1997
The Cathedral and the Bazaar
Eric Raymond's essay The Cathedral and the Bazaar (1997) argued open, distributed development beats closed planning — influencing NetscapeA commercial web browser company — Navigator defined the early consumer web.'s MozillaThe organization behind Firefox — advocates open web standards and internet privacy. release.
What it was for
Raymond's 'given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow' became open-source folklore. The essay gave executives a narrative for releasing proprietary code — directly preceding the 1998 MozillaThe organization behind Firefox — advocates open web standards and internet privacy. source dump.
People
- Eric S. Raymond — author
Why it's here
The essay bridged hacker culture and corporate open-source strategy.
Why it mattered
It gave language for why NetscapeA commercial web browser company — Navigator defined the early consumer web. and others should open their codebases.
What it solved
Executives lacked a business case for releasing source code.
Media
ImageEric S. RaymondErc_S_Raymond_and_company.jpg: jerone2 derivative work: Bilby (talk), CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Related
- Mozilla source code open-sourcedMarch 31, 1998
- Open Source Initiative foundedFebruary 1998