Well, as I meant my comment to convey, I don't think "cathedral" and "bazaar" are well defined, so most of the disagreement in this thread is just crosstalk. We can argue about what the original essay meant, but I don't find that very interesting. Software design on the other hand interests me very much. I don't have any problem provisionally accepting phk's definition of "cathedral" in order to hear his thoughts about design, most of which strike me as sensible.