Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Potential flaw in patch-log pruning in proposal

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Matthew" == Matthew Dempsky <address@hidden> writes:

    Matthew> I have to agree with Tom -- arguing whether this is
    Matthew> bazaar or cathedral's not meaningful.

I think it is meaningful, although the distinction no longer matters.
Arch is clearly bazaar style, even if bazaar isn't clearly Arch-style.
In fact, that's the proof.<wink>

Bazaar won, that's all there is to it.  There just aren't any
significant cathedral-style free software projects left.[1]

At the time that paper was written, there were still many projects
which didn't have open repositories or mailing lists, which meant that
unless you were a member of the inner circle, you couldn't get access
to the most recent code, not even by taking the freshest release and
patching up.  The argument for that was that until the code was ready
for release, you'd just take up time of the core developers with
redundant bug reports, etc.  Some projects were sufficiently paranoid
about it that they'd threaten beta testers with exclusion from the
program if they leaked betas or URLs for the beta test versions to the
public!

The point of the bazaar wasn't that anything goes in the mainline.
Rather, it was that the advantage of the mainline was purely that
people gathered around it "in the bazaar".  "They" didn't have any
advantage in terms of code if the crowd decided to support a fork.
"You" didn't need a valid ID to be tester or even a developer.

Whether there's central control of the mainline is a different issue.


Footnotes: 
[1]  Are there?

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