Contributing Quote by Eric S. Raymond
““in the absence of money compensation, think “It’s not worth submitting this fix because I’ll have to clean up the patch, write a ChangeLog entry, and sign the FSF assignment papers...”. It’s for this reason that the number of contributors (and, at second order, the success of) projects is strongly and inversely correlated with the number of hoops each project makes a contributing user go through. Such friction costs may be political as well as mechanical. Together I think they explain why the loose, amorphous Linux culture has attracted orders of magnitude more cooperative energy than the more tightly organized and centralized BSD efforts — and why the Free Software Foundation has receded in relative importance as Linux has risen.””
About This Quote
Source Essay: The Cathedral and the Bazaar, 1999
Excessive contribution barriers reduce participation and hinder project success, especially in tightly controlled environments.
In simple terms: Too many hoops discourage contributors.
Key Takeaway
Simplify contribution processes.
Themes
open source
collaboration
community
bureaucracy
Mood
critical
analytical
Type
observational
analytical
When to use this quote
- software projects
- open source communities
- developer onboarding
Key Concepts
contributor friction
political cost
mechanical cost
Questions to Reflect On
- How can we balance ease of contribution with maintaining standards?
- What incentives can replace bureaucratic steps?
A Different Perspective
Simplification may reduce quality control.
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