Craigslist for the win
August 17th 2008
Bazaar Style Development
August 14th 2008
In regards to Eric Raymond’s The Cathedral and the Bazaar, more specifically the chapter of the same name, I have an observation.
Many of the open source projects that Raymond would refer to as bazaar projects, aren’t really 100% bazaar. Specifically, if we look at the Linux kernel, changes still all go through Linus Torvalds. It’s more like a cathedral with a personal bazaar that everybody knows about. There is this vast assortment of people, all making contributions, but contributions to Linus. Yes, the original authors are credited where credit is due, but I can’t just magically check something into the source tree for the kernel, it has to get okayed by Linus, or I believe any other of a small group that Linus picked anyway.
Also, in software firms today, you might have 2, 3, 4, 10 projects on the go, and each project might be working on something specific to their project, but a lot of the work they do can be reused in other projects the company is working on, so therefore, in this cathedral type establishment, we still have a bazaar type model where everybody is contributing to everything, as a base layer underneath it all.
It’s quite intriguing, but the cathedral and the bazaar almost work together.
Let’s sue Google
August 14th 2008
I have an idea for the RIAA: sure Google.
Sure! It would totally work. I mean, you already sued Jesse Jordan for making a search engine, why not sue Larry Page and Sergey Brin too, since, you know, they made a search engine too. And you know what? I can go to Google right now, search for “<insert artist name here> torrent” and within hours, even minutes sometimes, have an album or the entire discography downloaded. So go for it RIAA; sue Google.
Oh wait! See I guess the problem is Jesse Jordan couldn’t afford lawyers to defend his case in court, which he totally would have won. You guys must have realized this and that’s why you settled out of court for his $12,000 of college tuition money, thereby getting your money.
But Google has lawyers. Probably lots of them. Probably good ones too. And for them to come to court and say “fuck you RIAA” would be too easy and all the RIAA would be out would be money, which isn’t really the goal of these random acts of stupidity.
So I guess that’s why Google hasn’t been sued by the RIAA.
The RIAA tries to only sue people who, in their best interest, must settle out of court for whatever money they have, and since the RIAA is paying their lawyers anyway, but now doesn’t have to pay court fees or anything, makes a nice, albeit small profit.
If they sued anybody who would do well to take the case to court (those whose out of court settlement cost would be greater than the court and lawyer fees), the RIAA would lose, probably end up paying money, and get bad press.
Now I understand.
Stupid RIAA, search engines are for everybody.
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