[dba-Tech] The latest Debian

Peter Brawley peter.brawley at earthlink.net
Sun May 12 18:10:03 CDT 2013


On 2013-05-12 5:50 PM, Jim Lawrence wrote:
> Hi Peter:
>
> " How do you like Eric Raymond's "The Cathedral and the Bazaar""
>
> I had not heard of this man before...show you what I know but I will read up
> on him.
>
> What is your summary of his observations?
>
> Jim
>
>
Wikipedia summary 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar) ...

... two differentfree software 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software>development models:

  * The/Cathedral/model, in whichsource code
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_code>is available with each
    software release, but code developed between releases is restricted
    to an exclusive group ofsoftware developers
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_developer>.GNU Emacs
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Emacs>andGCC
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Compiler_Collection>are presented
    as examples.
  * The/Bazaar/model, in which the code is developed over theInternet
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet>in view of the public.
    Raymond creditsLinus Torvalds
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds>, leader of the Linux
    kernel project, as the inventor of this process. Raymond also
    provides anecdotal accounts of his own implementation of this model
    for theFetchmail <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetchmail>project.

The essay's central thesis is Raymond's proposition that "given enough 
eyeballs, allbugs <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_bug>are 
shallow" (which he termsLinus's Law 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus%27s_Law>):the more widely available 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketplace_of_ideas>the source code is 
for public testing, scrutiny, and experimentation, the more rapidly all 
forms of bugs will be discovered. In contrast, Raymond claims that an 
inordinate amount of time and energy must be spent hunting for bugs in 
the Cathedral model, since the working version of the code is available 
only to a few developers.


PB


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