(2003-06-18) Eric Raymond Open Source Agility

Eric Raymond connects the Open Source and Agile Software Development communities. Both groups are in revolt against the same set of organizational assumptions. And both are winning because those assumptions are obsolete, yesterday's adaptations to a world of expensive machines and expensive communications. But software development (Software Industry) doesn't need big concentrations of capital and resources anymore, and doesn't need the control structures and hierarchies and secrecy and elaborate rituals that go with managing Big Capital concentrations either. In fact, in a world of rapid change, these things are nothing but a drag. Thus agile techniques. Thus, open source. Converging paths to the same destination, which is not just software that doesn't suck but a software-development process that doesn't suck.

With a link to a Philip Greenspun essay on "Redefining Professionalism for Software Engineers". Curious to know what his definition of Software Engineering professionalism was after four years of MIT education, we probed a bit deeper and established that the way that he thought about professionalism did not differ from the thinking of a Mary Kay cosmetics saleswoman: wear nice clothes, drive a clean car, and don't say anything that might offend anyone.