History
In 1997, Eric S. Raymond wrote The Cathedral and the Bazaar. In this book, Raymond makes the distinction between two kinds of software development. The first is the conventional closed source development. These kind of development methods are, according to Raymond, like the building of a cathedral; central planning, tight organization and one process from start to finish. The second is the progressive open source development, which is more like a “a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles.” The latter analogy points to the discussion involved in an open source development process. In some projects, anyone can submit suggestions and discuss them. The ‘coherent and stable systems’ Raymond mentions often do emerge from open source software development projects. Differences between the two styles of development, according to Bar & Fogel, are in general the handling (and creation) of bug reports and feature requests, and the constraints under which the programmers are working. In closed source software development, the programmers are often spending a lot of time dealing with and creating bug reports, as well as handling feature requests. This time is spent on prioritizing and creation of further development plans. This leads to (part of) the development team spending a lot of time on these issues, and not on the actual development. Also, in closed source projects, the development teams must often work under management-related constraints (such as deadlines, budgets, etc.) that interfere with technical issues of the software. In open source software development, these issues are solved by integrating the users of the software in the development process, or even letting these users build the system themselves.
Read more about this topic: Open Source Software Development
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every literary critic believes he will outwit history and have the last word.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Racism is an ism to which everyone in the world today is exposed; for or against, we must take sides. And the history of the future will differ according to the decision which we make.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)
“Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the trouble to calculate.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)