The Cathedral and The Bazaar

The Cathedral And The Bazaar

The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary (abbreviated CatB) is an essay by Eric S. Raymond on software engineering methods, based on his observations of the Linux kernel development process and his experiences managing an open source project, fetchmail. It examines the struggle between top-down and bottom-up design. It was first presented by the author at the Linux Kongress on May 27, 1997 in Würzburg and was published as part of a book of the same name in 1999. The illustration on the cover of the book is a 1913 painting by Liubov Popova titled "Composition with Figures" and belongs to the collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery.