The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary

by Eric S. Raymond

In analyzing this kind of cooperation, it is important to note that while there is a free-rider problem (work may be underprovided in the absence of money or money-equivalent compensation) it is not one that scales with the number of end users (see the endnote on Note 31 for discussion). The complexity and communications overhead of an open-source project is almost entirely a function of the number of developers involved; having more end users who never look at source costs effectively nothing. It may increase the rate of silly questions appearing on the project mailing lists, but this is relatively easily forestalled by maintaining a Frequently Asked Questions list and blithely ignoring questioners who have obviously not read it (and in fact both these practices are typical).