[HN Gopher] The Cathedral, the Megachurch, and the Bazaar
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       The Cathedral, the Megachurch, and the Bazaar
        
       Author : todsacerdoti
       Score  : 105 points
       Date   : 2026-01-13 21:26 UTC (5 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (opensourcesecurity.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (opensourcesecurity.io)
        
       | mkoubaa wrote:
       | There's a other group besides these: the secret society, who
       | infiltrate the cathedrals, the megachurches and the bazaar. They
       | are quite cultish, but thankfully the "Data Primacy Lodge" is
       | gaining more initiates than the old guard "Order of Objects"
        
       | sowbug wrote:
       | I stalled on _Which is an acronym for "Gnu's not Linux"_ and can
       | 't recover from the spin.
        
         | tormeh wrote:
         | It's excellent. I grinned ear to ear.
        
         | k3nsa1 wrote:
         | It's actually "Gnu's Not Unix", the original article got it
         | wrong too
        
           | karel-3d wrote:
           | It's a joke. I think.
        
           | nextaccountic wrote:
           | It's just harmless trolling
        
           | z3512 wrote:
           | Given the tone of the article I'm sure it was tongue-in-cheek
           | humor and not an error.
        
           | jbggs wrote:
           | the article also says the creator of Linux is LTT
           | 
           | It's a joke
        
         | faxmeyourcode wrote:
         | > The TL;DR was that old open source was the cathedral of
         | exclusive developers and groups. Then the Bazaar showed up
         | (which was the Linux Kernel for example) and that freed us from
         | the shackles of the cathedral.
         | 
         | I didn't make it past the tldr lol is this some kind of
         | poisoned data for GPT 6?
        
           | pipo234 wrote:
           | Not sure if GPT played a role, but for one the editor did a
           | poor job. Very sloppy writing indeed
        
       | zahlman wrote:
       | > Big companies will often tithe to these megachurches. Some
       | churches are bigger than others. The Linux Foundation makes
       | hundreds of millions of dollars. Smaller foundations like the
       | Python Software Foundation have to make do with only a few
       | million.
       | 
       | This hides essential detail that would seem to very much weaken
       | the argument. You have the Linux Foundation and the Mozilla
       | Foundation that "make hundreds of millions of dollars", and then
       | everyone else is orders of magnitude smaller. Python might be in
       | third place, for all I know (or maybe it's Apache).
       | 
       | > It shows how most open source projects aren't some giant
       | megachurch like group. These projects are one person.
       | 
       | > It's easy to assume everyone else is also a megachurch member,
       | even if they are not. The church members are pretty noisy and get
       | a lot of attention.
       | 
       | I suspect most of those random bazaar vendors would _like to_
       | have a respectable church-sized building. Or at least a proper
       | stall.
       | 
       | > If you look at modern day open source, it sometimes feels like
       | the megachurch open source is better because they have a nice
       | parking lot, give out donation receipts, and it doesn't smell
       | like kabobs.
       | 
       | Well, no; it has more to do with the sense that outsiders are
       | taking the bazaar seriously.
        
         | rectang wrote:
         | The ASF, chartered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity which
         | serves the public good, has a budget a fraction the size of
         | those of orgs chartered as 501(c)(6) nonprofits which serve the
         | common business interests of members.
        
           | zahlman wrote:
           | The PSF is also 501(c)(3)
           | (https://www.python.org/psf/mission/).
           | 
           | A quick check implies Apache is on the order of half the
           | size, though. When I wrote the other comment it was just the
           | only other name that came to mind.
        
         | einpoklum wrote:
         | > those random bazaar vendors would like to have a respectable
         | church-sized building.
         | 
         | I believe the analogy breaks down here some. That is, actual
         | bazaar vendors may want this (I suppose), but FOSS maintainers
         | may or may not want an organization to form around them. They
         | may be content with the way things are; or they may just want a
         | co-maintainer.
        
       | xg15 wrote:
       | If we're working with those metaphors, I think it's useful to
       | read up on how actual, real-life bazaars are operating.
       | 
       | In particular:
       | 
       | > _A bazaar or souk is a marketplace consisting of multiple small
       | stalls or shops [...] They are traditionally located in vaulted
       | or covered streets that have doors on each end and served as a
       | city 's central marketplace._
       | 
       | > _Merchants specialized in each trade were also organized into
       | guilds, which provided support to merchants but also to clients.
       | The exact details of the organizations varied from region to
       | region. Each guild had rules that members were expected to
       | follow, but they were loose enough to allow for competition.
       | Guilds also fulfilled some functions similar to trade unions and
       | were able to negotiate with the government on behalf of merchants
       | or represent their interests when needed._
       | 
       | > _Historically, in Islamic cities, the muhtasib was the official
       | in charge of regulating and policing the bazaar and other aspects
       | of urban life. They monitored things such as weights and
       | measures, pricing, cleanliness, noise, and traffic circulation,
       | as well as being responsible for other issues of public morality.
       | They also investigated complaints about cheating or the quality
       | of goods._
       | 
       | ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bazaar )
       | 
       | So not quite the anarchocapitalist, self-organizing utopia that
       | tech people seem to imagine there - in fact, they have a lot of
       | organization, both between merchants as well as on the bazaar as
       | a whole.
       | 
       | Seems to me, this model is more similar to the "privately-owned
       | marketplaces" we see increasingly in the digital world: App
       | stores, merchant sites like Amazon, etc.
       | 
       | In that sense, "most of open-source" being on Github which is now
       | owned by Microsoft is ironically more similar to a real bazaar.
       | 
       | With one difference: At least the administrators of real bazaars
       | were _public_ officials with a mandate to keep the market fair -
       | and there was organization among the vendors in form of guilds.
       | With digital marketplaces, the markets themselves are private
       | assets and the administrators are blatantly self-interested. And
       | there doesn 't seem to be any kind if higher-order organization
       | _across_ different open source projects, everyone is fighting on
       | their own.
       | 
       | So maybe it would do the open source community good to become
       | more like an actual bazaar.
        
         | rzerowan wrote:
         | >Seems to me, this model is more similar to the "privately-
         | owned marketplaces" we see increasingly in the digital world:
         | App stores, merchant sites like Amazon, etc.
         | 
         | >In that sense, "most of open-source" being on Github which is
         | now owned by Microsoft is ironically more similar to a real
         | bazaar.
         | 
         | Id put it that this is incorrect insofar - as the bazaar was/is
         | a public commons with a dual regulatory environment city(state)
         | and the guilds , which would enforce/regulate as needed.
         | 
         | The digital marketplaces we have would be more anologous to
         | feudal plantations ,where each coder(sharecropper) survives at
         | the whim of their particluar feudal lord , who have total
         | control within that space and the state via lobbying mostly
         | keeps off.Theer are no guild equivalent so when
         | Playstore/Github makes a ruling like the recent hike of dev
         | fees or ci runner. Theres no state or user leverage that can
         | force a reversal other than complaints.
         | 
         | Paradoxically id say they are more megachurch than bazaars.
        
           | wahnfrieden wrote:
           | Guilds are now scorned as communism
        
             | rzerowan wrote:
             | Yep and its insane when most devs are actively hostile to
             | unins etc from too much libertarian koolaid when they can
             | see the active backing things like teacher/nurse/police
             | unions provide. They may have some bad ideas , butthe
             | structure and backing kinda gets glossed over.
        
       | jhatemyjob wrote:
       | Kind of offtopic but fun fact I didn't know until recently, the
       | Moldbug definition of Cathedral is based (lol) on the Eric
       | Raymond definition
        
       | ThrowawayB7 wrote:
       | > " _...Microsoft. Who we haven't mentioned in this story, but
       | they hated Linux more than a toddler hates naps._ "
       | 
       | A lot of FOSS people think this but it's not really true. It was
       | a thorn in the side of MS executives as a competitor, sure, but I
       | never met anyone in the rank and file that could be bothered to
       | hate Linux. More than a few of my colleagues played with Linux at
       | home in the '00s. I cut my teeth on the commercial UNIXes so
       | there wasn't anything interesting about Linux to me until it had
       | caught up with them around 2010 or so.
        
         | ronsor wrote:
         | People mean Microsoft, the corporation, as a policy. Not every
         | employee there literally.
        
         | sunsetSamurai wrote:
         | you're trying to rewrite history here, Microsoft used to be a
         | well known linux hater, but linux became popular and they had
         | no choice but to accept it. Remember the "linux is cancer"
         | years...
        
           | ThrowawayB7 wrote:
           | I was there a couple decades and you weren't.
        
             | PygmySurfer wrote:
             | I was there, too, and I remember all of the FUD from MS. I
             | remember the Halloween documents, MS funding SCO's lawsuit,
             | etc. MS saw Linux as a threat, especially in the server
             | space. The goal was to stomp it out, like they did to
             | Netscape.
        
             | nextaccountic wrote:
             | The devs weren't, but
             | 
             | https://www.theregister.com/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_c
             | a...
             | 
             | Microsoft messaging was very clear at the time
        
             | shimman wrote:
             | Might want to schedule an appointment for a neurologist
             | because acting like MSFT wasn't anti linux is revisionist
             | history that borders on medical intervention.
        
         | renewiltord wrote:
         | Dude no one cares about "the rank and file". You're just serfs.
         | It's like asking whether John Doe, US citizen who pays for the
         | Iraqi invasion, hates Iraqis. Well, no, he's just flipping
         | burgers and paying his $3k in tax ($600 of which goes to the
         | war effort). He doesn't care about Iraq. But the US does.
         | 
         | Your opinion on the subject is worthless. You are equipment.
        
       | canadaduane wrote:
       | "Don't look him up, he's not exactly role model material." I
       | don't admire the ethos of putting people in bad boxes.
        
         | nilamo wrote:
         | On the otherhand, I greatly appreciate that we don't pretend
         | everyone is 100% awesome all the time. We shouldn't hold people
         | up as role models that we don't want to emulate, and whatnot.
        
           | philipallstar wrote:
           | If we're not pretending everyone is awesome then why
           | permanently deselect certain people as role models?
        
           | Brian_K_White wrote:
           | One of them is legit a saint and the other almost as much.
           | They absolutely are role models, and the way they are talked
           | about now is exactly a lesson in the problem. If more people
           | emulated them, the world would be a much better place.
        
             | wahnfrieden wrote:
             | You believe in the commentary and advocacy he provides for
             | pedophilia? Why should I and others pay more attention to
             | that?
        
               | Brian_K_White wrote:
               | There isn't any such "advocacy".
        
         | ocdtrekkie wrote:
         | I absolutely think we should put people in bad boxes, and would
         | go so far as to suggest if you are worried about this
         | possibility, you may be worried about which box you belong in.
         | ;)
         | 
         | I think the important part is there must always remain a
         | possibility for someone to exit that box. Repentance and
         | forgiveness are key values in themselves, and we must be able
         | to accept people if they can change.
         | 
         | Unrepentant garbage people who still make garbage statements
         | and do garbage things, however, can remain in the dumpster
         | where they belong until such time they warrant climbing out.
        
           | rbanffy wrote:
           | > you may be worried about which box you belong in. ;)
           | 
           | There's also the risk someone very loud decides to put you in
           | a box you don't belong in. Eventually you are able to
           | demonstrate it, but, in the meantime, you need to deal with
           | the consequences.
        
           | einpoklum wrote:
           | Your post may be insinuating that you put ESR and RMS in such
           | boxes, although you did not actually say that. You might want
           | to clarify that point. (And I say that as someone who has
           | neither upvoted or downvoted you.)
           | 
           | I'll also say that there are enough aspects of our
           | personality and behavior that you might use to justify
           | placing someone in the "bad box" that almost everyone would
           | be in one; and if you were to relax the criteria so that you
           | "average badness" along multiple axes, that comes with its
           | own problems.
        
         | gwbas1c wrote:
         | I think enough of us have imperfections that we can appreciate
         | that people who've done wonderful things have also done some
         | very $#!tty things. Someone doesn't need to be a saint to still
         | have a wide, positive influence.
        
       | brid wrote:
       | The Cathedral metaphor doesn't make any sense since the point of
       | the Cathedral is simultaneously to revere God and to be able to
       | take in as many "unwashed masses" as possible. Only by self-
       | exclusion (explicit external irreverence/scandal) can you be
       | excluded.
        
         | larrydag wrote:
         | It works for me. Cathedral is analogous to free software being
         | a religion. It is a theocratic worldview that has a zealous
         | following that must apply the rituals of old. Bazaar is the
         | marketplace. It is supposed to be a efficient market metaphor
         | for software being transactional and not relational.
         | 
         | Is this a perfect metaphor? I think its a rigid way of looking
         | at software on either side. I think it is more grey. I like the
         | merits of both sides.
        
           | asveikau wrote:
           | But ESR believed in right wing, libertarian adjacent
           | politics. He's advocating for deregulated, free market ideas
           | in the form of criticizing GNU. In doing this, he was seeking
           | out the preferred metaphor and working backwards, rather than
           | describing what is.
        
           | jt2190 wrote:
           | That is not what Eric S. Raymond (esr) was describing.
           | 
           | GNUnix was developed using the Cathedral-style, Linux was
           | developed using the bazaar-style. How Linux development was
           | coordinated was thought to be impossible for something that
           | had to be as solid as an operating system. The essay is a
           | deep dive, exploring the conditions that the Linux project
           | needed to ship an OS.
        
         | afiori wrote:
         | The metaphor does not refer to the finished building but to the
         | building process
        
       | jrowen wrote:
       | The author links to another article of theirs called "Open Source
       | is Bigger Than You Can Imagine," which hinges on the size of the
       | npm registry. npm says "open source" on their landing page, and
       | has an "npm Open Source" section of their policies, which places
       | no restrictions on how you license your npm package (save for a
       | special license to them).
       | 
       | This does seem very bazaar to me, but this would all be deemed
       | Not Open Source by the [cathedral/megachurch?] community,
       | correct? Do people take issue with npm using the term open
       | source?
        
       | dfajgljsldkjag wrote:
       | I like the idea that we moved from cathedrals to megachurches
       | because it explains why everything feels so corporate now. It is
       | easy to forget that the messy bazaar is still underneath all the
       | shiny tools we use.
        
         | rbanffy wrote:
         | Large endeavours require some level of "megachurchness". Linux
         | back then was tiny in comparison with what it is today. So was
         | Python. Nowadays we have much larger projects that encompass a
         | much larger space than we had in the 1990s. You can't make
         | things consistent at these sizes without some governance in
         | place.
         | 
         | There are still a lot of space for projects without much
         | structure- if you have NSA codenames that aren't public yet
         | (and you are not subject to US laws) you can contribute with
         | the nsaname tool and have cool names for your servers and
         | containers. If you want to help adding glyphs to my 3278 font,
         | you can. You can do that to millions of small projects that are
         | small enough to not require much structure.
        
       | uncletaco wrote:
       | > History will probably remember him as LTT, "Linus The Torvalds"
       | 
       | This is trolling right?
        
         | pstuart wrote:
         | > This is trolling right?
         | 
         | Yes, and well done as well. Unlike the other two
         | unmentionables, Linus very much worthy of remembrance. Sure he
         | was extra grumpy for a long time but that's about the only bad
         | thing you can say about the man.
        
         | asveikau wrote:
         | There are a lot of tangential, one-liner, throwaway jokes in
         | this article.
        
         | stronglikedan wrote:
         | Yes, everyone knows LTT is Linus Tech Tips!
        
       | tptacek wrote:
       | It was a bad essay at the time and I don't think you can make a
       | good essay by trying to build off it. Adding "megachurch" to the
       | already strained metaphor didn't improve it.
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35939383
        
         | networkadmin wrote:
         | You're completely wrong. The fact that people are still talking
         | about it today proves it has some kind of worth. The essay was
         | great.
        
           | wizzwizz4 wrote:
           | People are still talking about null pointers: that doesn't
           | mean they were ever a good idea.
        
             | networkadmin wrote:
             | That's just how the hardware works. Don't like it? Make
             | your own CPU.
        
               | wizzwizz4 wrote:
               | No, the CPU doesn't have a special pointer value which is
               | designated invalid (except as far as modern address
               | spaces are so large that you cannot possibly map memory
               | to each address without mirroring). In many OSs, e.g.
               | CP/M, address 0 is actually meaningful. The C idiom of
               | cramming sum-type semantics into the nooks and crannies
               | of a return value that ordinarily means something
               | _entirely different_ is an extremely poor one, and null
               | pointers are the poster child: Tony Hoare 's billion-
               | dollar mistake.
               | 
               | It's absolutely fine to have a packed representation of a
               | sum type "under the hood": this is how Rust implements
               | Option<&T> (where T: Thin), for example. It's also fine
               | to expose the layout of this packed representation to the
               | programmer, as C's union does. But it's a _huge_ footgun
               | to have unchecked casts as the default. If not for this
               | terrible convention, C wouldn 't have _any_ unchecked
               | implicit casts: something like f(1 + 0.5) performs a
               | _coercion_ , a far more sensible behaviour.
               | 
               | The only reason we're talking about null pointers at all
               | is because they were an _influential_ idea, not because
               | they were a good idea. Likewise with the essay.
        
               | leoc wrote:
               | While it's narrowly true that CPU instruction sets
               | generally don't have a null-pointer concept, I'm not sure
               | how important that is: the null pointer seems to have
               | been (I don't know enough to be sure) a well-established
               | idiom in assembly programming which carried across
               | naturally to BCPL and C. (In much the same way that
               | record types were, apparently, a common assembly idiom
               | long before they became particularly normal to have in
               | HLLs.) Programmers _like_ being able to null out a
               | pointer field, 0 is an obvious  "joker" value, and jump-
               | if-0 instructions tend to be convenient and fast. Whether
               | you'd want say it's "how the hardware works" it does seem
               | to have a certain character of inevitability. Even if the
               | Bell Research guys had disapproved of the idiom they
               | would likely have had difficulty keeping it out of other
               | people's C programs once C became popular. The Hoare
               | ALGOL W thing seems to be more relevant to null pointers
               | in _Java_ and the like.
        
               | II2II wrote:
               | > No, the CPU doesn't have a special pointer value which
               | is designated invalid
               | 
               | Sort of right, sort of wrong.
               | 
               | From my understanding: older, simpler, architectures
               | treat memory location zero as a normal memory address. On
               | x86 and x64, the OS can configure the MMU to treat
               | certain pages as invalid. Many years ago, I ran across a
               | reference to Sparcs treating accesses to memory location
               | zero as invalid. In other words, it depends upon which
               | architecture you're dealing with.
        
               | tptacek wrote:
               | So the case that you're making here is that CATB is
               | renowned amongst the kind of practitioners who think NULL
               | pointers are "just how the hardware works". Sounds about
               | right.
        
               | dvt wrote:
               | I know you're replying to a brand new (likely troll)
               | account, but I'm also very confused by this and would be
               | curious to learn if there's any truth to it. I personally
               | don't really see what a Von Neumann machine has to do
               | with null pointers (or how an implication would go
               | _either_ way), but maybe I 'm missing something.
        
               | tptacek wrote:
               | It has nothing to do with NULL pointers and is instead a
               | property of a programming language.
        
               | z3512 wrote:
               | NULL pointers working the way they do was a design
               | decision made my hardware engineers a long time ago
               | because it saved some transistors when that mattered.
               | We're past that point now for most ASICs and hardware can
               | be changed. Although backward software compatibility is a
               | thing too.
        
               | wizzwizz4 wrote:
               | Null pointers have nothing to do with the instruction set
               | architecture, except as far as they are often represented
               | by the value 0. Can you describe the scheme you're
               | imagining, whereby their use saves transistors?
        
               | mrkeen wrote:
               | They aren't there in asm.
        
               | charcircuit wrote:
               | mov rax, qword ptr [0]
        
           | nyc_data_geek1 wrote:
           | There are lots of proven bad ideas still being bandies about
           | today, and it does not prove they are anything but enduringly
           | worthless.
        
           | munificent wrote:
           | People are still talking about a flat Earth and creationism.
           | Given 8 billion people, there are enough available braincells
           | to keep even the stupidest idea floating around in the
           | memesphere.
        
         | sethev wrote:
         | As you point out in your linked comment, the original essay
         | captured the zeitgeist of the time. It also influenced and
         | inspired many people. From that perspective, it's hard for me
         | to agree that it was bad. However, I don't think the content
         | was original at the time (perhaps that's what you mean by bad?)
         | - in the sense that ESR wasn't out ahead of people blazing some
         | new trail and it also didn't hold up very well factually.
        
           | Taniwha wrote:
           | Yeah, it's worth remembering that at the time a compiler cost
           | $10k+, an OS $1000s/year - you couldn't work on OS or
           | compiler work unless you worked for a big hardware company -
           | a whole lot of interesting work was locked away from most
           | programmers
        
             | sethev wrote:
             | Yes, that is the context in which I first read it (likely
             | around 1999 when it appeared on slashdot), as a senior in
             | high school with no access to the tools used by most
             | professional programmers at the time.
        
               | tptacek wrote:
               | FreeBSD 2.0 was 1994.
        
               | sethev wrote:
               | Yes, I'm speaking about my experience as I remember it -
               | not what was objectively possible for someone with the
               | right resources and knowledge at the time :)
        
               | tptacek wrote:
               | Right, I'm not so much pushing back on you as I am
               | establishing a chronology for CATB. Ordinary people were
               | absolutely belting out (what we would now call) open
               | source software by the time it was written.
               | 
               | (That's not the biggest flaw in the essay, of course. It
               | made predictions, some of which turned out to be
               | comically wrong. The true parts of it weren't new, and
               | the new parts of it weren't true.)
        
             | jaredklewis wrote:
             | Wasn't Cathedral and the Bazaar originally published in
             | 1999? Who was paying thousands of dollars a year for an OS
             | in 199? And I think GCC was already widespread by then, no?
             | 
             | I didn't start programming until a few years later, but for
             | sure by 2002, it seemed to me a given that compilers were
             | free. It was my impression that stuff like Borland was
             | niche and that serious stuff like Java and C were free.
             | 
             | Not saying you are wrong, just your comment surprised me.
             | Maybe I have a revisionist memory or maybe those
             | intervening 3 years were quite transformational in the
             | industry.
        
               | tptacek wrote:
               | The firm I was at in 1997 was shipping commercial
               | software with GCC. There were expensive compilers, but
               | you weren't required to use them. For Windows builds, I
               | think we were Borland C++, which was hundreds of dollars.
               | Sun had a pretty expensive compiler for Solaris that I
               | remember using for hunting down memory leaks.
        
           | tptacek wrote:
           | It was certainly influential. It's just bad on its own
           | merits.
        
       | renewiltord wrote:
       | The latest thing though is that the megachurches send out these
       | evangelist priests who run an inquisition into your amounts
       | tithed. These people then go around trying to co-opt the
       | machinery of the state to redirect money to the megachurches.
       | 
       | "We should tax everyone to fund open source" they say
       | 
       | "Google should pay a percentage of their gross revenue to the
       | Rust Software Foundation" they say
       | 
       | All this is because it's enough for the bazaar to create but the
       | author has correctly identified that the purpose of the
       | megachurches is to receive tithes.
       | 
       | The Rust megachurch is one of the biggest proponents of this and
       | its adherents are always trying to take our money by force
       | because we won't give it by will
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46048954
       | 
       | Rust delenda est.
        
         | kiba wrote:
         | Free and open source software provide a ton of value to
         | businesses and consumers. It's right that tax dollars is used
         | to fund what effectively is a public good so that we can all
         | benefit from it even more.
        
           | renewiltord wrote:
           | There's always a cause and a church. There is an instrument
           | for this: your donations can be tax deductible if you give to
           | a 501c3 that exists for the public benefit. But that's not
           | enough for you guys. Having seen the success of private
           | equity dialysis clinics to redirect Medicare funding, you
           | have decided that you want a piece of this government revenue
           | pie. Enough of this greed.
           | 
           | Rust delenda est.
        
             | Y_Y wrote:
             | Alright Cato, but consider that other countries
             | successfully spend their budgets on public goods like
             | infrastructure and the arts.
        
               | renewiltord wrote:
               | Other countries killed 250k/month in gas chambers till we
               | came to liberate them, and they still exist under our
               | shield. Their opinions are kind of moot.
               | 
               | Rust delenda est.
        
               | Y_Y wrote:
               | Normally I'd say read a history book, but it might be
               | quicker to read a newspaper.
        
               | shimman wrote:
               | Don't both, people like them hold society back. I suggest
               | you go out and talk to your physical neighbors about
               | taxing big tech, it has a huge amount of support. The
               | only question is do you want a democratic administration
               | to use said tax revenues to benefit the public or a
               | republican administration to benefit a few private
               | actors.
               | 
               | It's going to happen and I know what side I'd rather be
               | on.
        
       | dgreensp wrote:
       | I always interpreted cathedral vs bazaar as being about the
       | architecture of large things. Do you build to a master plan? Or
       | does everyone do whatever they want? (Within some kind of
       | framework, of course.) Like the cathedral of the Java SDKs vs the
       | flea market of NPM.
       | 
       | This author seems to have some kind of attitude about
       | organization in general--anything with people and process, that
       | happens to exist around some project, that might require at least
       | a small commitment to be a part of. Like complaining that a flea
       | market has a form to sign.
       | 
       | The ability for people to functionally collaborate, with some
       | kind of structure, is the key thing that enables building large
       | things together.
        
       | TZubiri wrote:
       | With that title, I'm clicking and reading all the way through.
       | 
       | I'm writing an article on a similar topic, but it's a critique on
       | a popular development style that imports a huge dependency supply
       | chain (without concern on if they are cathedral, bazaar, or
       | megachurches), and what the benefits of building your thing
       | bottom-up has.
       | 
       | If this sounds interesting to you, hacker news reader, you can
       | leave a comment and I'll reply with a link once it's published.
        
       | emanueleo wrote:
       | The article says "GNU's not Linux". No, it's "GNU's not Unix".
        
       | femto wrote:
       | The post referred to the Sovereign Tech Agency
       | (https://www.sovereign.tech). The problem that the Sovereign Tech
       | Agency is trying to solve seems to be a hard one.
       | 
       | OpenPrinting is listed as a funded project:
       | 
       | https://www.sovereign.tech/tech/openprinting
       | 
       | yet 7 days ago someone who works on OpenPrinting was here and
       | stated:
       | 
       | "The whole printing stack is supported by 4 people, 2 of whom are
       | doing that since the inception of CUPS in 1999. Scanning is
       | maintained by a single person."
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46579361
       | 
       | Isn't this the situation the Sovereign Tech Agency is trying to
       | avoid?
        
         | luplex wrote:
         | idk, without the sovereign tech agency it would be fewer
         | people, or they would have less time to work on the project.
         | You can't expect the German government to completely fill any
         | need for resources in open source software.
        
         | einpoklum wrote:
         | Yikes :-(
         | 
         | This makes me wonder - is there some platform on which people
         | who maintain important (or arguably-important) facilities can
         | post Wanted ads for volunteer co-maintainers?
         | 
         | I realize that the number of people who would actually be crazy
         | enough to browse that platform and answer such ads is pretty
         | small... but - it may be noticeably above Zero.
        
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