Every group has their own collection of stories. In the Judeo-Christian world, the Tower of Babel is one such story. It has come to symbolize both the error of hubris and the reality of human disharmony. Within the open source community, the story of the Cathedral and the Bazaar (a.k.a., CatB) is another such story. It symbolizes the two competing schools of software development. These schools are: 1) the centralized management of software by a priestly class (i.e., the cathedral), and the decentralized competition found in the cacophonous bazaar. In the case of computer-based collaboration, it is hard to tell whether centralized overlords or a collaborative bazaar will eventually win.
Background
When I began my career, collaboration tools were intimate. You either discussed your thoughts over the telephone, you went to someone face-to-face, or you discussed the matter in a meeting . The sum total of tools available were the memorandum, the phone, and the meeting. Yes, the corporate world did have tools like PROFS and DISOSS. But both sets of tools were hamstrung either by their clumsiness (e.g., the computer “green screens”) or by the limitations of disconnected computer networks.
By the mid-eighties, there were dozens of corporate, academic, and public sector email systems. And there were just as many collaboration tools. Even the budding Internet had many different tools (e.g., sendmail, postfix, pine, elm).
The Riotous Babel
As my early career began to blossom (in the mid-nineties), I had the privilege of leading a bright team of professionals. Our fundamental mission was the elimination of corporate waste. And much of this waste came in the form of technological redundancy. So we consolidated from thirteen (13) different email clients to a single client. And we went from six (6) different email backbones to one backbone. At first, we chose to use proprietary tools to accomplish these consolidations. But over time, we moved towards more open protocols (like SMTP, X.500, and XMPP).
Since then, collaboration tools have moved from email and groupware tools (e.g., Lotus Notes) to web-based email and collaboration tools (e.g., Exchange and Confluence/Jira). Then the industry moved to “next-generation” web tools like Slack and even Discord. All of these “waves” of technology had one thing in common: they were managed by a centralized group of professionals who had arcane knowledge AND sufficient funding. Many of these tools relied upon open source components. But in almost every case, the total software solution had some “secret sauce” that ensured dominance through proprietary intellectual property.
The Times, They Are A Changing
Over the past few years, a new kind of collaboration tool has begun to emerge: the decentralized and loosely coupled system. The foremost tool of this kind is Matrix (and clients like Riot). In this model, messages flow between decentralized servers. Data sent between these servers is encrypted. And the set of data transferred between these servers is determined by the “interests” of local accounts/users. Currently, the directory for this network is centralized. There is a comprehensive ‘room’ directory at https://vector.im. But work is underway to build a truly decentralized authentication and directory system.
My Next Steps
One of the most exciting things about having a lab is that you get to experiment with new and innovative technologies. So when Franck Nijhof decided to add a Matrix server into the Hass.io Docker infrastructure, I leaped at the chance to experiment. So as of last night, I added a Matrix instance to my Home Assistant system. After a few hours, I am quite confident that we will see Matrix (or a similar tool) emerge as an important part of the next wave of IoT infrastructure. But until then, I am thrilled that I can blend my past and my future – and do it through a collaborative bazaar.