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

Re: Debunking the OSS Bazaar?

Author:Joshua Allen
Posted:9/15/2000; 7:39:33 PM
Topic:Debunking the OSS Bazaar?
Msg #:21373 (In response to 21354)
Prev/Next:21372 / 21374

You are completely right about the cathedral being used to represent FSF; I have read practically everything RMS has written and I was well aware of that, it just slipped me.

So I'll admit that wasn't a very valid point, and I appreciate you taking the time to clarify it. I'm also sorry that you're tired of trying to get through to the dumb kids in the class. You are heard and respected, and just because I was a little slow on that one should be no sign of my respect for you. I also hope you wouldn't characterize all commercial developers broadly by my mis-characterization.

Now, I know it looks like I was trying to debunk "the bazaar", but I really started out to make two points: 1) Anti-Microsoft sentiment is very identifiable in what people regard as the OSS movement. 2) The "Cathedral and the Bazaar" contains alot of ironies and twists, as does much of the OSS writing, especially ESR. I really didn't mean to attach a value judgement to either of those things, although I seem to have done so and hijacked my original motive of just discussing.

For point 1, I just wanted to make sure that the impact of this sentiment in OSS is not dismissed. One example I go to is Ted Nelson's "ZigZag" stuff (gzigzag @ sourceforge.net). He has been working on this for a few years, but still most real people have not seen it or benefitted from it. The problem is, the only developers he can get working for the project insist on developing for Linux and Java, and Windows is an afterthought. This tool has huge potential to "wake up" the web, but has gone almost nowhere. If you contrast napster, which ran on Windows, to many OSS projects that arbitrarily and capriciously decide that Windows isn't clear, you can see how I feel that an anti-MS sentiment can often greatly reduce the overall impact of an OSS project. This is just one thing I see as a recent side-effect of the mood; I am sure that others can think of other good or bad things that come from this attitude. So I was just saying, "it's true, and has interesting consequences, so please don't dismiss it too quickly."

On point 2, I was thinking (at first) more along the lines of a discussion about how rhetoric is used. I get the impression that ESR is very interested in rhetorical techniques and "spin", since he identifies and expresses admiration for various tactics that he claims otehrs are using. "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" is a great example of persuasive rhetoric, and it is fun to try to use arguments made in the paper to debunk other arguments in the paper. I think it's fun to try to deconstruct the paper the same way that ESR would tear apart if it had been written by Microsoft. And of course such activity is not really constructive; I was approaching it more as entertainment than as an attempt to prove a particular value judgement. I believe that someone earlier in the thread made the point that the paper could be seen to have ironies, so I was just jumping in happily to play that game too..



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