Practices and cathedrals

The essay argues that creative work is better served by releasing it early as a practice than by hiding it until it is finished as a cathedral. It draws on Eric S. Raymond's "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" (1997), which describes closed, carefully planned software versus open, collaborative development, and quotes Raymond saying that one can test, debug and improve in bazaar style but would find it very hard to originate a project that way. The author notes a book called This Could Be Our Future as their own cathedral, while the Bento Society living-room project proved more personally meaningful. The piece concludes that releasing work, even in parts, is the most important step.