The Business and Economics of Linux and Open Source

Programming

The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary (O'Reilly Linux)

Format: Hardcover
Author: Eric S. Raymond
ReleaseDate: October, 1999
Publisher: O'Reilly
Rating:

ESR Helps the Intermediate Software Developer Understand His Environment
Looking at software development from his "anthropologist" perspective, has proven extremely helpful in better understanding my experiences in the industry, and especially in seeing things about people and processes that I didn't realize were there until he'd pointed them out. This is my second experience with ESR's books, and I've been very pleased with both of them. I don't think this would have made much sense to me if I was new to the software development environment, but now that I've been in it for several years and experienced different people and different groups with their own different processes, ESR's conceptual insights have helped me evaluate my own way of working and thinking. I highly recommend this book to anyone who's been in software development for at least three years. . . I think your own experience is very important to have behind you when reading ESR's books. This kind of reading led me to the Fred Brook classic "The Mythical Man-Month", which I think is still full of applicable insights (a whopping 30 years after it was first published).

For those who question why open source makes sense
Putting aside the "religious" fervor of some of his arguments, the logic on why the open source movement can spawn successful businesses is irrefutable. Eric Raymond presents a coherent and well-supported case that explains why open source makes commercial sense. Read it and you will understand why traditional (proprietary) software business models have become a dying breed. I would rate the book a "5" but for some parts where the text becomes somewhat convoluted and repetitive. Overall, a must-read for anyone involved in software development.

A classic with much to offer, but flawed.
This is Eric Raymond's revised classic with some new material. Eric Raymond is widely regarded as the anthropologist of the hacker community. It is the first comprehensive commentary on the sociology of the Open Source community, and recommended reading for anyone doing business in software development, or running a business that depends on software and the Internet.

Like many of Eric Raymond's colleagues and fellow Geeks, he is clearly a brilliant individual, carried forward by focused effort and imagination. And like many talented people, he is an autodidact; self taught bar some courses in philosophy and mathematics. This is not a criticism. Raymond's career, publications and contribution show amply the intellectual qualities he possesses. However, his lack of training in social, economic and cultural science shows. And, as an insider (he is one of the original tribe of hackers) he is not the best person to make a disinterested commentary on the hacker community.

Great hackers, he tells us, are humble people. A more critical observer would have analyzed the comparative payoffs of styles showing why a loud mouth style - while it might work for some performers or show oriented careers - doesn't pay in this community. This is generally true of communities in which peers are well able to judge the quality of each other's contributions. Faking it doesn't payoff, and looking like you might need to fake it is counter productive. Insofar as the behaviour of chief hackers is humble, we learn more about the social economy of hackerdom than about distinctive individual personalities.

Despite many insights, Eric Raymond is wrong in his principal analysis. Why, he asks, do talented people spend years of unpaid work on projects that benefit others for no pecuniary reward? He characterizes hackers as members of a gift giving community, and attributes too much of the hacker motivation to altruism and idealism.

The central problem is not "why do hackers work for no pay?" Rather, why do people work for money? Or, more fundamentally, why do people work? I take it that readers will agree that we can roughly divide our motives into physiological drives (hunger, thirst, need for shelter, sex) and the "higher" needs (self fulfilment and meaning). After satisfying the needs for food, shelter and companionship why do we continue to work at all? If it is to get status, to get power, to feel good about ourselves and similar, then money beyond basic needs is unnecessary. Onassis once remarked "Without women, all the money in the world is worthless. " Some of us work to become wealthy, and we trade that wealth for status, power, respect and admiration, and perhaps we use our wealth to get women, sex and occasionally love. If this is what these motives are for, then even the higher needs are secondary to sex; or, as evolutionary psychologists tell us, are all about reproduction.

Money is a means. If I can earn status, power and respect directly, why waste time with money? Of course, money is fungible. That means it can be traded easily for a great many things; a big house and a luxury car, perhaps. But possessing these is merely another way of obtaining status, power, respect, admiration and sex, if not love.

Why am I writing this review? By my own dispassionate analysis, I am advertising my capacity to say sensible things and I am making a reputation; this is an asset in the social and commercial market place. Amazon might like me for doing this, but they would be mistaken to think that I write reviews out of altruism directed at Amazon; at least not defined in any metaphysical or moral sense. Sociobiologists denote some social instincts "altruism" but these are operational definitions of instincts as Machiavellian as any scheming tactician can be said to possess; in that sense I may be an altruist. Hackers too, for their work is not unlike my book reviews. Hackers trade in an economy that differs not one jot from the money economy, and Eric Raymond, in so far as he supposes it to be a fundamentally different kind of economy, is mistaken.

Likewise the account of hacker commitment to lofty ideals are not any more credible - but also not any less credible - than the mission statements and codes of ethics written by CEOs of major corporations. Among hackers are people as likely to steal code as are others to donate code; to write viruses as to write Fetch Mail. An anarchic disrespect for some of our more widely accepted conventions for protecting property rights is a characteristic of hacker mentality; not one that we should admire. Of course, honourable idealists are found among hackers; Eric Raymond is clearly one of them. Take, for example, the Open Source Initiative that is largely his work. What an outstanding contribution that is! Clearly he is passionate about his beliefs and ideals. But honourable idealists are found among entrepreneurs too, also successful ones, and even among politicians. Let us not delude ourselves about what it is the really motivates us and our fellow travellers. .