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Is Google+ a Cathedral Or a Bazaar?

Posted by Unknown on from the either-way-the-garden-is-walled dept.

An anonymous reader writes "With its recent mass suspension of accounts, Google has highlighted its desire to create a social network that is very different to the way many (including those whose accounts were suspended) would want to see it. The metaphor of the Cathedral and the Bazaar used for software development can be applied to the two types of social networks being proposed by Google on the one hand and the pseudonym supporters on the other. Google's Cathedral model emphasizes order and control whilst the bazaar model supports users who can be anonymous, have multiple identities, interact with anyone they please, and remain unobserved."

6 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. Why not both? by wiedzmin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why not allow both and let the userbase sort out who they do and do not add on their professional (cathedral) and personal (bazaar) accounts? Because frankly, we already have a cathedral (LinkedIn) and a Bazaar (Facebook), so if Google wants to attract those users, they better be flexible enough to accommodate them.

    --
    Bow before me, for I am root.
    1. Re:Why not both? by DJRumpy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's not as profitable to Google if they can't link an online identity to a fake/anonymous account. Having a 'real' person linked to those accounts would be very profitable indeed, especially to bidders in the marketing/sales areas. Google has always been a pimp of sorts for your personal data. They just haven't gone to these extremes before.

      I still spend very little time on Google+. There just isn't any activity there as of yet, and not many personal friends. I expected it to reach a critical point sooner but that hasn't happened in my circles as of yet.

      I'll hold on to the account, if just to reserve my account name, but other than that? Meh...

  2. i usually dump all the anonymous into a circle by alen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    where they don't have access to most of my information. if you don't want to use your real name then i usually don't want to have anything to do with you on a social network

    1. Re:i usually dump all the anonymous into a circle by tftp · · Score: 5, Insightful

      if you don't want to use your real name then i usually don't want to have anything to do with you on a social network

      Of course. That's why you are using your full real name on Slashdot (which is a sort of a social network.) I wouldn't want to reply to you because of merits of your opinion - no, I'd reply only because I personally know you.

  3. I'm Confused on the Article's "Cathedral" by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Informative
    It's been a while since I've perused CatB but from the article:

    The Bazaar was likened to the slightly chaotic but powerful collective approach behind the development of open source software.

    The Cathedral represented the traditional, closed, corporate approach to software development.

    Um, I'm a little confused on their definition of the Cathedral. From Wikipedia (and also from my memory):

    * The Cathedral model, in which source code is available with each software release, but code developed between releases is restricted to an exclusive group of software developers. GNU Emacs and GCC are presented as examples.
    * The Bazaar model, in which the code is developed over the Internet in view of the public. Raymond credits Linus Torvalds, leader of the Linux kernel project, as the inventor of this process. Raymond also provides anecdotal accounts of his own implementation of this model for the Fetchmail project.

    GNU Emacs and GCC were the "traditional, closed, corporate approach to software development"? That's news to me!

    I don't follow nor agree with this adaptation of CatB to social networks ... nor do I think the author of this article fully read CatB.

    --
    My work here is dung.
  4. Choice is good by gregfortune · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is a social media environment that I might actually join and one I may let my children join. Linkedin is the only other "social media" account I have and I will never have a Facebook account and shunned MySpace when it was introduced. For me, the lack of any social decency that stems from anonymity is simply not worth it. If I'm going to build relationships with people (isn't that the point of social media?), I'd like to have reputation as collateral for bad behavior.

    Perhaps we will return to a point where people think before they speak/post and self censor out of respect for their fellow man. For my tastes, the streets of the Bazaar are pretty filthy but to each his own.