The Cathedral and the Bazaar (and Quakers)

As some of you will be aware, I’ve put a fair bit of time in my life into software development – I’ve earned a living doing it, I’ve studied it formally, I’ve done it as a hobby. Some of this has been connected, to a variable extent, to the ‘free and open source software’ community, as much a social movement as a software development model, in which the source code of software is available, anyone can modify it, and there’s no restrictions in how you use it. This approach has given us Linux, which I imagine almost all of you have heard of, as well as office productivity packages like LibreOffice and OpenOffice, and specialist software like the database systems MySQL and PostgreSQL or the statistical software package R.

One of the great figures of the philosophy of free and open source software, Eric S. Raymond, wrote a famous essay about different approaches to open source development. Originally presented at a conference for Linux developers in 1997, and later published in a collection bearing the same title in 1999 (the book is still evolving, and available free on his website). That essay, and book, is called The Cathedral and the Bazaar. It talks about two models, the cathedral model and the bazaar model, that broadly describe the way most open source projects had been developed up to that point. So, what does this have to do with religion, what does it have to do with Quakers? Some of you might have a guess already, but read on – through some more about software development – and all will become clear.

What's This ‘Privilege’ Thing, Then?

In about a month, Friends from across Britain – and beyond – will gather in London for Britain Yearly Meeting 2019. The theme for this year is privilege, examining our own and the range of privilege within our community. As the document Preparing for Yearly Meeting (available from the BYM website) notes:

Privilege – whether we recognise it or not – fundamentally impacts our ability to act on our urgent Quaker concerns regarding climate justice and sustainability, and inclusion and diversity. Privilege is fluid, there are many types, and each varies according to context. The purpose of our examination of privilege is to help each of us become aware of the unseen chains that bind us and determine how we act in our lives.

That document has a lot of great material to prepare, and I don't intend to reproduce it or compete with it. There is also a ‘toolkit’ available from the same link above, Owning power and privilege, produced by QPSW, and I do not intend to supplant that, either. It looks at some key concepts and explains them somewhat shallowly, albeit with examples. I say this not as a criticism – for many, this is the most we can expect them to learn about this on their own, and the information in the toolkit is certainly clearer than a lot of explanations of these things. Hopefully, sharper learning will come from sessions at YM.

There are two things that I want to try and help with, in this post. One is simply to recognise the fact that most active Quakers in this country, including myself, won't be at Yearly Meeting. I imagine Friends House would collapse – organisationally, if not physically – if that weren't the case. Friends elsewhere in the world who are interested in the same sorts of learning that Britain YM is trying to encourage will also (in the vast majority) won't be there. These conversations have to happen in other places if they are to have the greatest benefit.

No Hands But Ours

In hardship, I do not expect God to help me.
For all change in this world comes through us, you must see.
As I hurt, as I fear, still I know I rely,
Upon care, upon love, those who suffer as I.

For such powers as may seek to watch and to aid,
Need our hands, need our voice, need our hearts not to fade.
We might wish, we might hope, as we nurse at our scars,
This I know, this I say, they have no hands but ours.

Competition and Cooperation

In my experience, Friends are keen to emphasise cooperation over competition. Whether it be with our children and young people, or in our approach to the world at large, it is obviously true to the Quaker way of thinking that working together is better than working in opposition.

And yet, competition and cooperation are not inherently opposing concepts. Competition has its positives, and a preference for cooperation to the extent that we lose those advantages will do us, and wider society, less good than we might hope. Competition does not preclude cooperation, and need not even be in tension with it; seeing them as alternatives is both reductionist and counterproductive.