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

Re: mythic stories (Debunking OSS Bazaar?)

Author:David McCusker
Posted:9/15/2000; 11:58:23 AM
Topic:Debunking the OSS Bazaar?
Msg #:21355 (In response to 21352)
Prev/Next:21354 / 21356

Eric Raymond's C-n-B ("The Cathedral and the Bazaar") is a mythic story which is neither true nor false. It's a story with elements both clearly right and clearly wrong. They're mixed together in a soup of rhetoric that tastes better with a few howlers that season the flavor like pepper.

This is a recipe for very confusing arguments based on the essay's content. Anyone can attempt to disprove the entire thesis of the essay by picking out a part they don't like and trashing it. When Able likes piece A, Cain can point to some ridiculous piece C with some (inappropriate) implication this undercuts A.

Joshua Allen: The ironies of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" are pretty apparent

I'm a cathedral kind of guy myself. The bazaar hype made my life difficult. Every concept has boths strengths and weaknesses, and I don't trash the bazaar advocates because I want to see their part of value be nurtured more. But I want to trash them when it gets out of hand. However, rather than trashing, it's more constructive to gently prune when appropriate.

Joshua Allen: What bazaar have you seen that operates by high priests [... snip]

Yes, it's not a bazaar when it's run by high priests. There's always a problem when leaders emphasize how everyone is equal. (Um, then why are you the leader?)

Joshua Allen: 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.

I think anti-Microsoft sentiment is one of the few sentiments that nearly the entire computing industry agrees on, not just the OSS community. So this is not a distinguishing characteristic of OSS. The anti-MS sentiment is largely a paranoid stance that aims to protect against expected incursions on any front that interests or threatens Microsoft. The stance is necessary because it's insane to ignore them.

But anti-whatever sentiments are seldom instrumental in motivating folks to bind together in constructive behavior, except perhaps in amplifying some other cohesion. Constructive community behavior is normally caused by support for a creative goal, rather than a destructive one.

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