Disclaimer: been a while since I read it.

It compares two software development styles. It compares typical software dev in a company to building a cathedral: directions come from on high, and you execute your task.

Then it compares typical Open Source development, such as with the Linux kernel, and compares it to a bazaar: everyone is doing their own thing, but somehow, things get done.

It's old, and maybe a little outdated now that the corporate world has taken over Open Source, but I would still suggest reading it.

Yea, but I guess I was looking for something deeper, because at the outset, I'd be a little offput by the suggestion to read it and any disagreement about my disagreement on it. And I fully understand the issues described by the above parent. The book comes off as a bit opinionated with the blinders of a Linux kernel development and 80-90s attitude about open source software. That's a pretty narrow focus of software development.

For example:

> Every good work of software starts by scratching a developer's personal itch.

I've written good software professionally, but none of it was kickstarted by my own personal itch.