Week 12 - Different Approaches
The Cathedral and the Bazaar
The Cathedral and the Bazaar is an Essay by Eric S. Raymond, software developer and open source software advocate, that compares different approaches to open source projects that reflected his experience with Linux and GNU.
The Cathedral, can be referred to as the approach in which there is tight control over the project and a few developers have the majority power. On the other hand, there is The Bazaar, where there is more noise, more communication, and more developers.
Each has its pros and cons. For example, within The Cathedral, there may be a stagnation of innovation because there is a limit to how many fresh eyes are able to see and contribute to the project however, this method also means that there are not a lot of unnecessary errors due to multiple developers having access.
For The Bazaar, while there may be improved knowledge and access to new ideas, that benefit could be outweighed by the risk of giving up what at times could be precious control.
Relevance
There are two exercpts that stood out to me that are pertinent to my personal experience this semester with my project. One of which being:
“When you lose interest in a program, your last duty to it is to hand it off to a competent successor.”
During our time searching for a project, we encountered Abbreve, a project that looked excellent on first view but as it turns out, had been left with no competent successor. What this means is unless someone randomly decides to fork this project themselves and carryon, it is dead in the water. Without intervention, we could have ended up making significant contributions that would have been for naught. Another reason why I think this is interesting is because its not just a warning for new contributors but also owners of any project. In a world of instant gratification, making a commitment to a project is an important endeavor.
The other quote I liked is:
“Perfection (in design) is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but rather when there is nothing more to take away.”
Personally, I don’t believe in the concept of “perfection” but this quote made me think of some of the bigger open source projects such as those like Microsoft. Im sure that if someone told the creator what it would look like today they would think that its amazing and perfect, but the truth is there is much work of there to be achieved. in order to achieve perfection, there seems to be this invisible line of also knowing when to stop. I love the idea of everything in a project having a specific purpose that its impossible to take away any one element because to me that speaks of intentionality which is the closest some ever get to imperfection.
Coffeehouse
Clause Warren Jr. mentioned in a lecture his idea of an alternative to both The Cathedral and The Bazaar: The Coffeehouse. In this method, there should be room for like-minded people as well as people with different opinions to congregate and be able to have high level open discussions. I really enjoyed this idea as an alternative because of the energy it brings to projects as well as the ability to maneuver and enhance projects without losing the insurance against risks that may be relevant in the other methods.
OSPO
By utilizing an open source program office companies are able to express openness for contribution, promote community, and tackle licensing issues. One such company is Google. They have several programs such as Summer of Code and Projects, such as Kubernetes that they encourage others to browse and contribute to. The fact that I heard of these programs and such projects tells me that for Google, OSPO is doing a great job in broadcasting their resources to the developer community.
Another company is Microsoft and while their projects are lesser known to me just based on their website, they thrive on open communication and are active in getting developers involved and engaged.