Which platform: Cathedral or open source?

IBM -- before they were let into the wild. They seem to have experienced tremendous success as a result.

Perhaps the best way to be successful is to start with an idea and create the first iteration as a Cathedral project. That way developers can see the potential, and see how it can benefit them. Then free the project and invite contributions. Then when you're using the software and you see that bug, you can jump right in and fix it. Or add something else you need. And then suddenly, everybody benefits.

I wrote Bleezer because I couldn't find a blogging tool that did what I wanted, and I believed that others might have the same problems so I would also have an opportunity to give back to the community that had helped me. It was a combination of code I wrote from the ground up, augmented by other open source code that provided functionality I didn't have the time or inclination to create. And users have responded very well, often thanking me and giving me tips to improve it.

Lacking time to give it the support it needed,  I was made the decision to open source it -- my first such project -- agonizing first over whether I wanted to let it go, and then whether it would be good enough for the developers who might want to work on it. After all, developers don't take insults about their code well. (Next week I'll take you through my experiences building Bleezer, and the process of open sourcing it.)

Here's a thought. Perhaps Microsoft would consider open-sourcing Vista. Let the world find the issues and improve on it. Now that would be brilliant PR.

Larry Borsato has been a software developer, marketer, consultant, public speaker, and entrepreneur, among other things. For more of his unpredictable, yet often entertaining thoughts you can read his blog at larryborsato.com.