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Editorial

Of the people, by the people, for the people

Software philosopher and programmer Eric S. Raymond is perhaps best known for his essay, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, in which he noted that the Linux model of software design involved the huge, gibbering horde rather than the elite few cloistered in their cells, handing down software on their own schedule.

Now, five years after the first publication of that groundshaking document, there is cause to wonder if much Linux development hasn't moved from the noisy, dusty bazaar wherein live its users, and taken up residence, albeit unintentionally, in the cathedral of the software publishing elites.

A strong argument for this view can be found in the report of a user's experiences in dealing with KDE developers. (It is an ironic coincidence that the user in question is Cathy Raymond, Eric's wife.) It's easy to conclude after reading the story that the developers of the most widely used Linux desktop don't much care what users think. But would that conclusion be fair?

It was not many years ago that user suggestions would quickly find their way into projects even as big as KDE. Of course, KDE was much smaller then, with far fewer users, so the voice of each was proportionately louder. Today, with millions of users and a user-provided wishlist running to thousands of items, those individual voices are difficult to discern. It is understandable that sometimes the only voices KDE programmers can hear are the voices of each other. Still, saying that it is understandable is not the same as saying it is a good thing.

It was not many years ago, too, that the overlap of Linux developers and Linux users was nearly absolute. The possibility of a disconnect was all but nonexistent, because the two groups comprised the same people. That day is long gone and, like nearly personal service from developers working on big projects, is not likely to return. The interim response to a feature request -- "Want it? Write it!" -- rings hollow now.

Nor does the development community necessarily bear the blame. There are millions of Linux users, and practically all of us have features we'd like to see implemented. We have been told that there are only a handful of developers working on KOffice, which is no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention. For well over a year now there has been a small group of KDE developers who have moved from application to application, bringing to working life what other developers had sought to produce. This few has been doing work that in another milieu would be assigned to scores if not hundreds of programmers. There are limits to what a human being can do. And still the yammering throng chants: More! Faster! Better!

There is no doubt that the bulk of the Linux user community is now almost entirely disconnected from the bulk of the Linux development community. Perhaps this was unavoidable. Perhaps it can be remedied in some way, to some extent.

How this disconnect is dealt with will determine much of the next chapter in the history, when it is written, of Linux.