Open Source Projects Manage Themselves? Dream On! (Another take on CatB) Chuck Connell, Tufts Univ.

Open Source Projects Manage Themselves?

Dream On!

(Another take on CatB)

Chuck Connell, Tufts Univ.

Tufts University Computer Science 22

Historical Background Software industry began about 1950. Eric Raymond wrote Cathedral and the Bazaar in 1997. For those 50 years, all large software was created by

companies, government agencies, or universities. (Never hobbyists!)

Microsoft controlled small computer market in 90s – with much fear and loathing.


CatB Seemed Revolutionary

Eric Raymond said: There is another way to develop large software systems. We can do it ourselves!

Like someone saying today: We are tired of bankers. We’ll create our own mortgages companies, savings banks, and stock brokers. We’ll do it better, and it will be free for everyone!

(This seems impossible. How could we do it?)


Praise for CatB

“Worldwide programming community is revolutionizing software … and business models.”

“You can’t afford to not read this… to do business in the next century.”

“The ability of open-source software … is simply amazing.”

“A watershed declaration of independence.” And, there was religious fervor... The people were finally

standing up to the evil overlords in Redmond!


CatB’s Main Points There is a wide world of programmers eager to write

free software. OSS projects succeed without traditional

management. With a lot of people looking at some code, all bugs

are easy to see and fix. A fluid group of programmers can create complex,

high-quality software, with no one telling them what to do. (a babbling bazaar)

Other ??


Much of the Hype Was True OSS model was a new way to develop software. Thousands of programmers really did work (hard)

for free. The resulting software was serious and good; not

just for hobbyists. Nothing like this had ever been done in any

discipline. And the netizens really did compete with Microsoft.


But (IMHO) Went Too Far

View of OSS management

Assertions about debugging

Overall topology of the work model


No Regular Management? What is traditional management? (according to CatB)

Define goals and keep everybody pointed in the same direction

Monitor the project and make sure details don't get skipped Motivate people to do boring but necessary work Organize the deployment of people for best productivity Marshal resources needed to sustain the project

ESR claims these functions not needed by OSS. But this is just what Eric Raymond (and Linus Torvalds)

did! CatB spends most of its text explaining how. Only difference is manager and workers did them for free.


Debugging Is Easy? "Debugging is parallelizable.“ "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.“ Are these statements true? In fetchmail and Linux, many people in parallel

looked for bugs and proposed fixes. But one person (ESR, Linus) actually made fixes,

after thinking about each one. Deciding which bug fix to use is not trivial. Some bugs are not shallow! What about design

bugs?


Cathedral or Bazaar?

Three models of work flow…

Traditional BazaarCathedral


Cathedral or Bazaar?

Most OSS projects are one layer of management One visionary, many free laborers ESR’s bazaar is really a cathedral! (With the same religious fervor)

What would a bazaar model OSS project look like? Anyone aware of such a project?


My Prediction (from 2000)… OSS projects need strong, smart, centralized

management to succeed.

Has the last eight years proven/disproven this?


ESR Said In Reply… “Mr. Connell's analysis has grave flaws” “He is completely out of contact with the reality

open-source programmers live in” “This paper was badly wrongheaded” See

www.chc-3.com/pub/manage_themselves.htm,www.chc-3.com/pub/manage_themselves_r1.htm, www.chc-3.com/pub/manage_themselves_r2.htm (IBM.com, Sept 2000)

Open Source Projects Manage Themselves? Dream On! (Another take on CatB) Chuck Connell, Tufts Univ.

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