Scott Rutherford

So this is the second post about books I have recently finished and as with The Cathedral and The Bazaar it is a book I really should of read about 5 years ago. Doh. Having said that, it is very interesting to see how the companies and ideas outlined in this book have developed (or died – e.g AllAdvantage.com) in the last few years – which lets face it have been both turbulent & interesting in the world of the web and e-commerce…..

Having said that, some of the viruses outlined in this book have nothing to do with the web, Polaroid and Tupperware for example, although they do show how important the web can be in the determination of how virulant your virus is.

I first came across the ‘manifesto’ (to steal a term from Seth Godin) that is ‘The Cathedral & The Bazaar’ a couple of years after it was first was published on the web in 1997 and it played a part in helping stimulate my interest in Open Source and Linux. However, at the time I was a bit like a kid in a candystore with computer languages and all things webbie and I sometimes failed to follow up on things, unfortunately (for me) that included the other essays of Eric Raymond.