[shadowofneptune]

Though the cathedral/bazaar terminology is influential, I am not sure reading the original text helps understand open source as it actually is now. It concludes that open source would drive out closed source software, when what we see is open libraries being much more popular than open applications. This is in part due to Raymond's own work at the Open Source Initiative. I'd probably be better for someone now to read a retrospective rather than a treatise.

[zozbot234]

> It concludes that open source would drive out closed source software

Relative to the pre-FLOSS era, this is exactly what has happened. FLOSS is ubiquitous today in systems software. Many of the current Big Tech companies and business practices simply would not exist without FLOSS computing infrastructure.

[shadowofneptune]

I agree. You said better what I was trying to say in that second sentence. It's more that for someone new to the theory of open source, reading a 1998 essay about a Linux email application gives the wrong idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the model.