A new light on open source development

I never knew that "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" was such a short read. I had always expected it to be a big ominous book. I'm glad I delved in. If you have ever thought of getting involved in open source software or are already a part of it and have never read this paper, it's definitely worth your time:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/index.html

Things I found particularly interesting as benefits of open source software:

• With enough people involved, there's likely at least someone who has the smarts to solve any particular problem
• Make sure before your release your first version of software to the open source community that it at least works enough that people find it useful and interesting
• You're more effective when you work on things that are interesting to you