I am impressed! The ideology behind open source (referred to as a "babbling bazaar") allows users around the world to take part in the development of software. Why does this method work so well? Just as Eric S. Raymond suggests, I believe that allowing others to contribute in more ways than filling a comment card gives them a sense of ownership; not in a literal sense that they own the software but that they are co-developers in the process. This model makes it more personal on the users and in return gets them more committed to seeing its success. The power of community also allows people from all around the world with many different expertise to work together and solve bugs; Eric S. Raymond's quote could not have said it any better - "Given a large enough beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix obvious to someone."
Furthermore, giving the users the ability to control where the software is headed by releasing it bit-by-bit is a great way to give the users what they want. Releasing software only at its final stage like the Cathedral model that Eric S. Raymond describes does not allow users to have much say in anything that they will be using. I am not saying that the Cathedral model is bad, however open source allows me to add some flavour.
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