Homesteading the Noosphere「ノウアスフィアの開墾」- book read for study

ノウアスフィアの開墾（Homesteading the Noosphere）by Eric S. Raymond

This book is a Japanese translation of three works: The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Homesteading the Noosphere, and The Magic Cauldron.

Here, we would like to focus mainly on "Homesteading the Noosphere"! (but maybe not so much!)

I was sure I had read The Cathedral and the Bazaar at the time, but reading it again now, I realized that I had forgotten all about it!

The Cathedral and the Bazaar

When I reread this book, all I ended up remembering was "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow".

I was also surprised that I don't remember you referring to the The Mythical Man-Month quite so often, but when I think about it, the fact that a large scale development involving an extremely large number of developers using the Bazaar method does not fail means that from the perspective of the The Mythical Man-Month a paradoxical situation is occurring.

In terms of the The Mythical Man-Month, the more developers there were, the more communication costs would be incurred, and in fact, the delivery date would even be delayed.

Isn't this logic still true today in the case of in-house development?

But in the Bazaar method of open source development, despite the extremely large number of developers involved, the example of Linux development has allowed a terribly large group of programs to be developed at a speed far beyond anything that could be imagined.

A hint to this is that "Debugging is parallelizable" is written in the book.

This may be prefaced with the statement that "Debugging is parallelizable" (as long as information is open and some duplication of work is not a concern). In other words, it is conceivable that this effect is brought out by not managing information and not managing workers or tasks.

And time has passed...

So, more than 20 years after this work was written, the myth of the man-month still seems to be valid for internal systems and the like, while its validity seems to be valid for Bazaar-style open source development.

It is interesting to note that one seems to exist side by side with the other, rather than dominating the other.

Homesteading the Noosphere

I had not read this piece due to my own lack of study, but it is a novel and interesting perspective that no one else would have thought of!

He argues that what is happening in open source projects is very strange when viewed as economic activity (since it is basically free), but from a cultural anthropological perspective, similar economic activity is already taking place, and there is nothing strange about it.

First of all, in open source, the manner of creation of a project, the change of project owner that occurs after the project has made some progress, or the acquisition of ownership by declaration of a successor when the project has been abandoned, is almost without exception the same, even though it is not explicitly stated.

The historical perspective on this is that this fits directly into John Locke's theory of land ownership.

First, for unsettled land, ownership can be acquired by cultivating the land. For settled land, ownership is transferred through land transfer. And for abandoned land, ownership can be acquired through occupation.

In open source, however, we do not cultivate any concrete land, but rather we cultivate the domain of ideas, which is why I have titled this article Homesteading the Noosphere.

It is an interesting point of view that the practices that are implicit in the open source world are attached to the customary laws of the land.

Another interesting discussion

There have generally been three methods of human organization.

1) command hierarchy

2) exchange economy

3) gift culture

the gift culture is found in societies where there is little shortage of goods essential for survival. In such societies, people try to raise their social status by giving gifts (see the example of the Kwakiutl chieftain's potlach party).

The author states that the society of open source hackers is precisely this gift culture. Proposing patches is a kind of gift, and by providing patches, they are trying to raise their own status.

In sum, the actions taken by open source development may seem strange at first glance, but from a historical and cultural anthropological point of view, there is a type that fits this description, and in fact, it is not so strange, but rather, it can be recognized as a natural act. (If this is the case, then there is a certain inevitability and permanence.)

Time has passed, and so has this...

Now, more than 20 years later, we can thus say that this phenomenon is not temporary and is likely to continue.

It is both a surprise and a joy to see that, despite the passage of so many years, the essence of this phenomenon has remained unchanged. We have benefited immeasurably from this.

Great Translation

The translation is very good. The translator is Hiroo Yamagata.

He has translated Burroughs' book as well as Keynes' book. It is a amazing thing.

(Actually, I noticed that Mr. Hiroo Yamagata also translated The Cathedral and the Bazaar and decided to read it again.)

Just a few notes(An analogy for open source)...

How do open source authors become fascinated with their work? I tried to describe the analogy between how open source artists are attracted to their work and the impact of what they create.

We are creating Excalibur, aren't we?

１）Someone has a sudden idea and starts making a little swinging sword.

２）At first glance, it is just a plain sword, with a few nifty features, but as it is refined day by day, it begins to shine.

３）Attracted by its brilliance, several people join in the refining process.

４）When they notice it, the sword begins to emit a unique blue-white light, people call it Excalibur, and everyone begins to pay respect to it.

• In this state, even small improvements (because of the high functionality of the system in the first place) will be highly effective, and the ratio between the cost of the improvements and the satisfaction obtained as a result will be dramatically improved. In addition, even a small improvement will result in a high level of satisfaction, but if more and more effort is spent on improvement, people will come to believe that they can expect even greater results, and they will become addicted to it.
• The beauty of software, for the product owner, is that more functions can be added than in a physical product (in theory, it is infinite). While a physical product may achieve a kind of perfection due to its physical limitations, this is rarely the case with software. Technology is constantly advancing, and just keeping up with it is reason enough to continue to make modifications. It will never be finished, and the satisfaction that comes from the modifications will last.

５）At this stage, the people involved in the sword's creation will be enchanted by the sword's brilliance. If the sword is already great, adding new power to it will make it even more great. Eventually, it may come to the point where one may even be willing to devote one's life to the sword. At some point, the relationship between the author and the subject of the artifact will be reversed.

６）Moreover, open source allows anyone in the world to use this sword.

７）One Excalibur is not only unique, but also a must-have sword for everyone.

８）Or, even if only a few functions are added to this sword, at that moment, all those involved in its possession can take advantage of its efficacy.

９）The increase in productivity caused by this would be tremendous. For the 10 million users who are directly or indirectly using it, the added productivity impact would be multiplied by a factor of 10 million in social terms, so powerful that it would almost render other economic, industrial, or political effects meaningless.

１０）This is happening with linux, for example, and the very shape of the industry is being transformed, to the point where the existence of AWS, Azure, and the like, as well as the existence of things like docker, are just one example of the effects.