Open Source, Quiz 1

September 11, 2013

• What are the titles of each Pillar?
• Open exchange, participation, rapid prototyping, meritocracy, community.
• What are the titles of each General Principle?
• Make it interesting and make sure it happens.
• Scratch an itch.
• Minimize how many times you have to reinvent the wheel.
• Solve problems through parallel work processes whenever possible.
• Leverage the law of large numbers.
• Document what you do.
• Release early and release often.
• Talk a lot.
• What are the similarities between Weber’s eight principles, and the five pillars?
• Some of the principles and pillars are essentially the same statements, reworded. For example, “rapid prototyping” is very similar to “Release early and release often.” They compliment each other as well. An “open exchange” of ideas with “participation” requires you to “leverage the law of large numbers”, unless you are only exchanging ideas with your pet turtle. One might compile a combination of this list. They are all interwoven into the open source community.
• What are the differences?
• The eight principles essentially tell you “what you should do” while the five pillars essentially tell you “how to do it”. The principles discuss the way individual open source developers should or tend to work. They definitely talk and document a lot (Wikis, IRC, Commit messages, et. al.) and they definitely release early and often (Firefox nightly builds FTW!). The five pillars are the way the community acts and expects people to act as a whole.
• Bonus: Who’s “keen analysis” did Weber “Draw Heavily” upon?”
• Eric Raymond