Linux Catedral

The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric S. Raymond

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I anatomize a successful open-source project,
fetchmail, that was run as a deliberate test of some
surprising theories about software engineering
suggested by the history of Linux. I discuss these
theories in terms of two fundamentally differentdevelopment styles, the "cathedral" model of most of
the commercial world versus the "bazaar" model of
the Linux world. I show that these models derive from
opposing assumptions about the nature of the softwaredebugging task. I then make a sustained argument
from the Linux experience for the proposition that
"Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow",
suggest productive analogies withother selfcorrecting systems of selfish agents, and conclude with
some exploration of the implications of this insight for
the future of software.

Contents
The Cathedral and the Bazaar
The Mail Must Get Through
The Importance of Having Users

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The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric S. Raymond

ReleaseEarly, Release Often
When Is A Rose Not A Rose?
Popclient becomes Fetchmail
Fetchmail Grows Up
A Few More Lessons From Fetchmail
Necessary Preconditions for the Bazaar Style
The Social Context of Open-Source Software
Acknowledgements
For Further Reading
Epilog: Netscape Embraces the Bazaar!
Version and Change History

The Cathedral and the
Bazaar
Linux is subversive. Who would havethought even
five years ago that a world-class operating system
could coalesce as if by magic out of part-time hacking
by several thousand developers scattered all over the
planet, connected only by the tenuous strands of the
Internet?
Certainly not I. By the time Linux swam onto my
radar screen in early 1993, I had already been involved
in Unix and open-source development for ten years. Iwas one of the first GNU contributors in the mid1980s. I had released a good deal of open-source
software onto the net, developing or co-developing
several programs (nethack, Emacs VC and GUD
modes, xlife, and others) that are still in wide use
today. I thought I knew how it was done.
Linux overturned much of what I thought I knew. I

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The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric S. Raymond

had been preaching the Unix gospel of small tools,
rapid prototyping and evolutionary programming for
years. But I also believed there was a certain critical
complexity above which a more centralized, a priori
approach was required. I believed that the most
important software (operating systems and really largetools like Emacs) needed to be built like cathedrals,
carefully crafted by individual wizards or small bands
of mages working in splendid isolation, with no beta
to be released before its time.

Linus Torvalds's style of development - release early
and often, delegate everything you can, be open to the
point of promiscuity - came as a surprise. No quiet,
reverent cathedral-building here- rather, the Linux
community seemed to resemble a great babbling
bazaar of differing agendas and approaches (aptly
symbolized by the Linux archive sites, who'd take
submissions from anyone) out of which a coherent and
stable system could seemingly emerge only by a
succession of miracles.
The fact that this bazaar style seemed to work, and
work well, came as a distinct shock. As I learnedmy
way around, I worked hard not just at individual

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The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric S. Raymond

projects, but also at trying to understand why the
Linux world not only didn't fly apart in confusion but
seemed to go from strength to strength at a speed
barely imaginable to cathedral-builders.
By...