Bryce Harrington has put up a post about Wikipedia, but delves into Open Source project management. If you're at all interested in understanding Open Source, you really need to read that post. I think that Bryce does a very good job of bringing understanding to the details of an Open Source project.

This reminds me of a term used by Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs and Steal -- "The Anna Karenina principle". The phrase that starts Anna Karenina is: "All happy families are alike but an unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion". Diamond talks about how this applies to the progression of societies, not one element lead to their success, it requires the perfect mix of a whole host of elements working in concert.

This applies directly to Open Source projects, many fail for one reason or another, a project needs all elements working together to be successful. As soon as you try to pigeonhole it into one principle you've already lost understanding of what it takes. Getting a perfect blend is hard, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.


posted Apr 19, 2005 | permanent link