Which platform: Cathedral or open source?

The downside to the Bazaar model is the difficulty in charging for something that you can get for free. Open-source software is usually free. Companies like Red Hat, which markets a suite of products centered on the open-source Linux operating system, deal with the free problem by charging for support, already a huge selling point for Cathedral software companies.

Personally I'm a big fan of the Bazaar model. I'm writing this using NeoOffice, which is a Mac version of OpenOffice. I switched to it a couple of weeks ago because my last automatic Microsoft Office update deleted legal copies of Excel and PowerPoint from my machine. I use Eclipse as my development environment. Like 19% or so of you, I use Firefox. And I've even created an offline blogging tool called Bleezer, which I am about to open source because I know that opening it up to lots of smart people will improve it dramatically.

Firefox and Eclipse are a bit different, however. They are hybrids. Both started as Cathedral projects -- Firefox grew out of from Netscape and Eclipse from IBM -- before they were let into the wild. They seem to have experienced tremendous success as a result.

Perhaps the best way to be successful is to start with an idea and create the first iteration as a Cathedral project. That way developers can see the potential, and see how it can benefit them. Then free the project and invite contributions. Then when you're using the software and you see that bug, you can jump right in and fix it. Or add something else you need. And then suddenly, everybody benefits.

I wrote Bleezer because I couldn't find a blogging tool that did what I wanted, and I believed that others might have the same problems so I would also have an opportunity to give back to the community that had helped me. It was a combination of code I wrote from the ground up, augmented by other open source code that provided functionality I didn't have the time or inclination to create. And users have responded very well, often thanking me and giving me tips to improve it.

Lacking time to give it the support it needed, I was made the decision to open source it -- my first such project -- agonizing first over whether I wanted to let it go, and then whether it would be good enough for the developers who might want to work on it. After all, developers don't take insults about their code well. (Next week I'll take you through my experiences building Bleezer, and the process of open sourcing it.)

Here's a thought. Perhaps Microsoft would consider open-sourcing Vista. Let the world find the issues and improve on it. Now that would be brilliant PR.

Larry Borsato has been a software developer, marketer, consultant, public speaker, and entrepreneur, among other things. For more of his unpredictable, yet often entertaining thoughts you can read his blog at larryborsato.com.