Bazaar Software and the Business World

So after listening to a speech given by Eric Raymond about how to capitalize on open source software I couldn't help but notice some similarities between his speech and a book written by Dale Carnegie called How to Win Friends and Influence People. So I know the name does not sound very intriguing at first but the book does a great job at highlighting and explaining characteristics and qualities in a person that make the well-liked and successful, especially in the business world. It is interesting for me to see how this Bazaar practice really is taking some of the suggestions of Carnegie and employing them on a scale that makes software like Linux extremely successful.

So just a quick background on Dale Carnegie. He lived in the first half of the 20th century and witnessed the industrial revolution and the emergence of big business and corporations in the United States. His book is meant as a self-help guide to improve a persons relationships with those around them. A majority of the book is focused around business relationship and how certain actions foster or inhibit success in business.

So the thing that I found interesting about Raymond's speech and Carnegie's book is that they revolve around one central point. They both say that success is not dependent on whether a person is a genius in their field but rather it is dependent on the way they treat the people around them. They both say that a team working together under the direction of a person with extraordinary people skills will find the greatest success and do the greatest things.

There is a quote in Carnegie's book when he refers to Charles Schwab, the first person to be paid over a million dollars as a yearly salary, that gives his secret for success. Schwab said himself the he "consider[ed] [his] ability to arouse enthusiasm among [his] people the greatest asset [he] possess[ed], and the way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement."  And Andrew Carnegie, the man who hired Schwab for over a million dollars, wrote an epitaph for himself that said this, "Here lies one who knew how to get around him men who were cleverer than himself."

I really think that this is what Raymond was getting at in his speech. The greatest successes are organized by people who understand how to bring the smartest people onto a project and then reward those people for the amazing things that they do. In the Bazaar scheme it is done by actually using the suggestions given by the users of the software. That is praise in one of its highest forms. I am always thrilled when working with people and they use one of my ideas in our project. It appeals to my need to feel important, which is another concept covered in Carnegie's book.

This principle is illustrated and applied extremely well by business authors Chester Elton and Adrian Gostick in his book The Carrot Principle. Take sometime to at least find a synopsis of it. He does a great job of showing how appreciation builds teams that can do incredible feats.

It is amazing to see how certain principles overlap time, people and all walks of life. I think open source software has the greatest potential for using this principle to its fullest. I am looking forward to see what happens in the future. And maybe in the future the currency that will be passed around is praise. That would make for an interesting society, and who knows it might be better.