After reading through the article, I can now see why the Linux kernel has so many releases as rapidly as they do, and why many packages on Ubuntu are updated as often as they are. When making any code, I have always been at least somewhat open, but still leaning more towards the Cathedral style than the Bazaar style. Now that I've read it, and have an understanding of the idea behind the bazaar-style development, I think that I might go and try something similar with a PHP-based idea I've been toying around with for a little while now.
In the epilog to the article, he mentions that Netscape was planning to release their source code, and he couldn't tell which way it was going to go: really good or really bad. I think we can tell now which way it went, seeing as Firefox has about a 43% market share for internet browsers. one interesting thing to note, however, is Google's new browser, Chrome, and the fashion its taking.
Firefox has gotten to where it is by initially following the Cathedral model (Netscape) then becoming Bazaar, and getting a ton of features and enhancements over the years, and has essentially defined what any good browser needs to be successful. Chrome, on the other hand, has just been released open-source, and would appear to have been developed Cathedral-style, and despite this, has many of the features Firefox offers after many years of Bazaar, plus many you need to install a plugin to get.
It is too early to tell right now whether Google will turn Chrome into another Bazaar, and if they do, where it will go, but we can at least see that given enough time, both models of development will work, and will often achieve the same end. However, what bugs lurk behind Chrome's chrome have yet to be revealed, and how many of them can be squashed via Bazaar, or kept hidden via Cathedral.
And an article I feel everybody should read, especially if they're considering switching to Linux, or have recently decided to give it a try: Linux != Windows (http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm)
