Customer Reviews

The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary

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Eric Raymond is the Margaret Mead of the Open Source movement. His analysis of the gift culture as a model for explaining why hackers write software without recieving direct financial compensation is original, and as far as I know, unique. The economic implications are vast: if programmers write programs as a hobby, and do not stand in need of income for doing so (assume that they have day jobs), with rewards being in the form of status and reputation, then why buy the equivalent of what they're giving away?
Linux is the focus of this branch of the hacker-programming movement, which can also be seen at work in Apache and Java. The nature of the movement - everyone agreeing to play by Open Source rules, a leader (Linus Torvalds) who sets goals but does not exert formal authority, and a market (the Bazaar) where knowledge is dispersed throughout, reminds one of the Austrian Economists, who believed that a system operating as a spontaneous order would show greater productivity than a command economy, because of the exponentially greater amount of brain power in use. Raymond makes much the same point, when he argues that, "With enough eyes, all bugs are shallow."
For Microsoft, this is a deadly threat. Proprietary software and operating systems are expensive, to develop and to buy. If Open Source products are seen as being of like kind and quality, them software becomes a commodity, and branded, proprietary products, and the businesses that sell them, are facing inevitible decline in their core market.
If Raymond's thesis is correct (I believe, as a layman, that it is), then by 2010, Windows may have gone the way of the British Empire - living in memore (digital or otherwise) only.
-LLoyd A. Conway

This is a pretty awesome book. ESR shines as a master historian of unix/open src/linux and the hacker culture.

a must read for any hacker at heart.

santy

this collection of eric's papers is a wonderful start for anyone intersted in the open source "revolution." i suggest visiting his website also. eric's view on software development/management will change the way anyone thinks about the process and appreciate the power of the internet. also the word "hacker" won't strike one as a criminal anymore. great book.

The author proposes some interesting ideas. However it's difficult to evaluate them, because he simply makes claims and doesn't bother to back up his ideas with research and evidence. Most first-year college students can write better than this.

The major problem with this book is that ER NEVER really
discusses the "business model" used by the "software" industry
which is more of a form racketeering and money laundering
than any legitimate model. Since he does not do this and
does not offer a viable alternative business model - he
doomed open source to a quick death. Had he taken this
issue more seriously,Enron,WorldCom,Auther Andersen and Perigrine
debacles might have been avoided.

The Open Source movement had done for Computer Science what Creationism tried to to to the field of Biology. A political mass movement that has turned many in the field against the computer industry. For academics, this dogmatic illogical movement is nevertheless appealing, because it offers an opportunity to situate intellectuals and "hackers" into a false position of importance in the history and evolution of the computer industry.