higher ideal and cooperate for a common good? Yesterday on Letterman, Gore said the thing he was proudest of was having cast the tie-breaking vote that gave us a government surplus and a booming economy. As strange as it may seem, some people believe that statement. As strange as it may seem, some people believe that OSS is a bazaar, and the cutthroat competition of the free market software industry is a cathedral. Whatever.

-J

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