Technology News: Developer: Putting Open Source Development Under the Scope
I’d be very interested in the results of the study mentioned in the following article: Technology News: Developer: Putting Open Source Development Under the Scope
A bit more from the article:
How are open source software projects able to set their speed and quality on the best participants? That’s simple: “No meetings,” Berkus said.
“I’m serious,” he continued. “In a large proprietary software development environment, engineers spend four to nine hours a week in meetings, where they are given assignments by managers and expected to work on only their assigned project for the next week. Areas of responsibility are carved out carefully and elaborate quality control and review processes are enforced. The result of all this is to pace the engineers to the plodding pace of management, so that they can stay in control of the project.”
Another reason open source development moves more quickly is that engineers are on the projects they want to work on, limiting procrastination and “sandbagging,” said Berkus.
Lastly, Berkus explained that open source developers are less apt to work on incorrect or buggy code since the project is their own.
“Open source projects are less likely to follow ‘wrong’ specifications, because the same people who write the code are the ones setting the goals,” he noted.
